Meeting Corn, Soybean, Wheat & Sorghum Farmers — The Faces of #Classic12

Well, its the first post on my new blog — janiceperson.com — and thinking through what the first post should be here was a bit goofy. The timing for launch changed a bit though and that settled it completely! I have a big old stack of photos to share from this weekend’s Commodity Classic 2012. So, my dilemma solved itself! While I get to several of these shows for work each year, meeting some of the farmers I’ve talked to for years is something I so look forward to personally, that I bring my camera and find myself snapping away!

And the number of photos I snapped of the great faces of farmers and others in agriculture I had a chance to visit with at the Commodity Classic got to be NUMEROUS! So let me tell you the story behind them. Oh, and I got a little snap happy and grabbed photos of things that weren’t faces…. they are just mixed in. 🙂   I’m putting some of the thumbnails here but all of the photos are below in the gallery. (You’ll have to forgive me cause it doesn’t seem slideshows are as easy on self-hosted and after trying quite a few ways, I’m putting it off perfecting it for another day!)

1. Virginia farmer PJ Haynie and farm broadcaster Max Armstrong were visiting when I came walking past. I met PJ recently — he’s a farmer who’s family is featured in the America’s Farmers commercials this year.
2. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack gave a talk at this meeting too. Seems he & I are on the same meeting circuit this year.
3. PJ & I slipped quietly into the back of Vilsack’s press conference where I saw a lot of my media pals including Lee Maddox of Tennessee Farm Bureau, Pam Fretwell of AgWeb and Jenni Latzke of High Plains Journal were among them!
4. PJ grabbed the Secretary’s ear for a minute as we left. 
5. Holly Martin of the High Plains Journal interviewed Iowa Farmer Jay Lynch who I met at the AFBF when we did a research farm tour. I was pumped to find out that Jay is on Twitter. You should check him out at @Farmer_Lynch!
6. Love how quickly farmers find things to compare notes on. That was certainly the case when Jay & Emily Lynch & PJ met!
7. One of the newest farmer tweeters — Ellen Joslin!  She’s from Ohio & can be found at @EllenJoslin.
8. My buddy Ray Bowman came back to Nashville! Was great seeing him!
9. Farm Journal‘s Pam Smith, DTN‘s Chris Clayton and @KSFarmBoy Tom Tibbits visit.
10. Another of the tweeps I met for the first time, Iowa farmer Val Plagge who blogs at http://www.cornbeanspigskids.blogspot.com/. 
11. My colleague Matt Helms visits with FoodMommy blogger extraordinaire Jennifer Elwell.
12. For some reason, taking a photo of Nebraska farmer Brandon Hunnicut resulted in my camera turning itself into black and white…. weird but cool. 🙂 I’ve been talking to him for three years or so… way overdue to meet!
13. Indiana’s Megan Kuhn @megmkuhn was there for the tweet up. Nice to meet her! Was watching a bunch of tweets from her roll in while she was at Blissdom recently!
14. We not only had soybeans in the Monsanto booth, but we had weeds and showed the kind of weed control that can be achieved with a tool that will be introduced in the future with the Roundup Ready Xtend Crop System. (Funny, Brandon showed up in color here!
15. Finally met one of the rare cotton farmers on Twitter! South Carolina’s Thad Wimberly @WIMCOFARMS and his wife Jennifer came by briefly!
16. Colorado’s @futureofwheat was another face I’d never met, sure was fun meeting Chris Tallman and his family!
17. Looking at sprayer technology in the booth drew a crowd.
18. And look at the tweeting crowd!
19. Tweet it FoodMommy! and that’s @LizKelsay back there tweeting away too! 🙂
20. Farm Progress‘ Willie Vogt came by & brought smiles with him!
21. I love just visiting with folks you’ve tweeted with for years!
22. And it’s lots of fun meeting folks like Gayle Anderson @IdahoGayle for the first time!
23. this looks so similar to another photo… hmmmm….
24. Wisconsin farmer & retailer Kevin Hoyer is on the American Soybean Association.
25. Fun sign at the Indiana Soybean booth — these boots are made for farming.
26. Fun SWAG at the Indiana Soybean booth — shopping bag that says bean there, done there.
27. Fun mouse at the Indiana Soybean booth 
28. Fun farmer from Indiana at the Indiana Soybean booth — Mike Beard 🙂
29. Another sprayer display photo… that’s my friend Joe in blue!
30. See what that does? The big droplets are the way to go…. can be a big factor in being successful in keeping your products where you want them!
31. Karen Simon of Iowa Soybean visits with peeps in the media reception.
32. Mindy Williamson of Iowa Corn!
33. AgWired‘s Chuck Zimmerman mugging for the camera.
34. I hadn’t seen National AgriMarketing Association’s Jenny Pickett in so long that I don’t think she recognized me!
35. Nick Weber visits with Sean Pratt of Canada’s Western Producer
36. DTN’s Chris Clayton and Greg Horstmeier
37. Agriculture.com‘s team including John Walter, was great visiting with the team.
38. Had to turn the other way to see Gil Gullickson, who’s known for his contributions to Successful Farming!
39. I had lunch next to Jay Lynch…. he looked so great in this suit I made him hold up a second so I could snap a photo. 🙂
40. At that same lunch, long-time Nebraska farming tweep Nancy Friessen @NebrNancy was at the next table over & tweeted me! Enjoyed meeting her & her hubby @CaptainCorn! aka Curt.
41. Another tweep discovered at that lunch? Nebraska farmer Mark Jagels! 
42. How lucky am I? Ryan Goodman came out of his way to catch up with me for a bit! Yep, I’m really lucky!  Check out his agricultureproud.com!  Impressive he does all that while going to grad school in animal reproduction!
43. One of the Nebraska tweeps I had been looking for for YEARS! Debbie Borg aka @iamafarmer2! And that’s her beautiful daughter Heidi with her!
44. I WANTED THIS SO BADLY!!! Imagine how awesome this pig cooker would look on my deck alongside JZ!
45. The Farm Mom of the Year program has started back up! Loved having several mom’s around and can’t wait to see who all is recognized this year! Make sure you get your farm mom in!
46. In case you didn’t know how badly we need this… another shot!
47. Another shot of Tom…. love this shirt front
48. and back. 🙂
49. and that’s none other than NCGA’s Mark Lambert aka the @cornguy getting work done on a Saturday afternoon!
50. WHOOPS! I missed a few photos that were on my mobile! This is one of the first photos I took at the event — that’s Mark Lambert, Cyndi Young-Puyear of Learfield, Cindy Zimmerman of AgWired of Leah Guffey, the famed @farmerspice. 🙂 
51. Jeff Nalley of Cromwell AG Network chats with Roy Fuchs.
52. Brandon one more time… this time in living color. 🙂

I know I missed snapping photos and meeting people but I’m blown away by how many I did catch up with! It was a great weekend for sure!

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