Rural America we look to American farm Bureau and your voice is respected and it is valuable to us as we try to make certain that there's a future uh that the American Dream is alive and well in rural America happy birthday happy birthday American farm Bureau federation it is my pleasure to congratulate you on 100 years of being the voice for farmers and ranchers we need your voice we need you to be around another 100 years congratulations As governor and United States senator I've learned a lot of lessons about the importance of agriculture to our state of tennessee we have 300 and 40000 farmers 66000 farms tens of billions of dollars in agricultural production helps feed our country and feed the world and I pay a lot of attention to the tennessee farm Bureau because when its leaders come to see me I know they don't just represent their own views they represent the views of the largest farm your old membership anywhere in the United So American farm Bureau congratulations on your one hundredth birthday as someone who represents a new grew up in the salad Bowl of the world and the Central Coast of California I firsthand have seen the hard work that the farm Bureau has done for our farmers our farm workers are rural communities and ultimately all of our country for that I wanna say thank you for that we honor you for that we wish you another hundred years as we say in that and Italian uh tenth day on it another hundred years to you I would like to take this opportunity to extend my best wishes and congratulations to the American farm Bureau federation or the last 100 years who have done a lot of good for farmers and ranchers in this country and I thank you for that your members have made such a huge difference not just in protecting ad ag interests uh the interest of farmers and ranchers throughout Texas and the rest of the country you've made a difference in the lives of millions of families because you fought for I want to thank you for your leadership in crafting the new tax code that is fair and simpler and more pro growth those who work the land across America the families uh of the farm Bureau uh in our community uh and throughout the country as well Good morning everyone I'm chuck frye an icecream farmer and President of Maryland farm Bureau I've served on the fdic board of directors for four years on the executive Committee for the past two years It's my great honor to introduce the recipients of our top National wards the farm Bureau founders award recognizes its temporary leadership service or contributions to farm Bureau There's a picture of all the field reps for the Pennsylvania farmers and submit your dig new fur knows farm Bureau from the ground up as a newly hired field man with the Pennsylvania farmers Association he helped organize clear field his home County he and his wife Nancy share happy memories of farm Bureau none any happier than his early years working with volunteers on membership drives oftentimes that men approaching the few holdouts in his nine County area we had uh We called called rollers you would you know you some way would obviously come and greet you when you drove into their farm state and they were the ones that ruffled the back and forth on the ground with their feet and they just stand there and look at the ground and talk and especially if it was cold they were gonna outlast us and we we generally call those gentlemen ka brawlers his early experiences shaped his steady supportive management style as he moved up overtime to administrator of the state farm Bureau he always had The member in the back of his mind of what the Organization needs to do so without basis you know he built upon the things that the Pennsylvania farmers associate that time did and what they accomplished and then he that I'll just transferred over to the American farm Bureau and he went their new first served 12 years as a Fbi executive director of public policy working with Congress American farm Bureau got the food quality protection act passed and signed by the President we were in danger Losing many many of the chemicals that the that that we need for a prosperous and effective agriculture and I I think that had the possibility of being very very bad and disastrous for American agriculture new for also led American farm Bureau successful effort in Congress to block the irs from collecting income taxes on farm Bureau memberships in moving up to the top administrative position at a at bf and two thousand and four he directed a huge change for the Organization I have major accomplishment um American farm Bureau was consolidating the Chicago office that we have uh with it Washington office he he brought those people that wanted to come from Chicago into Washington to make this the main focus for American farm Bureau I think it was very very critical it it provided more uh cohesion of staff and Central point for the volunteer leaders who came to town and whose primary reason for coming to the farm Bureau office and the capital was what the primary mission of the American farm Bureau is new for reached Top of the American farm Bureau staff is executive vice President and treasurer for a of an affiliated companies he did so by focusing on serving farm bureau's grassroots members I saw the ad that said the Pennsylvania farmers Association wanted a person with an agricultural background of being a field representative it fit perfect I applied for the job I got the job nothing bigger or better has ever happened in my life except maybe my marriage That created and controlled my life like the American farm Bureau would Richard new for winner of the 20 19 American farm bureau's founders award Jordan Mr new for on stage is Rick ever President of the Pennsylvania farm Bureau which nominated him for the award President the ball just told me that was all they were going to say about me I should come over here and say something for myself and I do appreciate the President of all the fact that you and your board and Committee I'm told you had a Committee uh our have designated needed me for this award and also Rick President Pennsylvania farm Bureau thanks for submitting my name I had um directions to do three Maximum and so I send back to the person said if I just said thank you with that be fine and she sent back and said well maybe thanks would be sufficient so I am gonna try to be quick and and I I do appreciate uh all of you that have worked on behalf of American farm Bureau and and especially the the volunteers staff and um the volunteer Staff that all for almost 40 years have uh supporting me and help me and cause me to be in this position I especially want to thank those people both volunteers and staff who spent the last 40 years trying to actually find something I could do and they kept promoting me and I kept having a job and finally I retired and they I'm sure they breathe a sigh of relief they were running out of opportunities for me to try to accomplish but it's been a wonderful Wonderful time with the American farm Bureau I appreciate very much receiving this award my wife Nancy was going to be here she's sorry she can't be here she had to stay home and and uh I'm sure she's watching this on the Internet so that she'll get a flavor of what's being said here congratulations on your 100 year anniversary um those who met as was indicated earlier in Chicago and Organization together did a great service and you do a great service as a result of your willingness to be active as volunteers and staff you know the core of farm Bureau is is uh being willing to do together what you cannot accomplish on your own and that's been since 19 19 it is today and it will be for the next hundred years and I I thank you for being willing to give your time and dedication This Organization and I think you are the beginning of the next 100 years so thank you very much I enjoy being here and thank you for the honor thank you zippy Thank you dick for your years of service to farm Bureau this is distinguished service to agriculture award is farm bureau's oldest award given since 19 28 in recognition of outstanding service to the nation National interests of American agriculture Ronald reagan describe orrin hatch as a man of quality courage discipline and integrity a man who believes in individual freedom and self reliance that was a 19 76 42 years later President trump awarded him the medal of freedom and described him as a true American statesman he's the longest serving Republican senator in history perhaps the most effective of either political party and a strong advocate in Congress for farmers and ranchers we don't want the farmers dumped on and we wanna make That their rights are preserved the best thing we can do is make sure they are so we've done that over the years and I think we've been pretty pretty good for our farmers senator hatch loves farmers and ranchers and every single time that I came to Bc is the farm Bureau President he would make time to see and I know he was extremely busy as a young senator he raised the sagebrush rebellion a revolt against heavy handed public lands policies in the West well I think it's very Rock the us far left back on their heels and they had to they had to start being a little more reasonable and had to start recognizing that some of our Western States are heavily UN by government law recently senator hatch convinced President trump to scale back two National monuments to more reasonable sizes so that we can now utilize those those public lands for hunting and fishing and agriculture and and also mining President pro temp Of the Senate and chairman of the finance Committee hatch fought to create jobs and strengthen the economy he champion to the tax cuts and jobs act in the Senate just cutting taxes as a a tremendous value to the people on farms and people who you know are worried about whether they can continue to maintain their farming however a draft of the tax bill contained an unrelated business income tax for you being on royalties received by tax exempt organizations the tax would have been a Serious blow to state farm bureaus and Fbi F finally we got senator hatch and said you have to stop this for us senator hatch took the bill and hand wrote a little note on that bill wrote an amendment that in my view save form euro and that's probably a fitting way for him to end his career with farm Bureau they showing us that he cared about agriculture no senator Sponsor more bills that have become law and senator hatch now he's retired from the Senate but not necessarily from public life it's tough to decide what to do but I know one thing I want to be effective I want to be productive I want to help my state and I wanna help my family and uh of course uh uh would love to help this country the respect and admiration that all a farm Bureau feels for senator hatch goes both ways foreign bureaus is the Premier for Advocate in this country today and they're honest uh their faithful they are very very uh sharp with regard to the issues and uh they make a real difference for rural America Senator orrin hatch winner of the 20 19 American farm Bureau distinguish service to agriculture award We thanks how did our Bureau nominated senator hatch for this award but he was unable to be with us today but President Ron gibson accepts the award on his behalf We thank senator hatch for his commitment to agriculture throughout his career two thousand eighteen was a disastrous year for North Carolina farmers hurricanes flooded farms that had never flooded before because of generous donations from farm Bureau members all over the country are farmers can keep their farms alive on behalf of the North Carolina farm Bureau thank you for your support particularly in these extremely difficult times Our initial reaction to the flooding was um shock disbelief that it had come that far that the vegetation has been killed that badly so um it was kinda hard to take to start with here on this farm we have about a hundred and 50 mature cows and we have a hundred and 30 cow calf pairs and uh we're Cal calf operation we're initially figured we were going to have to sell the majority of the hurt if not all the heard to be able to recover and and try