Carolyn Hunter celebrates her Semi-Retirement with friends
On Saturday June 10, 2006, the TLBAA and its members gathered to thank Carolyn Hunter, Editor of the Trails Magazine, for her many years of service.
Carolyn has been the backbone of the Trails through thick and thin and will continue to write and sell advertisements for the magazine from home.
Carolyn was given a rocking chair, a laptop computer and numerous special gifts.
She will be missed around the office but she’s always just a phone call away.
Be sure to look at the Web Gallery for pictures of the party.
Maudeen Marks Celebrates her 88th Birthday
On April 2nd, 2006, Maudeen Marks celebrated her 88th birthday at the LH7 Ranch in Bandera, TX.
from left to right: Joyce Holcomb, Maudeen Marks, and Shirley Lemley
Congratulations to the Birthday Girl!
2006 Summer Horn Showcase Sale
The 2006 Summer Horn Showcase Sale kicked off immediately after the Texas Longhorn Exposition on Saturday June 10.
The high selling lot was L Special Cherry Berry, sold for $20,500 to the high volume buyer, Vicki Bondon, Kansas City, MO, and consigned by the high volume seller, Hudson Longhorns, Lott, TX.
91 lots were sold with an average of $2,765 per lot.
The sale grossed $250,000 this year.
Be sure to check out the Sale photo gallery.
“Cow Pasture Pool” Golf Tournament was a Swingin’ Good Time
Many teams entered this annual Expo event and all had a great time “swinging for the green” on the beautiful and challenging Fossil Creek Golf Course.
While the course offered a few challenges, every team finished with good scores.
Hole 13 gave the golfers a water hazard for a fairway. Most of the golfers tee’d off from the 167 yard marker and many of them landed on the green.
Team Autobahn (above) Ricky Garza, Kris Kizer, Benny Miller and Dick Register finished in 1st place with a score of 53.
2nd place went to the Three Man Team (above), Jeff Foulkers, Mark Hruzek and Kirk Monroe, with a score of 60.
3rd place, by a hair’s breadth, went to the Fehu Cattle Company Team(above), Brad Ballard, Earl Hardcastle, Anthony Marino, and George Rosier.
Other teams included:
Group 2: Zach Tomlinson and friend, David Persinger, Bobbie Guines, and Raymond “The Mailman” Rios .
Group 3: Craig and Nick Morrow, Kay Chapman, and Gary Cole.
Group 6: Jim Curry, Eddie Settlemyer, Bill Sayre, and Sean Miller.
Congratulations to all participants in the 2006 “Cow Pasture Pool” Golf Tournament.
Check out the web gallery: Cow Pasture Pool Golf
Got Biomass for Alternative Fuels? You Betcha, Forestry Expert Says
Article courtesy of agnews.tamu.edu/
OVERTON – When it comes to alternatives for petroleum, ethanol from row crops is not the only game in town, said a Texas Cooperative Extension expert.
In Texas alone, nearly 3.5 million tons of woody biomass – scrap left over from forest harvests – could be had for essentially the cost of bundling and hauling, said Dr. Eric Taylor, Extension forestry specialist. Technology is available that could be used to convert the woody biomass into automotive fuel, 'green-diesel' or a substitute for the other use of petroleum that is rarely talked about: the manufacture of films, adhesives and plastics.
And woody biomass has several advantages over ethanol from row crops, Taylor said.
First, it's already available. Of the 3.5 millions tons of wood residue burned or left to rot at harvest sites, about 65 percent could be easily harvested for biomass, he said. And growing the biomass doesn't require any additional inputs of those used to grow the more valuable forestry products such as wood for timber or pulp for paper. Moreover, disposal or management of the residue – if not used in the biomass industry – is expensive.
"It's essentially 'free goods,'" he said.
The catch? Currently there are no operational bio-energy plants in East Texas, where most of the state forest residue is created. And there's a lot to do both on the education and research fronts, Taylor said.
Taylor and Dr. Darwin Foster, also with Extension forestry, are already involved remedying the need for education as partners with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as well as the University of Georgia, and other southern region land-grant universities. The partnership is producing educational materials on how to "sustainably and economically manage, harvest and process woody biomass in the southern U.S.," Taylor said.
The products will include fact sheets, a video and distance learning courses.
"Our target audience is (composed of) forest management professionals and forest landowners," Taylor said.
The idea is to collect and integrate available scientific information on woody biomass and make it assessable to the general public. Meanwhile some commercial concerns are already seriously considering using woody biomass for on-site energy production, Foster said.
Delton Smith, site facilities manager with Abitibi-Consolidated in Lufkin, said his company is considering refitting the plant with a woody biomass fired boilers. The boilers would be used to generate steam, which would in turn be used to generate electricity.
In 2003, the Lufkin plant was one of two Abitibi-Consolidated newsprint Texas plants closed due to high energy costs and dropping product demand.
Before the closure, the plant employed more than 600 people. Now idled, it has a full-time staff of 12.
Plants such as the Lufkin mill are energy intensive, Smith said, relying primarily on natural gas-fired boilers. Prior to the closing, the Lufkin mill was no exception. It had a small wood-fired boiler that utilized scrap from processing on site, but the major boilers used natural gas. The plant was profitable until energy prices went up, and the demand for newsprint went down, Smith said.
Smith is hopeful woody biomass energy production could mean a restart for the plant, but nothing is definite yet.
Debbie Johnston, Abitibi-Consolidated public relations manager, said if the plant goes back online, it would not produce newsprint, but instead retrofit to make lightweight coated stock and other paper products.
"Such papers are used for magazines, coupons, etc.," she said. "We're looking for investment partners for both the energy production side and the paper side."
Taylor said the education materials produced by the southern regional forestry group only constitutes the first step.
"There's a lot we need to know yet," he said. "Such as how the various (forestry) management strategies affect production of woody biomass and how harvesting woody-bio mass might affect the residual tree crop.
"But I am encouraged that a new market like the bio-energy/bio-based products industry will lead to more valuable timber products and improved wildlife habitats, reduce losses to catastrophic events like fire and greatly improve overall forest health," he said.
Taylor is currently seeking grant funding for such a study.
Horses Could Help Soldiers Recuperate from War Injuries
Courtesy The Associated Press
ARLINGTON, Va. — Spc. Maxwell Ramsey made small kissing sounds as he tried to coax Wylie, a muscular black Percheron horse, to the platform where the soldier stood. He swung the metal and plastic limb that is his new left leg over Wylie’s back and sat in the saddle.
“Relax your leg. Take a deep breath. Remember you are sitting on a big, old cushion,” Mary Jo Beckman, a therapeutic riding instructor, told the Hilton Head Island man as he and Wylie headed out into a dusty yard at Fort Myer.
To read the full story click: http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/14791576.htm
