Clean Bean Awards

Every year at our annual meeting, awards are given out to the growers who delivered the cleanest beans throughout harvest.  We take the total CWT delivered and calculate the percentage of shrink due to dirt and splits.  The growers with the lowest percentage are presented with a plaque and cash award.  Stateline really appreciates all of our growers' diligence in bringing in a high quality product that we can market with pride!

This year the winners were:
Great Northerns
1st Place - Kerry Birdsall 1.30%
2nd Place - Ryan Dietrich Farms 1.47%
3rd Place - Letcher Farms 1.76%

Pintos
1st Place - J. Jenkins Farms 2.09%
2nd Place - M Gompert Farms 2.37%
3rd Place - Letcher Farms 2.52%

Grower Photos

Below are more of the photos submitted by our members for the slideshow I put together for our annual membership meeting in November.  I wanted to share them with everyone because I enjoyed all of them so much!  These kids know where their food comes from : )

 

 

NE Trivia

Nebraska is an American Indian term meaning ‘flat water,’ referring to the big river that traverses the state. French traders later called the river the Platte, which also means flat.

Read more: http://americanprofile.com/articles/nebraska-means-flat-water/#ixzz2DN7i2QQC 

 



Happy Turkey Day

Stateline wishes everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! The harvest season should be wrapping up for most of you so you can take some time to spend with your families and friends. Those of you waiting to receive the pool contract information should find it in your mailbox or inbox today. Also, many of you have been meeting with your accountants in the recent days - If you would like to have us defer any of your bean payments to 2013, please contact us before we write the contract checks next week! Happy Turkey Day!

 

Split Pea Recipes?





Since I gave away some yellow split peas at the annual meeting, I have been receiving requests for recipes to use them in...  I don't really want to admit it, but I have never cooked with them before.  If anyone out there has a recipe they would like to suggest, please email it to me - I would like to share them with other blog followers.  Courtney@Statelinebean.com    

Thank you in advance for your help!

Joe Franks Award

Every year, Stateline's Board of Directors chooses a recipient for the Joe Franks Memorial Achievement Award. 

 

The purpose of the Joe Franks Memorial Award is to recognize individuals who made significant contributions to the dry edible bean industry in Western Nebraska and who use innovation in the production of dry beans.  Any member, in good standing, of Stateline, its employees, contractors, and cooperators are eligible for consideration for the Joe Franks Memorial Achievement Award.  To be considered as a potential recipient, contribution to the dry edible bean industry in Western Nebraska must be demonstrated in areas such as breeding, production, harvesting, and handling of dry edible beans.

 

This year's recipient was Dr. Carlos Urrea - The Dry Bean Breeding Specialist at the UNL Panhandle Research & Extension Center.  He has been instrumental in advancing the breeding of various market classes of beans by breeding for resistance of multiple diseases within the same line.  He is always willing to share information with growers and helps us tremendously with our pinto variety trials each year. 

Congratulations Carlos!

Recipe for Pinto Bean Cookies

Jamie Meisner of "Jamie's Confections" made the dessert for our Annual Meeting on Tuesday.  It's a little bit like an Iron Chef challenge because we always have beans as a required ingredient in the dessert that is served.  This recipe can be found on www.food.com and she made one little change - Instead of raisins, she used mini chocolate chips!  Yum!  Thank you Jamie, they were delicious :-)

Pinto Bean Cookies

• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup Crisco
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup pinto beans, mashed
• 3/4 cup applesauce
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon clove
• 1/2 cup nuts, chopped
• 1/2 cup raisins

Directions:

1. Cream crisco, sugar and eggs, add mashed pinto beans and applesauce.beat till fluffy --
2. Add dry ingredients.beat till smooth.
3. Stir in raisins, and nuts.
4. Drop by tspful on greased cookie sheet.
5. Bake at 375* for 15-20 minutes.or golden brown.
6. Cool on rack.

Annual Meeting

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the planet...  I apologize for my lack of blogging the past week but have been busy working on things for our Annual Member Meeting, which was last evening.  We had an excellent turnout, wonderful food, and a fantastic program.  It was great to see all of you who attended and I'd be glad to entertain any suggestions, comments or critiques you may have!  I want this to be an event that no one wants to miss!  If anyone wants a copy of the slideshow that played throughout the evening, please let me know and I'll make you a copy.  I really appreciate all  the photos everyone allowed me to use. 


Board Chairman Jerry Mackie welcomes everyone to the event.

Centerpieces - Gourds from my garden...



Mark Watson - Guest Speaker for the evening, discussing field pea production in the region



Membership & Marketing

Harvest is finally drawing to a close and growers are thinking about marketing their dry bean crop.  Stateline offers a pool marketing option to our members which allows you to capture upside in the markets.  The details on the pool for both Great Northerns & Pintos will be available next week and the sign-up deadline is November 30th.  You can transfer your beans from storage or from a new-crop priced contract into the pool contract.

I would like to acknowledge all of our new members for 2012 - We had 22 new growers become members this calendar year! 
 
Since we are a closed cooperative, our patronage is directly tied to the amount of ownership you have in Stateline.  Several of you joined and only purchased 1 Unit to start out.  Now is a good time to purchase more Units to cover your 2012 deliveries! 

Election Day

Americans... Get to the polls today and vote!

 

 

This right should not be taken for granted...  Here are two charts from the Washington Post article titled Why 50 million Americans won’t vote Tuesday, in two charts.  It's ridiculous to see how many people don't care.  Please click on the title above to read the entire article.

RSVP

Stateline's Annual Member Meeting will be held a week from tomorrow on November 13th at the Gering Civic Center. I would encourage all of our members to attend - especially if you have never attended before. You will be a part of the Board Member Election and be presented the annual audit report. This year our guest speaker will be Mark Watson from Alliance who will talk about Yellow Pea Production. I also have some pretty fabulous door prizes :-)
I need to have all RSVPs by Friday, November 9th at the latest!   Also, I have had several members turn in photos for me to include in the annual meeting slideshow - Thank you! If anyone else has photos or video clips, please get them to me as soon as possible...

Here are some of the photos I have received so far...  One of the captions I received from a member was "2012-The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly"  I believe that is a fairly accurate description of the year...

Another Bean Blog

Browsing the web today I found another blog about beans...  It's called Grow - Cook - Eat - Beans and you can reach it by clicking on any word in the title.  They post information on growing beans, recipes, nutrition, and many other beany topics.  Check it out!