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Newspaper Archive of
Golden Valley News
Beach, North Dakota
December 15, 2010     Golden Valley News
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December 15, 2010
 
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December 16, 2010 Billings County Pioneer Page 3 Capitol Report By Shirley Meyer State Representative, District 36 Hello. Boy, the cattle market is making the news! Seems every couple of days there is a story about the record high prices. Which means we are slightly above what we received in 1973 and 1979! Wow! In forty years, we finally increased our pay by about five percent! I guess if you took the rate of infla- tion, we haven't done too well. Kind of like the guy who said that in 1970, it took twenty dry cows to buy a 1970 pickup. Now, thirty years later, you can still buy that 1970 pickup for twenty cows. We all have different methods of marketing. Some guys sell off the cow. Some background their calves. Some contract their calves early. Some finish their calves. Some sell over the Internet. Some sell over video auctions. Some load up and go to the local auction the first week in November. And never vary. Some have no idea what they are going to do. I fall into the latter group. I've contracted, auctioned, backgrounded, fed, and held out for more. I've sold dollar calves for eighty cents and fat cattle for fifty. I've sold here and there and over the hill. I've hauled calves to Dickinson and Watford and Mobridge and Phillip and Faith and various other auctions. I've trailed them in and hauled them in. I've sold by size. weight, and color. And every year, if I had gone a week earlier, or a week later. I would have done better. You know how some guys are. If you're buying calves, they will tell you that you should have been here last week. If you're sell- ing calves, they will tell you that you should been here last week. You can't win. But. when the market is good, we know it will last forever. I know a guy that bought them high Hat Tips By Dean Meyer priced calves, to make yearlings out of, in the seventies. The next year, he couldn't get his original investment back. So, he figured, instead of selling them at a big loss, and buying back a new set of calves, he would just keep the first ones another year. He. sold them the following fall as two year old steers. And never got his original cost back! Now, that is tough! One of my favorite shipping stories is this fella over by Flasher who was always on top of things. He would watch the markets like a hawk. He would gather early and make sure his cattle sold at "prime time" (this is the time when all sales ring operators tell everyone their calves will sell). This one year, this guy loaded his calves the afternoon before the sale. He wanted them in early. The next morning, him and ma loaded the kids and headed /'or Mandan for the cattle sale. They got there about noon and found a good seat ringside. And there they sat. Minute after minute. Hour after hour. Every time the door cracked open they expected their calves to come in. Hundreds of others. Thousands. Darkness crept in. Finally, Pa couldn't take it any- more. He stormed into the office and demanded to know why his calves hadn't sold at two o'clock. They checked the check-in sheet. No calves. None. The trucker had taken them, by mistake, to McLaughlin the day before. And sometimes, I think that would be best. Just load them up and tell the trucker to sell them. And wait for the check. Heck, you wouldn't even have to buy a round of drinks for the neighbors then ! Later, Dean The organizational session is behind us, and we became a part of history. For the first time in North Dakota history we had a governor resign willingly in the middle of his term. We've had other governor's resign, but they were charged with crimes and kicked out by legal means. Remember Gov. William "Wild Bill" Langer? That was a lit- tle before my time, but very inter- esting to read about. So now the reins are passed to Jack Dalrymple. He outlined his priorities in his budget address before a joint session of the Senate and House held in the House cham- ber. I was especially pleased to see $958 million allocated to benefit state, county, and township roads in the 17 oil and gas producing coun- ties. These dollars would be com- ing out of the permanent oil trust fund that will have an ending fund balance of $620 million, and the Lands and Minerals Trust Fund. These funds will be distributed to counties based on road conditions identified by a comprehensive study, which was just recently final- ized by the Upper Great Plans Transportation Institute. Until this f A famous person in history once said: "The best way for evil to tri- umph is for good men (and women) to sit back and do nothing." This accurately describes the whole state of our nation when it comes to tolerance of those who want do away with images of Christmas. Christianity, etc. Groups such as the ACLU want to remove any reference to God from everything. The result is that we have wim py local governments scratching their heads considering the constitutionality about display- ing images m observance of holi- days like Christmas and Easter. I don't think they understand the Constitution in the first place. Those wimpy elected officials who don't want to offend anyone should be made to work on im study was complete, I don't think the magnitude of the impact of our ever-increasing oil and gas develop- ment was sinking in. Although these dollars sound huge to some of our legislators, we need to make these kinds of invest- ments if our booming oil economy can continue. The survey also included state regulators' estimates that our oil producing area in N.D. could see more than 20,000 additional wells drilled within the next 10 to 20 years. North Dakota had about 5,200 producing oil wells last month. The study indicated that 2,000 trips by heavy trucks hauling water, sand, equipment, and other materials were required for each well drilled. The report went on to say the counties have 958 miles of paved and 12,718 miles of unpaved roads that carry significant oil industry traffic. Of the paved roads, 256 miles need costly reconstruction work, Christmas, Easter. etc. Every year we are seeing more elaborate displays for Halloween which is more of a satanic holiday. Nobody has a problem with that - another good example of this coun- try going down the toilet when it comes to being a Christian nation. Our founding fathers were men of God that used the Bible as their guide when drafting our Constitution. They were not mixing church and state. If they could come back and see what is happen- ing in this country they would be heartsick. They would be appalled to see us even considering whether or not we are offending the athesist or non-believer. We are dealing with a force called liberalism. Their main ambi- tion in life is to force the rest of us and 259 miles need thicker asphalt overlays to bear the weight of heav- ier trucks. The report also indicates that 1,420 miles of gravel roads should be rebuilt. In addition, Gov. Dalrymple pro- posed an increase in funding for the Oil and Gas Impact fund to $100 million. Currently it is capped at $8 million a biennium. Just to demon- strate the needs out here, last year the Energy Development Impact Office received $31.9 million in grant requests for the $4 million in available funding. Of the proposed $100 million, a large share, $35 million, would go to the largest and fastest growing cities. The balance of $65 million would be available to the smaller cities, counties, townships, and other entities in oil and gas areas. The governor also indicated that this funding would also be available to address the pressing need for housing infrastructure, including municipal water lines, sewer lines, and other residential construction needs. But remember before we start doing high fives, the budget given to us from the governor is only his recommendation. It has a long way to go before his funding levels are approved by the legislative body. This session I will be serving on the Finance and Tax Committee, and the Political Subdivisions Committee. I did ask to be put on the Natural Resources Committee, but I was denied that request. Looking over the make-up of that committee and several others, I have grave concern about the lack of western legislators serving on committees that deal directly with many western issues. The Natural Resources Committee deals with oil, gas, water, hunting, and miner- als and we don't have one legislator on that committee that li.ves west of Mandan. Sometimes just living in an area gives you the expertise on how laws should be crafted, and how a change in statute could impact the people in your district. I guess we will just have to be more vigilant to make sure western N.D. is well represented. n evil wins to conform to their way of thinking and do as they do. Often they are very hypocritical as they don't prac- tice what they preach. The reason these minorities are gaining power is that we are tolerating them. Pleasing these minorities is not the answer and only adds to the further demoralization of our great nation. It all goes back to what I stated at the beginning of this letter: "The best way for evil to triumph is for good men (and women) to sit back and do nothing." Ralph Muecke Gladstone Golva Co-op Elevator Notice of Annual Meeting 1 pm, Thursday, Jan 6 W P Nistler Building (Note: Date has been rescheduled) vehicle on the planet - the Ford F-Series pickup. 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