The Farm Post eNews

Friday eNews from the Pike and Scott County Farm Bureaus
 

JUNE 3, 2016
Chock one up for property rights
A unanimous Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled landowners may challenge the federal government whenever the Army Corps of Engineers tries improperly to regulate land with regulations designed to protect water.

Landowners have attempted many times to challenge Corps rulings known as jurisdictional determinations, but the government successfully argued that those determinations were not "final agency actions" and the lawsuits were dismissed. Now, when the Corps asserts jurisdiction over low spots that look more like land than water, it will have to do so with the knowledge that its jurisdictional determination can be tested in court.

"Today's decision removes a huge roadblock that has prevented landowners from obtaining relief from the courts when the Corps illegally claims their land is federally regulated water," AFBF President Zippy Duvall said. "Now, farmers and ranchers can have their day in court when the government tells them they cannot plow a field or improve a ditch without a federal permit."

AFBF filed amicus curiae briefs in the lower court and the Supreme Court in support of the plaintiffs who were represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation. The case was titled United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., Inc.

Read more at eenews.net                   
Scott County Jury Rejects CAFO Claim
By Michael Fielding at meatingplace.com

A jury has denied $7.5 million in damages in a central Illinois lawsuit against a commercial hog-feeding operation, according to a report in the Jacksonville Journal Courier.

In 2014 the 10 plaintiffs filed a complaint against the operation, located in Scott County. They alleged that the owners of the facility's hogs were negligent in managing dust and odors and that it was affecting their health.
JWCC Announces Spring Ag Scholarships
The John Wood Community College Foundation and Agricultural Sciences Department have awarded eight scholarships to local students pursuing degrees in Agriculture. Each year, members of the JWCC Ag Alumni Association, Ag Advisory Council and Agricultural Sciences Department select students based upon their involvement with agriculture through organizations such as Future Farmers of America (FFA), high school leadership roles and achievement both academically and within the agriculture community.

This year's recipients of spring scholarships include the following:
  • Country Financial Agents Spring Scholarship: Kelsey McKinnon of Nebo.
  • Pike County Farm Bureau Scholarship: Blake Robb of Pleasant Hill.
  • Ronald Moore Memorial Scholarship: Cole Parker of Winchester.
Be Careful In There
The number of confirmed grain bin entrapments and other confined space incidents dropped last year, according to a Purdue Extension study. While this information focuses on on-farm incidents, it is a reminder that the improvement in 2015, while wonderful, still shows there is more work to do.

The Purdue information, while saying there's no mandatory national reporting system, shows that there were 47 confined space incidents in 2015, a 34 percent drop from 2014's 71 cases. Fatalities decreased as well, from 31 in 2014 to 25 last year.

Feed & Grain article
Still Time to Enter
golf ball
               
The 16th Annual Two Rivers Farm Bureau Foundation
golf tournament will be at Plum Creek Golf Course in Winchester on Friday, June 17.

We still have openings for teams and we always welcome sponsors. Call us at 217-285-2233 for more information.
TODAY IN HISTORY
JUNE 3, 1888
CASEY AT THE BAT

Ernest Lawrence Thayer a writer, was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Ernest was educated privately in his early years. In 1881 he followed in the footsteps of generations of male Thayers by enrolling at Harvard University; there he studied philosophy. The personable Thayer was both a brilliant student and a talented wit, and later, an editor of Harvard's satirical magazine, the Lampoon. One of his fellow editors was the future editor of the San Francisco Examiner, William Randolph Hearst.

After Harvard and at Hearst's invitation, Thayer moved to San Francisco and joined the paper's editorial staff. For a year and a half, while writing for the editorial page, Thayer contributed occasional humorous columns to the paper under the pen name "Phin".

One of Thayer's poems written for the Examiner was "Casey at the Bat," which told the story of how "mighty Casey," lead hitter of the fictional Mudville baseball team, strikes out and loses the team's most important game. Written in May 1888, it appeared in the Examiner on 3 June 1888 to no great notice.

Meanwhile "Casey at the Bat," along with other verses by Thayer, had been syndicated by Hearst in other newspapers around the country, and in August 1888 it came to the attention of the comic actor DeWolf Hopper who read "Casey" it between acts during a play at Wallack's Theater in New York City. The poem seemed especially appropriate for the occasion because that evening was Wallack's weekly "baseball night," a performance attended ballplayers from the New York and Chicago Teams.

Thayer died in 1940 but 'Casey at the Bat' lives on.

Read more about Thayer's life here.
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