The National Bison Association and the Oklahoma Bison Assocation
For the last few years, the NBA has been doing "regional" summer conferences. Instead of one somewhere that 2/3 of the folks had to travel a long way, they started trying "regional" meetings to make it easier to get to one of them. While each separate meet had fewer people show, in the aggregate, there were more attendees than with the one "centralized" venue.
So much for the back story. Theresa, Ron, two of their Florida grandkids - Kennedy and Graham -, and myself drove to Ada, Oklahoma for what turned out to be a grand time. Over 100 folks; many of our long time friends in the industry and a strong showing of both "newbies" and those already having jumped in to bison raising. You could not ask for a better mix.
One of the discussions jawed about by some of the long timers is how come we are still interested in listening to speakers on bison subjects. Truth is that you should never stop learning ... nor listening. A very young lady from Texas A & M ... who is working on her DOCTORATE in bison related parasites ... PARASITES!! gave a marvelous talk. Making intestinal worms interesting.
That means they can only have native animals on the place. Cattle are not native. The Ranch was a huge cattle operation for most of the first 30 plus years. So, no cattle. The choices for big critters were either elk or bison. Bison won. And, while Ron and T saw one massive bull the first day, we did not find even one of the 160 head when we took the hayride around the ranch. Still was a beautiful ride. Yes, even a bit of fishing!
I could go on, but I think most of the "good stuff" is already out in the open. Several very fine meals of bison (burgers and fajita's ... and some superb pork ribs, too). I got to share some info with a number of folks seriously wanting to get bison on their land; several meat producers and picked up several bison hearts (frozen and packed) for a Sun Dance at the Taos Pueblo end of the month. All in all, with just a bit of planning you, too, could have been there! Always room for one (or a bunch) more.
Always my best wishes .... for health, sanity and smiles.
Cecil