Wednesday, April 30, 1997

Anson gin elects directors at annual meeting

By J.T. SMITH / Farm Editor

The election of directors highlighted the annual membership meeting of the Farmers Cooperative Gin of Anson Saturday.

Members elected Tim Shields and Dale Spurgin as directors. Spurgin takes over the Place 2 position from Leon Blankenship, who retired this year after many years of dedicated service to the gin. Shields was re-elected for a third term for his Place 1 position. Officers and directors are Bill Holmes, president; Terry White, vice president; Shields, secretary; Douglas Bagley, Joe Jackson, Spurgin and Brent Hargrove.

Gin Manager Sharla Harvey said gin business was up last year.

"We ginned 6,604 bales of cotton in 1996, which is up from 1995," she noted. "This increase in baled cotton provided an increase in profit for the gin and the store."

The boost in cotton ginnings allowed the co-op to pay its customers a dividend of $132,080, which amounted to an extra $20 per bale.

Harvey reported that the gin retained enough money to operate this year and still make added repairs.

Davis Kinard & Co., P.C., reported that as of March 1997 total gin assets were $720,771. Gin and store collectively showed a net income of $181,505.

Danny Helms of Plains Cotton Cooperative, Sidney Porter of Rolling Plains Cotton Compress, and Lisa Buxton of Plains Cooperative Oil Mill all spoke.

The cooperative gin was founded at Anson in 1927.

Big cotton meeting

Too wet to plow?

Then don't forget to come on out to the first Rolling Plains Cotton Conference at the Haskell Civic Center today. Registration is 8 to 8:30 a.m., when the first session starts. The conference should last until about 3:30 p.m.

The conference is an effort of Extension offices in Taylor, Jones, Haskell, Fisher, Stonewall, Kent, King, Dickens, Baylor, and Throckmorton counties.

Noted cotton specialists Dr. Dan Krieg and Dr. Randy Boman are among those on the program, along with Dr. Carl Anderson, well known cotton marketing economist. Emory P. Boring III, veteran Texas A&M entomologist, also will speak.

Another big meeting tomorrow

If that's not enough cotton pickin' meetings, then you may want to attend a Rolling Plains cotton production meeting at 8:30 a.m. Thursday at the Inadale Community Center (between Roscoe and Snyder).

The Inadale cotton meeting also features Krieg, Bowman, Anderson, and others.