Colorado/Wyoming/Nebraska ARPAS Chapter Officer Names and Positions:

o President: Kelcey Swyers, Ranch-Way Feeds
o President Elect: Matt Luebbe, University of Nebraska
o Poster Competition: Kelley Neuhold, ADM/Loomix
o University Rep Elect: Scott Lake, UW
o Treasurer: Bob Brown, Brown Ruminant Consulting

Brief Overview of the Colorado/Wyoming/Nebraska ARPAS chapter activities for the year:

o The Colorado/Wyoming/Nebraska ARPAS Chapter hosts an annual beef nutrition and management meeting. The last meeting was held on Sept. 19, 2013 at CSU’s ARDEC facility near Ft. Collins and the title of the meeting was “Linking University and Industry Efforts for the Benefit of the Beef Industry.” The speakers were: Drs. Tim Holt (CSU), Kris Wilson (Silver Spur), Jason Ahola (CSU), Mark Stayton (UW), Matt Luebbe (UNL), and Jenny Schutz (ADM/Loomix). 

o For 2014, we have decided to rotate the location of the meeting between the 3 different affiliate states: CO, NE, and WY. This year, the meeting will be held in Brule, NE and the name of the meeting has been changed to “High Plains Nutrition & Management Roundtable.” This year’s meeting will be held on Thursday, Aug. 2014 and will be titled “Focus on Increasing Cow Herd Size and Beef Production. The speakers will be: Drs. Aaron Stalker (UNL), Dr. Karla Jenkins (UNL), Tom Brink (Brink Consulting), George Seidel (CSU), Steve Paisley (UW), Darrell Wilkes (Verified Beef), and Kent Anderson (Zoetis). The presenters will submit a copy of their presentation for a proceedings packet which is given to the attendees at the beginning of each meeting. Attendees can also earn ARPAS CEU’s for attending each Nutrition Roundtable: 5 credits.

o Also, at each annual meeting, the chapter also hosts a graduate student poster competition in conjunction with the Roundtable. The graduate students are required to submit a copy of their poster prior to the meeting and the posters are evaluated by academic faculty and industry representatives via visual appraisal and interview. During the evaluation, the poster presenter is questioned about the research and the poster is evaluated by the evaluation panel. At the end of the Nutrition Roundtable prizes are presented to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners.

o At the Chapter Business meeting last September (9/19/13), the chapter voted to start collecting annual chapter dues ($10 each) through the national membership renewal process. Also, we would cover the annual dues and ARPAS exam fees for any student that competed in the previous year’s graduate student poster competition.

o A website was created to advertise our chapter and to facilitate communications about the meeting, registrations, etc: www.nutritionroundtable.org