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Kansas Farmers Union Kansas Farmers Union Elects Officers McPHERSON, Kan. – Donn Teske, Wheaton, Kan., has been re-elected to lead the Kansas Farmers Union in 2008. The unanimous choice of delegates to the organization’s annual convention held Jan. 11-12 in McPherson, this will be Teske’s eighth term as president. Also elected as vice president of the KFU is Daryl Larson, McPherson, Kan. Teske and his wife, Kathy, operate a crop and beef farm in north central Kansas, which has been certified organic on the cropping enterprises since 2002. He currently serves on the national Farmers Union Board of Directors and sits on its membership committee. During 2007, Teske made six trips to Washington, D.C. to lobby on farm issues and was selected to testify before the House Select Committee on Energy and Global Warming, representing the agricultural producer’s viewpoint. In addition to his involvement at the state and national level of the Farmers Union, Teske also is on the board of the Midwest Agency Board, the corporate entity for the Kansas and Nebraska Farmers Union Insurance Companies. He serves on the state advisory committee for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (S.A.R.E.) program through Kansas State University Extension, the Ogallala Commons Board and the board of the Kansas Rural Center. Teske is an active member of the Kansas Organic Producers Association, an affiliate of the Kansas Farmers Union. Larson and his wife, Velita, operate a diversified dryland grain and cow/calf operation in partnership with his brother, doing business as Larson Acres. Larson is a third-generation farmer in McPherson County and a fourth-generation farmer in the United States. He currently serves as the McPherson County Farmers Union president and has represented District seven on the Kansas Farmers Union Board of Directors for seven years. Larson represented the KFU as a delegate to four national conventions and has attended Washington, D.C. fly-ins. He is currently serving his second term on the Kansas Cattleman’s Association Board of Directors and is secretary/treasurer for the association. Elected to his first term on the KFU Board of Directors, replacing Larson as the district seven board representative will be Herb Bartel, Hillsboro. Re-elected to the KFU Board of Directors were John Fairbanks, Onaga, representing the state’s northeastern counties in district three; LaVerne Potuzak, Agenda, representing the north central counties in district four; and Raymond Fowler, Emporia, representing district eight, which includes the counties in southeast Kansas. Board positions for district five and district six, which include the western one-third of the state, were not filled during the convention as those districts did not have a quorum for their nominating caucuses. Those positions will be filled by appointment during a board of directors meeting to be held Jan. 28. Convention delegates also selected their representatives to the 2008 Farmers Union annual convention to be held in Las Vegas in March. Elected as delegates were John Strunk, Sedgwick, Bartel, and Jared Whitcomb, Elmdale. Linda Hessman, Dodge City, Damien Eck, Colwich, and Tom Giessel, Larned, will serve as alternates.
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