Wednesday, 9 September 2026 MEETING MINUTES

Montana Cattlemen's Association

Cattemen's Day Board Meeting

Wednesday, 9 September 2026

President, Tim Brunner called the meeting to order at 7:30 PM.  

Present:                                                                 Absent:

Tim Brunner        John Ferrat                                   Richard Liebert             Doreen Gillespie

Newell Roche       Wally Congdon                             Brad Hamlett                Jackson Newman

Bruce Shultz        Gilles Stockton                              Steve Held

Ken Morris           Aimee Hachigian-Gould                 John Wagner

Tim asked for a motion to approve the minutes from the August 19th meeting.  Aimee made a motion to approve them and Newell seconded the motion.  Motion carried.

Cattlemen's Day:  Tim mentioned that the auction barn in Three Forks has a feeder calf sale on Wednesday, November 18th.  He is thinking that we could cosponsor a small informal breakfast with USCA before the auction and then cosponsor a lunch during the break as well.  After the lunch break a MCA representative and a USCA representative could speak briefly then we could have our business meeting with the board in a small room.  That evening he suggested that we have Cattlemen's Day at a motel conference room in Three Forks.  We need to talk with someone who could set up a live feed for our meetings so people at home can participate.  Do we want to do our MCA and USCA meetings consecutively?  We need to schedule our business meeting also.  Tim will talk with the USCA representative to see how they would like to do the meeting.  Currently Tim has been talking with Kelly Fogarty.  John will call the hotels in Three Forks and see what is available for meetings and rooms.

Possible Speakers:  Senator Cora Newman on the issue of Urban Sprawl; follow this speaker with Wally talking about every county in Montana forming a Right to Farm Ordinance and pass this information out for people to take back to their county commissioners;  USCA representative on what is going on in DC;  Virtual Fences; Trina Jo Bradly about Grizzly Bears; In the past each speaker usually used about 1 hour for speaking and included a question and answer period.  

We have nominated Beau LaSalle for a representative on the USCA.  He can also be the tribal representative board member for MCA.

Gilles mentioned that the Cool Coalition thinks that there won't be anything done with the Farm Bill until after the election.

We need to get everyone to send a letter to our 4 congressmen about the Farm Bill.

It was mentioned to think about ending our Beef on Every Plate program and just supporting Producer Partnership instead.  We can give them free advertising in our newsletter and on the website in support of beef donations.

There are some website updates that need to be addressed:  The recent newsletter is not on the website; there is no place to update a classified ad to say if it is sold etc.; There is no place on the membership form to add a spouse or employee; the associate member price on the website is still $50 instead of the reduced price of $25.

The scholarship recipient is not on the website, and it needs to be published in the newspapers across Montana.  

Newell received a phone call from Maria from the Billings Hotel.  They would like to host Cattlemen's Day. 

Aimee made a motion to adjourn and Wally seconded the motion.  Motion carried.

Meeting adjourned at 8:52.