2007 Cook-Off Sizzles in Chicago
Larisa Willrett, Contributing Editor
No matter how you like your beef, the 2007 National Beef Cook-Off had something to please everyone’s palate. Held in Chicago for the first time in Cook-Off history, contestants prepared their dishes just steps from the world-renown Magnificent Mile.

Gypsy Wagon
Betty Jo Gigot, Editor and Publisher
As a Kansas resident, it seems that the Wizard of Oz and Toto are the only references much of the rest world have about our state. I think we could easily put together an up-to-date version of the old tale. It would go something like this:

Whitt & Wisdom
Jim Whitt
I read an interesting article James Kaplan wrote about Jerry Seinfeld in a recent issue of Parade Magazine. The thing that was most interesting to me was to discover that, as a child, Seinfeld considered himself to be “very quiet, very withdrawn.” It’s hard to imagine Jerry Seinfeld as an introvert isn’t it?

The Range of Reason - Better Keep Working
Tracy Rehberg, Contributing Editor
I phoned my dad on his birthday. He wasn’t available that morning, or that afternoon, or that evening. I finally caught up with him around 10 p.m. He was welding a branding iron he needed for a shipment of cattle that was coming at midnight. He’d had a happy birthday. I finished our conversation and smiled because I knew that, in all the world, no one else was doing what my dad was doing on his birthday.

Beef Biz - The Million Dollar Question
Nevil Speer, Contributing Editor
Are We Ready For Ethanol? That’s the million-dollar question and the title of last issue’s Beef Biz – an introductory look at some of the impending implications of an ever-expanding ethanol industry. But before we go further, let’s back up...

Keeling Cattle Feeding
A Labor of Love
Betty Jo Gigot, Editor and Publisher
Once part of the mainstream, Scott Keeling has quietly and resolutely watched the 17,000-head capacity, independent custom feedyard he and his wife, Karen, own become somewhat of a rarity. Not only that, but he knows there will be fewer and fewer of his kind as the industry continues to consolidate.