Betty Jo Gigot, Editor and Publisher

I returned to Hereford, Texas, thinking it would be fun to see how the community had fared since the CALF News cover story “A Bright Future in a Small Town” [August, 2004] . In a short time I realized not only had the city capitalized on the growth we reported last year, but had added another chapter to their amazing story.

“If I didn’t live in Hereford, Texas, I would move here,” Johnny Trotter said when he was named the 2004 Hereford Citizen of the Year. Trotter was echoing the sentiment of a large number of people who are finding a home in the small Texas town.

The really big news in Hereford nowadays is the two ethanol plants awaiting their permits to start building massive plants on the town’s east edge. TV crews from as far away as Dallas show up almost daily, interested in the projected manure-burning plant slated for construction. That both companies are planning on building in Hereford is not a coincidence. The Hereford Ethanol LLC consortium, made up of local companies and community leaders, was created more than two years ago to investigate the feasibility of building an ethanol plant in Hereford. Their foresight is coming to fruition.

Rick Hanna, city manager, was on hand at the airport for the announcement of a $4.9 million grant for upgrading the Hereford airport. And, according to Hanna, one of the booming city’s primary needs is housing. Two companies are looking at 32- and 78-unit apartment complexes to handle the influx of new citizens.

Meanwhile, Hereford’s new Wal-Mart is going great guns and construction of a new CVS Pharmacy is underway, according to Don “Coach” Cumpton, executive director of the Hereford Economic Development Corp.

“We have five more dairies under construction for a total of 11 in the area, three of which will be milking by November 1,” Cumpton said. He also said there are two or three others looking at the area, noting there is new interest from the East Coast. Suppliers to the dairy industry have come to town to support the fast-growing business, and the community is actively soliciting a milk processing plant.

The two-year-old Holiday Inn Express in town runs about 90 percent full most of the time, according to Dane Noyce, owner/manager, with rooms full of ethanol-plant designers and a multitude of dairy nutrition consultants.

Local businesses like Texas Feed Fat, Top of Texas, Ferrell-Ross and Gearn Industries are going great guns. The new Caviness Packing plant is up and operating and Garth Merrick has added another shift at his pet-food plant.

Last year, voters approved a Hereford-Branch Campus of Amarillo College. Today, according to college executive director Daniel Esquivel, 201 students are enrolled, far surpassing projected numbers. A remodeled school building houses the college.

A shining example for small towns across the country, Hereford, Texas, is a testimony to the belief that anything can be done if you want it bad enough.

Huh?
When a team from Fox News in Dallas came to Hereford to conduct an interview about the proposed construction of a manure-burning ethanol plant, Mayor Josserand was interviewed standing in front of a large pile of “fuel” at Hereford Feed Yards, Inc.

When the interview was finished, the reporter stepped away and asked one more question.

“Do you keep these cows here for any other reason than to produce manure?”

Mayor Josserand said that a light bulb went on over the reporter’s head when he asked, “Do you ever eat steak?”

Turned out that the reporter liked to eat steak.

Projected Ethanol Development
With steadily rising fuel prices and a new energy bill, it only makes sense that enterprising companies are looking for innovative ways to meet the country’s needs now and in the future. Two such companies have identified Hereford, Texas, as an ideal place to focus their efforts, finding there all of the necessary elements for development. White Energy, a division of White Ventures, and Panda Energy, a division of The Panda Group, both headquartered out of Dallas, are waiting for their final air permits, anxious to break ground on their respective projects, bringing jobs and economic impact to the fast-growing area.

Very First “The people of the United States are going to have to learn to forage,” contends Bob Carter, head of Panda Energy, a division of The Panda Group. Carter was referring to the company name, Panda, a foraging animal. What Carter intends to forage on is the massive amount of manure produced by thousands of beef and dairy cattle in the Hereford area. “Manure is an ancient fuel,” Carter explained. “Native Americans used buffalo chips for centuries, and they still use manure for fuel in Bangladesh and India.” When our plant is built, it will be the first of its kind in the country.”

The team at Panda Energy came to Hereford looking to build a power plant using manure as a fuel source. They soon discovered that there was no market for power, but realized the value of ethanol production. There is a gas supply, electricity, transportation and water available,” said Chuck Bradbury, project development manager. The group sees an opportunity to move grain in by rail, rid the feedyards and dairies of cattle waste, and, if the testing goes right, return the ash from the plant to the yards to seal the floors of the pens, thereupon giving Panda, cleaner manure to use the next time around.

“Hereford has to be the Saudi Arabia of cow fuel,” Carter commented.

Using a proprietary process developed for burning manure, the company envisions a system where the Panda trucks manure to the plant to be used as fuel, returns ash to the yards along with wet distiller’s grain for the rations, and sells ethanol to both coasts and eventually across Texas. To test “Texas manure” using the process, Panda sent 20 tons of local product to be tested and then had the ash shipped back. “The truckers thought we were a little crazy,” Bradbury said. The tests went well.

“Support here in Hereford has been great. The people know how to get business done,” Bradbury concluded.

In a late August press release, Panda Energy announced they plan to build their second plant near Yuma, Colo. That plant will join the one in Hereford, which will produce 100 million gallons of ethanol per year, burning one billion pounds of cattle manure a year as renewable fuel, saving the equivalent of 1,000 barrels of oil per day.

Panda Energy is a privately held company.

Environmentally Aware Trey White is bringing his entrepreneurial skills into a new arena with his planned ethanol plant on the outskirts of Hereford. White began gathering and disseminating information on new houses in the real estate market in Dallas in the early 1990s (HomeBuilder.com) and eventually took his company public (HomeStore.com) after developing 250 markets. One of the successful dot-com gurus, White then sold his share of the public company and took part of the proceeds to found White Ventures, a venture capital company focusing on early- to mid-stage companies.

“Our goal,” White said, “is to invest in forward-thinking solutions where technology accelerates and creates exponential benefits in new markets and global economies. This approach gives us an edge in the market place and catapults us to higher success through technology and the efficiencies that are created through the process. We see a future that set us apart from all others.”

Green-thumb driven, White feels that ethanol is one way to do something about decreasing global CO 2 emissions and increasing domestic refinery capacity at a time where we need it most. Post Katrina, we have realized just how fragile our refinery network is and how badly we need to expand and diversify capacity. Renewable fuels are an environmentally friendly way to extend the domestic fuels supply while supporting Midwest farmers and providing a quality distillers-grain feed product to cattle and dairy industries.

The plan is to build a 100-million-gallon per year ethanol plant, the first of three planned for development in the U.S.

White and his group have worked with the Hereford Ethanol LLC consortium for the past two years, pursuing renewable energy opportunities.

The Hereford plant is scheduled to be operational by the forth quarter of 2006, providing 38 full-time jobs to the local community and supporting an additional 650 jobs during the construction process.

“Plant construction is anticipated to provide an additional $18 million in spendable income to the local economy and will inject more than $100 million into the construction economy the first year alone,” White contends.

The White group has co-located the plant next to an ADM facility with 9 million bushels of available grain storage. The facility will be located between ADM and the Hereford Grain Co-op.

“We are fully committed to the plant and to the city of Hereford,” White said. He noted that the local group he has been working with are sophisticated business people who follow through on their promises.

Using rail for transportation of incoming grain, moving the distillers grain from the plant to nearby feedyards and dairies by truck and a choice of moving ethanol both to the east and west coasts are attributes of their Texas Panhandle location. It also positions them to distribute ethanol to the second largest fuel market, Texas. White feels that the success and speed in which this project has developed is a di rect result of the hard work and dedication of local community leaders.