By Karen McMahon, 1999-2000 AAEA President
I had the unique honor to serve as AAEA president during the turn of the century, October 1999 to October 2000. Looking back 20 years, it’s clear AAEA was in the midst of big changes then. Little did we know how it would turn out.
My association with AAEA started in 1979 when I worked for John Byrnes at Miller Publishing’s Hog Farm Management magazine. At my first AAEA annual meeting, I knew I had found my place. There were so many talented (and fun) people to meet for networking.
At that time, AAEA was moving from a male-dominated organization to one with baby boomer women. The number of women members swelled throughout the 1980s and that trend continues today.
Becoming better photographers
The organization focused on improving the quality of farm publications, which used to be pretty poor. Oddly, some farm publications believed farmers didn’t need to read good stories or see good photos to learn about farming. This was the reason the infamous AAEA photo workshop in Columbia, MO, was created. It was designed to “shock” some hard-headed farm editors into improving their photo skills.
I was fortunate to attend one of the later workshops that was quite as grueling, but it still lived up to its reputation. We spent a day trying to find photo story leads in Columbia and have it approved by the instructors. This was no easy task because the U of MO J-school had cleared the town of good leads. Once our ideas were approved, we spent the next few days photographing it. My story was about a German Shepard breeder who lived in her house with a couple dozen dogs. Those dogs lounged around in her family room on couches. Dog hair was everywhere.
Back at the school for the evenings, we all listened to instructors critique our photos and question us in front of everyone. This was very stressful. But we noticed everyone came back the next day with better photography. I also noticed this workshop provided great tales to spin at AAEA meetings.
The push for a joint meeting
Nothing ever stays the same and this is true for AAEA. The mid-1990s brought a new push to join the Livestock Publications Council (LPC) for a joint agricultural all-print conference. AAEA membership numbers were dropping along with attendance at the annual AAEA meeting held in October. It was clear AAEA wasn’t going to find more new members or money to bolster the organization. If we didn’t make a change, we would dwindle to a very small group with no resources.
At that time, I was an AAEA board member and also a member of LPC through my job on National Hog Farmer. When LPC reached out to AAEA, AAEA president Jack Odle asked me to serve on the joint task force. My publisher, the late Wayne Bollum, approved of this and he thought the joint meeting was a good idea. The Agricultural Publishers Association (APA) supported the idea and provided funding to get things going.
We (Webb/Intertec) hosted the first task force meeting at our office in October 1996. Attendees included Jim Dickrell, Rod Fee and me for AAEA; Steve Drake and Warren Morse for APA; and Greg Henderson, Cheryl Oxley and Wes Ishmael for LPC. The consensus among everyone was to continue exploring the idea. Our AAEA group was able to canvas the AAEA membership a few days later with a survey offered at the 75th AAEA annual meeting. The survey results supported the idea of a joint meeting and moving our annual meeting to the summer. Two big hurdles were cleared with that news.
The next couple years involved many meetings with different members from all three groups to hammer out the details of the joint meeting. This evolving group tackled sticky topics like setting up a schedule to please everyone, sponsorship rules, costs, and registration fees. They also set up guidelines for the actual steering committee to manage the conference. Through it all, Steve Drake attended nearly every meeting. He and his team acted as an impartial manager of all finances and legal details.
The first Ag Media Summit was held in 1999 in Denver and was well received. In 2000 when I was AAEA president, the summit hummed along even better. It was held in San Antonio, TX. And today, AAEA and LPC have 20 summits under their belts.
Almost done….
Looking back, many of us involved in the early stages thought the joint meeting would work but didn’t envision the size and scope it has become. I’m convinced the planning process involving many members from AAEA, LPC and APA helped make it successful. Concerns from all sides were aired and addressed. But most important, a comradery and respect for each other developed. This has helped carry the summit to (we hope) 2021.
I am truly grateful I had the opportunity through AAEA to work on the summit and help with different committees for nearly 25 years. It’s been a highlight in my career. Now it’s up to the Gen Xers and Millennials in AAEA to figure out what lies ahead for them and this wonderful organization.
Today, Karen McMahon works from her home office on Pig Health Today and other ventures. She has worked for several publications including Farm Industry News, serving as its editor from 2000 to 2013.