This continuing Nebraska Cattleman feature will highlight some of the news from rural Nebraska and its small towns. The goal of Cattlemen’s Digest is to round up a variety of stories about the adventures and accomplishments of cattle producers from across the state, from Lyman to Spiker and Naper to Naponee.

NC member Henry Rohla Jr. of Milligan knew in high school that the farm was where he wanted to be, and that’s exactly where he’s been ever since. Now 46, he looks back and wishes he had gone to college, “but it’s hard to go back now.” Instead, he’s working to educate himself about the world, and experience some of the things he missed out on when he was younger, wrote the Hastings Tribune. As part of that effort, Rohla traveled to eastern Europe earlier this year under the auspices of the Nebraska LEAD program. Having missed out on college, he wasn’t about to do the same with LEAD. He thought about it for about a decade, repeatedly telling himself that he still had time. “It finally got to the point where I said ‘I’ve got to do it, and do it now.’ ” A couple of years more and it would have been too late, since the LEAD program chooses its participants from those under age 50. This year’s LEAD trip was not Rohla’s first venture overseas. In 1991 he visited Spain, Belgium and Germany as part of the National Young Farmers Organization. And as part of LEAD, he has traveled within the U.S., including Chicago and Washington, D.C. The 18-month program requires a major commitment, including attending seminars all across the state. But Rohla will tell you it’s worth it. “It will change you. People will notice it.”

The estate of Chadron ranching couple Bill and Frances Lindeken is making a donation of nearly $1 million to Chadron State College. A $450,000 payment was made this winter, and a donation exceeding $500,000 is expected later when the ranch sale is finalized. It’s not the first donation for the Lindekens, who had no children. Previously, the couple contributed $90,000 to build the clock tower at Chadron State and contributed to recreational projects at Fort Robinson State Part and Chadron State Park. Mrs. Lindeken died in 1997; Mr. Lindeken in 2000. They specified that their Chadron State College donation be used for scholarships. The ranch is being bought by Betty Balfany and her daughter and son-in-law. Betty and her late husband Don began working for the Lindekens in 1961.

How do you give a calf CPR? “I just wiped off his nose, closed one nostril and started (CPR),” said seedstock breeder Terry Tonniges. Pretty soon, the little guy was okay, the York News-Times wrote in an article about Tonniges. The write-up came in advance of his award as “Honored Guest” at the York-Hamilton Cattlemen’s Association annual banquet. Tonniges, an NC member from Gresham, has 41 years in the cattle industry, the last seven with Chiangus crossbreeds. (He started with Hereford cows and Angus bulls.) Today, the newspaper reports, his T-T Cattle Company has “not a bull in sight” because all the cows are implanted with embryos supplied by four females. The ranch claims about a 75-80 percent success rate. T-T likes to calve early – in the dead of winter – in order to sell yearling bulls in January and February.

Matt Miles of Brownlee found out that he’s a “risk taker” when he attended a North Platte seminar on the RightRisk computerized simulation tool. An assessment of your personal risk profile is but one of the features of the RightRisk program, developed in cooperation with eight universities, including UNL. The program, featured at www.RightRisk.org, guides a producer through a risk-management scenario to let the user see the consequences of his decisions. In Miles’ case, he bought hay to feed calves over winter, and then found out that calf prices were too high to resist. Selling the calves meant that the hay wasn’t needed. The interactive simulations allow producers to see the consequences of a strategy without suffering an actual loss. The seminar gave NC member Miles and the other producers an introduction to the product so that they can use it at home, wrote the North Platte Telegraph. They found out that risk is not about predicting a certain level of profit, but about managing the probabilities of a range of outcomes.

Good educational opportunities are the key to a good cattle tour. And this year’s Sandhills Cattle Association tour looked like a winner, with 310 ranchers signed up, the most in 16 years. It must have looked like Lincoln on Game Day when the 90 cars in the tour went from farm to farm. One farm was the Graff ranch, where tour participants wanted to know about the 450 goats that help control leafy spurge and cedar trees, wrote the Rock County Leader. Another “farm” was NPPD’s “wind farm” at Ainsworth, where the Sandhills ranchers learned about windmills. At the O’Hare ranch south of Johnstown, the group learned about artificial insemination and the use of electronic tags to simplify recordkeeping.