Former Miss America Still Pushing Ag & California Bighorns

Former Miss America Still Pushing Ag & California Bighorns plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Miss America 2011 Teresa Scanlan has been an advocate for agriculture. Even though she is no longer Miss America she is continuing her advocacy. By being a non-traditional spokesperson for agriculture, Scanlan has set out to bridge that evident gap between urban and rural America.

SCANLAN:I’ve said before that if a girl from a small town in Nebraska can become Miss America my job then is to bring the rest of America back to our rural roots and to bring us back to the midwest and back to the heartland and the breadbasket and help people understand how important that is because I think that is the two large disconnects that we are seeing.

California Bighorn sheep are actually native to Washington State but over the years their number have been decimated. The Colville Indians have been trying to relocate some of the sheep to their reservation in hopes of bolstering the numbers and to establish new herds. Biologists have relocated 113 bighorn sheep over the last three years to Hell’s Gate game reserve, a 70,000-acre area on the Colville Indian Reservation near Keller that is set aside for big game.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

Mob mentality has never really been anything to brag about, that is until now. Flash mobs have been around for a while, and while entertaining, they don’t really serve to boost the local economy, but the newly inspired “cash mobs” are designed to do just that, support small locally owned businesses. What do you do as a member of a cash mob? You show up with some cash and shop. First started last summer on the East Coast, cash mobs have caught on and are quickly moving westward. With the struggling economy, small businesses across the nation are finding it extremely difficult to keep their doors open. The loyalty of their customers though continues to be strong. Through social networking the customers and fans of these businesses are helping direct more traffic to the storefronts they support using cash mobs. Keeping in mind that pretty much everyone is hurting right now with the economy the way it is, cash mobbers are told to have a spending goal of ten to twenty dollars. Cash mobs seem to be a great idea that combines the fun and camaraderie of a community social event with a chance to support a local business.

Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.