93
Let’s hear the story of Nebraska, its communities, its number one industry Agriculture, and the people who make it happen. Sponsored by Nebraska's Law Firm® - Rembolt Ludtke.
93
Neal A. Kanel--Southeast Nebraska Ag Retailer & Servant Leader
In this episode we talk with Neal A. Kanel, Managing Partner with Stateline Ag Enterprises near Dawson, Nebraska. Neal is a leader in Nebraska agriculture, his community, and the propane gas industry. He shares some stories from his days on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's East Campus as well as his work as a member of the board of directors of HTRS School District and the Nebraska Association of School Boards.
Nebraska. It's not just a place, but a way of life. It's 93 counties that are home to innovative individuals, caring community, and a spirit that runs deeper than its purple story. It's a story that should be told. Welcome to 93, the podcast.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome to 93, the podcast, where we talk about Nebraska, its communities, its number one industry agriculture, and the people who make it happen. I'm Mark Falson, your host for today's episode, brought to you by Nebraska's law firm, Remballt Lutke. In today's episode, we're going to chat with one of Nebraska's leaders, a leader in agriculture, a leader in his community, a leader in the propane gas industry. Let's welcome Neil Kennell, managing partner of Stateline Ag Enterprises. Neil, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me, Mark. So tell folks about yourself. Who the heck are you?
SPEAKER_00:Well, uh, born and raised here in the southeast corner of the state, the very southeast corner of the state in Richardson County, 19 County.
SPEAKER_02:I get credit for another one. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you get add that to your list. 19 County. Uh went to Humboldt High School, which is what it was called then. Class of 1987. It's now called Humboldt Taboroc Steener. Um grew up on a farm south of town where we uh fed cattle and hogs like all farmers did back in the day. Um graduated, went on to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln as a first generation college student, had no idea what I was getting into. Oh, I didn't know that. You're first generation. Yeah, my parents didn't go to college. They graduated high school and went right to farming, which was the thing to do then. My sister, who was older, of course, she went to college. She went to Northwest or Northwest over at Meryville. And so I didn't really know what I was getting into.
SPEAKER_02:So how many kids, how many kids in your graduating class in high school?
SPEAKER_00:Uh I think there were we ended up with 31. You were valedictorian? Uh, not even.
SPEAKER_02:So I think I was fourth or fifth. Pretty close. You tried, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, I tried. I tried hard.
SPEAKER_02:So, what'd you major in at the university?
SPEAKER_00:Uh, it was an animal science feedlot management major.
SPEAKER_02:And are you putting that to good use today?
SPEAKER_00:Um good use. Well, um, you know, we we handle quite a few cattle, but uh I had one agronomy course when I was in college, agronomy 101. I think that was mandatory, and uh and we have an agronomy business now. So that's funny how that works out. Yeah, it's funny how that works out.
SPEAKER_02:So I know the answer to this, but let's tell our listeners are you married?
SPEAKER_00:Uh married to uh uh a gal that I met in college of all places when I worked at Ace Liquor.
SPEAKER_02:Um okay, tell folks about Ace Liquor. What what's the history of Ace Liquor if you're an East Campus person?
SPEAKER_00:If you're an East Campus person, Ace Licker was well the the predecessor to modern day ATM. Correct. Everybody could could write your uh the initials of your fraternity on the corner of your check, and it didn't matter whether you wanted$20 or$2,000, Charlie would cash your check.
SPEAKER_02:Isn't that funny? You know, my parents, the first semester in college, they would look at my checks and say, Good God, son, you're writing all these checks to Ace Liquors. Like, that's how you get cash. They go, Yeah, sure it is. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And the funny thing is, uh, we both know this individual, I'll leave his his name out of it, that was a rodeo guy, and he would come in and he'd write a check for his entry fees on a Friday afternoon, and it might be several hundred dollars, and he'd come in on a Monday, and he might have enough money to cover them after the weekend, and he might not, and Charlie'd just carry him until the next week, and and hopefully he might win the next week.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, what you didn't want is your check posted up behind the cash register, and then you would bounce to check to Charlie, Charlie, because you felt personal, right? You saw the guy all the time. You're like, I can't steal money from that guy.
SPEAKER_00:No, it was it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. They had their regulars that that came in. If you if you luckily had a day shift, you had the little old ladies that come in in the yellow cabs and got their their vodka tonic mix for the week. And it was it was just a lot of fun. But uh, I worked with with Bonnie's brother there, and uh that's how we got acquainted. And she's from the sand hills, and we dated a little bit the summer. I stayed in Lincoln when I worked for the Department of Ag and then we got back together when I was doing my feedlot internship in Lexington.
SPEAKER_02:So uh Bonnie's your uh your bride. I think you have some kids, and if I'm not mistaken, can I call you grandpa?
SPEAKER_00:Uh you can call me grandpa. Uh John, our our son, lives in Lincoln. He hasn't found the right one yet. But Grace, our daughter, is married to Grant, and they've got Eleanor Francis, Ella Fran, uh, for short, and she's just almost eight months old. So she's grandma and grandpa's pride and joy at this point. And uh yeah, she's on a little vacation now with the other side of the house and gets back tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02:Congratulations on that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, a lot of fun at the fun stage.
SPEAKER_02:So tell our listeners about State Line Ag Enterprises. What is it?
SPEAKER_00:Well, State Line Ag is a uh full service ag retailer with, I guess, three different independent businesses. We've got the agronomy part, which does the custom applications, liquid, dry, sell anhydras at two different locations, you know. With we've got two agronomists on staff that have graduated from the university and um full support staff. We probably do a 50-mile radius of business. Um 50-mile radius from where? From six miles south of Dawson, right on Highway 75.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:And then we've got our propane business, which does a similar radius, uh, state line propane, and then we've got the trucking business, which is a necessary evil, um, just because in the heat of the battle, if you want product, you better have the trucks yourself, or you're not gonna have it. And and the reason we've had three entities, it started out we are in an agronomy business that had trucks, and nobody wanted to insure an agronomy business that had trucks, and nobody wanted to insure a trucking business that had an agronomy business, so we just split the entities, and then as the propane came into picture from the previous owner, we just kept them all separate, and everyone insurance separate, and then now everybody wants to insure them together, so it's just a hodgepodge, but we keep everything separate, and um you know, we share the employees, of course, and and that sort of thing to take advantage of those economies of scale and and make everything work as best we can.
SPEAKER_02:But you're you're a very neat and orderly gentleman, and I've noticed that your employees they're always got they got the logoed shirt on and they look sure just ready to go. Is that part of your culture?
SPEAKER_00:That's that's part of the culture that was handed to me. My my mentor that uh we purchased the business from. I mean, I started working for Dan in 1985. Dan started the business when he graduated high school, and uh my family did business with him. And dad was down there getting anhydrous tanks, and he asked what I was up to. And dad said, Not a hell of a lot, he's not old enough to drive. And Dan says, Well, when's he old enough? And my dad says, Well, next week. He says, Well, when he turns 16, send him down, I'll give him a job. So that's kind of how I got the fertilizer business. I started when I was 16 in 1985, and I've been there ever since. So um other a summer away with an internship with the Department of Ag and one with the chemical company. I've been there for the duration, which is getting to be a long time. So um that was just you know what Dan did. We always had uniforms and his were red and mine are green. So we just made a color switch.
SPEAKER_02:Is that a John Deere case IH distinction, or where's that come from?
SPEAKER_00:No, that was just um actually mine started out teal green and they discontinued the color. So mine are more of the old John Deere dark green, as it turns out. And some of my bigger employees, we can't even get that. We have to get blue.
SPEAKER_02:So have you moved into, and I don't know the answer to this, uh, any drone application? Are you moving in that direction? Is that kind of the way things are headed?
SPEAKER_00:You know, I I I look at look at it this way, Mark. I've got enough headaches. Um I I've got a couple good customers that have some drones for their own use, and I just feel if I need to go that way, I'll just utilize them. They've they've got the custom applicators' licenses to do that and the licensing to use the drones. So if we need to do a little bit of that, I'll just use them for those services. Um, and there's not a lot of that. That's mostly for fungicide applications or probably brushy pastures and that sort of thing. So we're probably going to experiment with some pastures later this summer on some hilly ground just to see how that goes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, what are some opportunities and challenges that perhaps exist for state line going forward? Where do you see things headed?
SPEAKER_00:Well, the big biggest challenge we've had, honestly, probably since COVID is just employees. I mean, we've got a good staff, we've had a good staff for years. I mean, we we normally retain 20 to 24 full-time employees and probably four or five seasonal type employees. And with COVID, that was just kind of a struggle, as it was with a lot of businesses. Um and so we, you know, we had a couple older type people that retired, and and so we decreased our number of trucks we had on the road. It was hard to find help, so we just I just sold some trucks. I wasn't gonna fight it. Um we brought in like a lot of agribusinesses, we brought in a couple of H2A workers this year from South Africa, which has proven to be a great addition. We'll probably bring another one in next year. Um so I mean that's the biggest thing is staffing. Of course, they can't do a lot of things that uh domestic workers can, which you know, you just learn to adapt that and and do what you can there. So that that's probably the biggest thing is staffing. Um, just keeping a full staff and and you've you just learn to adapt and make do with what you can.
SPEAKER_02:Can't tell you how many of our ag clients have brought in South African employees and without exception, I've yet to hear an exception to this, they rave about them and want them to stay and want to find everywhere where they can stay. And I was just at uh I was at Casey's in in Crete, Nebraska. You know, I have a farm down there, and I heard this accent that was like, that's not sort of what I'm used to. And I finally put two and two together. There were South Africans actually working in the Crete area. It's there there's a significant influx of South Africans moving to Nebraska.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it it's it's a different dialect to get used to, but once you once you do, it's like any anything you can you can figure it out. But um, you know, and I purposely um chose individuals of a of a more mature age bracket, we'll say, so I didn't have a whole different set of problems to deal with. Um so you know, they've been a nice fit. Um are they living in the Dawson area? Um we bought a house in Humboldt. Okay. Um just because you know Dawson essentially has no amenities, um, but you know, Humboldt, they've got churches, grocery store, Dollar General, and uh, you know, things that they they can do and and use where Daw Dawson doesn't have anything. And it's worked out well.
SPEAKER_02:If I'm not mistaken, you're still involved in production agriculture. Do you have some cattle?
SPEAKER_00:Uh yeah, we've got a pretty good sized fall cabin cow herd for this part of the state. Um we used to be uh half spring, half fall, and then but spring for me was we'd start the 7th of January for 60 days, and then yeah, that's not really spring, is it? No, that's not spring. And then we bought two loads of fall cabin cows, and my my wife said, Why don't you do them all in the fall?
SPEAKER_02:You're like, honey, I knew I married you for some reason, and now I understand that you're the smartest one in the family.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, who'd have thought that? And uh so then we over the course of two years we switched those to fall, and yeah, we've we've amped up and they're all fall. And we start cabin about the 5th of August for 70 days, and because we we've got to keep it short, because if they don't hit the ground before the first of November, they don't amount to anything down here. They've got to get some size to them. And and then we uh well, a lot of people call me a fodder farmer. Um we we keep a quarter section that we we uh chop and then we put up a lot of grass hay too. But we've got a another couple quarters that we we do grow corn and soybeans our on. And uh we do that. I used to cash rant those to my dad, but he turned 81 yesterday, so he doesn't need any more to do. He still has his farms custom farmed and and whatnot. But we we feed in background some cattle in some yards and around here and across Nebraska and Kansas just to kind of keep the cattle feeding vibe alive.
SPEAKER_02:Are they cattle predominantly one breed?
SPEAKER_00:Um most of our cows are black-hided in this Bangus base. We've kind of dipped our toe into some different uh sire groups this year. Um, I'm not gonna disclose what that is. Fear of retaliation. Um but yeah, we're we're trying some different things to add some pounds to our calf crop. Um we typically sell our our calves um in April to hit that grass market. We we sell fewer pounds for more dollars, is what we found out with the fall calves versus the the spring cabin, which works out well. I mean, we were always selling our our spring calvers in October, which you know, when you're calving January and February, that's a pretty good sized calf. But uh just a different market to hit. So it works out pretty good.
SPEAKER_02:So in addition to State Line, in addition to running cattle, you were also very active in the propane industry. I believe for the Nebraska Propane Gas Association, you're a national director. Uh, how did you get involved in that?
SPEAKER_00:Um, well, it started out, took over Dan's propane business also. Um the propane board is consist, the state propane board consists of, you know, cooperatives and and independent retailers across the state, and they just always look for representation from both. And when asked to if I'd consider running for the board, well gosh, 20 some years ago I threw my name in the hat because I just feel it's important to be involved and represent your industry. And I guess I should say the rest of that's history. I've been involved with the board ever since. Um, and each state has a chance for a national director's spot, and I think I took the nomination for that probably seven or eight years ago. And what that means is uh you attend the national board meetings and get involved with the committees and whatnot on a national board level. So um they have a board meeting in the spring and in the fall. Um I have attended the the one that's in June in DC with my staffing situation and whatnot. I haven't done that for several years, but I usually try and hit the spring and fall board meetings, which works out a lot better for my schedule.
SPEAKER_02:So how important is propane to Nebraska agriculture?
SPEAKER_00:Whole complete different perspective about what's going on. The best the best part of the the national meetings, we have regional meetings, which um is uh not necessarily it's it's the Midwestern states, but it's not what I would call our Midwestern states. It's Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska is like our Region 13 group, and we just all spitball what's going on in the state legislatively with the infrastructure, you know, pipeline concerns and that sort of thing. So it's it's it's really good. And then they'll compile those um problems or concerns, and then that'll present those at the meeting later on. And it's it's just good. And they'll do that with with the entire US. So it's you get to hear a summation of everybody's ongoing concerns at the meeting as a whole. And yeah, it's it's been a good experience. I enjoy it.
SPEAKER_02:So many folks, when they think of propane, they think of their gas grill. But well, how important is propane to Nebraska agriculture?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean, it's it's very vital. I mean, you know, without propane, you know, it obviously provides heat to the majority of hog buildings and a lot of the poultry barns that are going up. That's been a been a big push the last several years. Um, it's the mainstay for crop drying when you think of high moisture corn out in the Platte Valley. It's all dried with propane. Um, of course, you know, irrigation. You know, it's electric, diesel, or propane. There's been a big push the last several years to swap out some of the irrigation motors. We've had an um incentive through PERC with our checkoff dollars to swap out some of those um less efficient older electric and diesel engines to to propane, and that's been very effective with our checkoff dollars. Um a big push just in the last few years has been the whole home backup generators. Um I I can't believe the number that have gone in just in our trade area. I bet just the customers we service, I bet we've we've seen a couple dozen a year go in. It's just nuts. Um, not to mention, you know, in rural rural America, I mean, that's the number one heat source. I mean, that's what keeps our houses warm. So it's it's huge in rural America. I mean, it's just the most efficient and the most cost effective source there is for eating our our homes and shops and everything out here in the rural America.
SPEAKER_02:Trevor Burrus, Jr.: So the last presidential administration kind of had propane in its bullseye for some reason they had a problem with it. It sounds like the new administration is taking a different tact. Are there some myths out there or misperceptions about propane? Why would people attack propane and want to get rid of it?
SPEAKER_00:Well, the the last administration wasn't just propane, it was any petroleum product.
SPEAKER_02:So it was more the carbon uh-based economy.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I mean, it just wasn't propane. Um, you know, propane is by far the cleanest product of all. Um by far cleaner than diesel, of course, but it's it's just they blackballed anything that wasn't solar or wind. And you know, if you take away the the federal subsidies from the solar and the wind, none none of those would even begin to work if they weren't federally subsidized. Um and that that's just a cold hard truth. So I mean, obviously, President Trump has a lot more welcoming attitude towards the propane. And our our national propane, I guess the CEO is the is the correct word, Steve Kaminsky. Um he's got a good working relationship with President Trump. He was on the hill today. Um so they're working hard to keep the legislation in our favor because it's you know it's a it's a great source of energy, domestic energy. Um we overproduce, so you know, the ball's in our court. We don't have to seek outside fuel sources, we can keep it all domestic.
SPEAKER_02:So what the heck is propane? I mean, I I I'm being somewhat facetious, but I mean I know what it is, I see it in the tanks, I've used it, I've been, you know, but but how does it differ from just like natural gas?
SPEAKER_00:You know, it started out as a byproduct. They used to just burn it off. So it's just it started out as a byproduct in the what late 30s, early 40s, and then somebody with smarter than you and I thought There's a lot of those. We should we should use this, and that's how it kind of got started. There's you know, and they just started using it as a byproduct from natural gas production in the refineries, and so it comes out of the refineries, so they they capture that uh and is it by pipeline? Yeah, okay. And they they can store it in a lot of the caverns, and um you know we're we're far removed from the caverns, but there's caverns that they can store it in, which I I still don't understand that concept. But they do.
SPEAKER_02:So there's enough there. That's good, that helps us. Again, there's not a farmer ranch out there that I've seen that doesn't have a propane tank. Do you do you bury those now? Someone says somebody told me on a new build that you guys can actually bury those, which I was new to.
SPEAKER_00:Underground tanks, you know, started out 50, 60 years ago, they buried butane tanks. And so now a lot of the propane tanks are buried. They're super expensive, but a lot of your uh, you know, cities and outlying areas around Lincoln and Omaha, we get a few down here that want them buried just so they don't have to look at them.
SPEAKER_02:In addition to state line ag, addition to running cattle, addition to being active uh locally and nationally in the propane industry, you're pretty active in your community as well. Uh tell our folks about your service on the Humboldt Table Rock Steener School District.
SPEAKER_00:Um well, I threw my hat in there twenty plus years ago.
SPEAKER_02:So you're a politician?
SPEAKER_00:Um not intentionally, it just worked out that way. Um I always want to be on school board, not sure why. So right before my kids started school, um I tried as a write-in and I got close. And then I don't remember for sure if somebody vacated a position and I got appointed or if I actually ran first. I don't remember.
SPEAKER_02:It's easier if you get your name on the ballot as opposed to write-in. You know that name is. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So when I'm done, I think I'll and I'm not going to run again. I've already made that decision. Um, I don't remember I'll be on 20 or 22 years. Um, and I've enjoyed it. I really have. Um, we've done a lot of things with our school district. I don't know if it's official or not, but we're one of the largest, if not the largest, consolidated district in the state. And you know, our our our levy is like 0.62 cents. But that's of course due to our land area. We don't hardly get any state funding, but we don't need it. We don't need it. We've got the land area to support our district. Um you know, we don't essentially owe any money compared to a lot of our neighboring districts whose mill levies are dollar twenty, dollar fifteen. Um that's huge. So we've done a lot to keep our the spending down and and uh you know keep it cheap for our our patrons. Um, you know, I take a lot of pride in that. And we've added on to our school and and made it a super nice facility. Um and and that that was another deal, oh I don't know, eight or nine years ago. A friend of mine, um, friend of ours actually was on the Nebraska Association of School Boards board, uh, NASB, and she was moving up the slate of officers, which then she couldn't serve on the board, and she said, We need some rural representation on our board. Would you be interested in throwing your name on the ballot for the case?
SPEAKER_02:And of course you volunteered, didn't you? I said, sure, why not?
SPEAKER_00:So I've been on that board for seven or eight years now, and I and I truly enjoy that one. I mean, that's 24 people from one end of the state to the other. Um, we meet quarterly, and I enjoy that. I mean, it's people from you know, learning community in Omaha and Lincoln, and from Juanita Palisade to Imperial and Scotts Bluff. I mean, we have had one guy that flew his private plane into Lincoln for the meetings, and so it's all across the state and small schools, big schools, just everything imaginable. But uh, I enjoy that one a lot. That's that's I'll probably miss that one more than I will the local.
SPEAKER_02:Has there been school consolidation since you've been on the HTRS? Oh my yes. Okay, so get walk our walk folks through sort of the consolidation and some of the things that have arisen. Because I know those are tough, those are really tough decisions.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I might have lost some friends on that deal. Um not really. We uh when I got on the board, we we were just unified as humble Taborok Steener. We weren't fully consolidated. So then right about that time, Dawson Verdon was was gonna close. And the i the irony of the situation was the gentleman that was my football coach was then the superintendent at Dawson Verdon. He calls and he says, uh, which district do you want state line to be in? You know, that swings a lot of valuation. And I says, Coach, I says, I'm I'm not that guy. I says, you put it where it needs to go, which that's you know, I'm not. I'm not gonna I said, I'm not gonna make somebody mad one way or the other. So he put it where it needed to go. And then, you know, because then we had people that were talking about free holding land and stuff like that, and you know, and once that starts, Katie barred the door, because that's you know, it's just gonna happen. So they split that district kind of down Highway 75 and jogged around, and that went pretty peaceable. And then Southeast Consolidated, which was an early consolidated school down in this part of the state, um, we went to them, and we that's when we could still get state funding, and said, We want you to come with us. And they said, No, we don't have to do that. We're like, Well, listen to us. If if you agree to do this by year such and such, we can get X amount of dollars from the state. No, we don't want to do that. Like, okay. Well then time marches on, money disappears, and then they come and say, We have to do something. And we're like, Yeah, we know. So, you know, we wanted to work something with Fal City. Fall City didn't want anything to do with it. We're like, seriously? So we took them. You know, why wouldn't we? We got the majority of the land. I mean, our district goes clear over to Nimaha, you know, it's just huge.
SPEAKER_02:So in that southeast part of Nebraska, remind me just how many other school districts border you.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, we've got part of four counties in our district.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:In the high school's in Humboldt, right?
SPEAKER_00:Everything's in Humboldt.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_00:Because we used to have an attendant site in Taborack, and that was probably our biggest controversy, you know, was is when we closed that. The economics of that, you know, w it didn't make any sense because we were busing teachers, we were busing kids, it made no sense. Facilities needed X amount of dollars to to make them functional and and all that. And, you know, did we make a lot of friends? No. And then, you know, we ended up selling the school, and same with Southeast Consolidated Clothes. We ended up selling the school for a little bit of nothing, but we didn't need the facilities. It was probably a nicer facility than you know, part of what we had in Humboldt. But but then again, then you start talking buses, and you know, and that's just all things you gotta weigh out and consider. You can't be all things to all people. You have to weigh everything out, and it's not easy.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, these issues come up in every school consolidation debate. They're tough, right? I mean, I I get the emotions. Uh people say if we lose the school, we lose the town. So I understand that, but yeah, unfortunately, uh population issues, other issues, you have to make those tough calls. What do you see as the future for Southeast Nebraska? When I talk Southeast, I'm not talking Lincoln, I'm not talking Nebraska City, but sort of down where you're at. What are what are the challenges? What's the future?
SPEAKER_00:Biggest challenge is employment, is keeping people and giving them jobs, good jobs. Um, you know, there's there's got to be sustainability in keeping the population employed with good jobs. Um, you know, the housing, every time we've done a survey for the school district, the one thing that comes up is housing. Um, housing's got to be decent and it's got to be affordable. And and we've we've checked into that. We've we've tried to do things as a school district, I've tried to do things as an individual, and it's tough. Um, you know, these people have to make a decent living wage. I mean, we've upped our standard on how we pay our people, and it's just it's just tough. And I don't know, you know, of course, all of it's all of that's based on the the ag economy in this part of the world. It just is.
SPEAKER_02:So, Neil, something we ask all of our guests, and you just get one word. What's your one word that best describes to you this place where you grew up, where you attended the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, where you met your wife? One word that to you best describes Nebraska. What's your one word?
SPEAKER_00:The one word I'll come up with is loyal. Okay. Explain for us. I I look I look back, I mean, I've got loyal friends, I've got a loyal customer base. You look across this state, we've we've got a loyal follow- I mean, you know as well as I do. I'm not a football fan, but you look at the loyal fan base to the Huskers. I've got a loyal customer base, loyal friends. I mean, this whole state is is loyal. And you know, we're we're we're blessed to be where we're at, and we're blessed to live where we live. So that's as best as I can sum it up.
SPEAKER_02:Neil, thanks for taking some time with us. Very grateful that you would uh tell our listeners a little bit about yourself and your business and your public service. Folks, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing on Apple, Spotify, or whatever your favorite podcast app is. And uh why don't you do me a f a favor and do Neil a favor and give us a five-star rating? And please keep on listening as we release additional episodes on Nebraska. It's great communities, it's number one industry, agriculture, and the folks who make it happen.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks. This has been 93, the podcast. Sponsored by Nebraska's law firm, Rembolt Ludke.
