Annual Meetings

The 2013 Fayette County Conservation Farm Family Award goes to the Bob Knebel Family of Mulberry Grove. If we gave the award just for being nice people, Bob and Linda would win, hands down! But, the award is given to families who are good stewards of the land. They more than qualify on this point as well. So, besides being extremely nice people, Bob and Linda were chosen because they are conscientious conservationists.

They have been living on the farm they live now - on the west side of the county - since 1980. Bob has been farming for over 50 years. He operates about 1150 acres, with about 700 acres of that being cropland. Of the rest, over 130 acres are in CRP, from cool season grasses to quail buffer to riparian buffer to trees to grass waterways. He maintains 75 acres of pasture and 40 acres of hay to keep his 25 – 30 head of cows, and varying numbers of calves fed. Linda spent many years driving school bus for the Vandalia School District.

Bob and Linda have three sons: Rich and wife Carla have three boys and a girl (one of the boys is deceased); Steve, who, with his wife Laurna, have a son and two daughters; and Doug, married to Jennifer, and have two boys and two girls. Bob and Linda also have six great grandchildren.

Bob has recently officially retired from farming, letting son Steve take over, but I’ve got a feeling Steve is going to have a lot of help from dad.

Congratulations to Bob and Linda for this well deserved award.

The Conservation Farm Family Award is sponsored by the First National Bank of Vandalia.

Each year county schools participate in a local Envirothon competition. Each school brings five member teams to the event and they are tested on five subjects dealing with the environment. The Fayette County Soil & Water Conservation District provides each student participating from Fayette County with a t-shirt. The shirts this year were donated by Fayette County Farm Bureau. The district is responsible for putting a unique county logo on the back of the shirts. We come up with that logo each year by having a design competition in the vocational art department at Vandalia High School. This year’s winner, and winner of a $100 Visa Card, is Ashley Geiger.

Every year the Fayette County Soil & Water Conservation District holds a poster contest for all the 4th grade students in the county. A theme for the contest is set by the National Association of Conservation Districts. This year’s theme was “Where does your water shed?”. The students get a presentation on the theme, a poster board, and a deadline to have their posters completed. The district board, employees, and several volunteers then judge the posters and decide on a first, second, and third place. The winners get an engraved trophy and a Visa Card ($100, $75, and $50 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, respectively). The First National Bank of Brownstown sponsors the event every year, providing the poster boards, the trophies and the Visa Cards. This year’s winners were: 1st place, David Stine from St. Elmo Elementary School, son of Daniel and Natalie Stine, 2nd place, Ean Forbus from Ramsey Elementary School, son of Aaron and Keri Forbus, and, 3rd place, Alexa Byers from South Central Elementary School, Daughter of Brian and Erin Byers.

Click on the pictures to enlarge them!!

301 South Third Street
Vandalia, IL 62471
618-283-1095 ext. 3
8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Monday - Friday
Karen Sanders - fayettecountyswcd@att.net
Tony Pals - tony.pals@il.nacdnet.net