The Moos Room™

[music]
Joe: Welcome to The Moos Room, everybody. OG3 is here and we have a guest. It's someone that we've all been missing, haven't been able to see him very much during COVID. Tom Rothman is with us. Hi, Tom.
Tom: How are you? Good to see you.
Joe: Good. Yes, it's good to see you too. We really do miss seeing you at all these trade shows and being able to interact with you and see how you move through the room and just bring everybody together because that's really your job. Tom is the director of Agricultural Stakeholder Outreach and he is with Extension and we're super glad that he came out of radio to join Extension. He really keeps us all employed. We're really excited that he's here. He makes sure that everyone knows why Extension is a great thing and all the work that we do. Tom, I'm pretty interested in where you got started. Well, you grew up in Minnesota but not entirely in Minnesota, right? Where were you before that?
Tom: I was born in Mississippi. Lived down on a small hobby farm surrounded by a big cotton plantation. My father was a research scientist for the US Department of Agriculture. He was a plant pathologist and studied oat rust. He was raised in Michigan and went down to Mississippi in the 1950s with my mother and sisters and had a big awakening. Going from Michigan to Mississippi in the 1950s was a different deal for them. That's where I was born and grew up. Got transferred up here to the St. Paul campus at the University of Minnesota. I grew up right next to the campus. The rest is history.
Joe: Do you consider yourself a true Minnesotan then? Definitely?
Tom: Yes, now. Go Twins.
Joe: Yes. That's what we needed to hear.
[laughter]
Good work. All right, before we get into more background, there's two questions we ask every guest. They're very serious. Bradley already had told you before we got started here that there is a correct answer in his mind for one of them. We'll start on the beef side. We ask every guest what their favorite beef breed is.
Tom: That's interesting. There's a lot of cool breeds out there I have to say. I don't know if it's boring but I'm going to go with a good Hereford.
Bradley: Yes. That is the second correct-- Yes.
Joe: That is brutal. I just don't understand. They're pulling away. It's so definitive now. All right. For everyone who's keeping track at home, that puts Hereford's at six, Black Angus at three, Chianina at one, Brahman at one, Stabiliser at one, and Black Baldy at one. Wow.
Bradley: Wow.
Joe: Just pulling away. Pulling away.
Bradley: That has made my day, Tom. Thank you.
[laughter]
Tom: Black Angus was my second choice [unintelligible 00:03:00]
Emily: Joe's like second isn't first.
Joe: Doesn't help me now. No. All right. Well, let's get to the second question. Which is your favorite dairy breed? Again, there is a right choice.
Emily:
Joe: Lies. We'll see what you have to say.
Tom: Well, again, there's a lot of fun breeds but I have to say one in particular I've always liked because I saw them in their homeland and that was Brown Swiss.
Joe: Brown Swiss coming in strong.
Emily: That is a really great choice. They've made quite the runup here recently, haven't they?
Joe: They have. That actually ties them for first. That puts Holsteins at four, Brown Swiss now at four, Jersey at three, which was the correct answer. Dutch belted at two. Normandy at one. Mont Billiard at one.
Emily: You've been to Switzerland?
Tom: I've been there a couple of times and that's one of the coolest things in the world, is seeing those Brown Swiss with the giant bells on their necks and flowers on their heads coming out of the hills. That's really a pretty spectacular sight to see and to hear.
Emily: I bet.
Joe: When did you get a chance to go to Switzerland?
Tom: I went twice in the '90s on a personal thing. I went with my in-laws actually because they had been there once or twice before and stayed at some really nice towns, and just fell in love with the country. It was wonderful. My two sons were young. They got a chance to go too when they were in I think elementary school, maybe early junior high. It was fascinating. Love to go back.
Joe: We've talked about it before on this podcast, that that's one of the places that we'd like to go as The Moos Room and maybe Bradley can fund it with all the grant money that he has sleeping around.
Emily: There must be a trade show we can go to and then we can bring you with Tom.
Bradley: You're O tier. You're O tier.
Joe: All right. Perfect. It's a plan. I think probably a lot of our listeners know, and maybe they don't because they're pretty young. Tom started the Minnesota Ag Network in 1983, right, Tom?
Tom: Yes, 1983 we started Minnesota Farm Network and Minnesota News Network. I had worked about two and a half years in Waterloo, Iowa before that, that's where I started my radio career in 1980 and then spent 30 years in Minnesota beginning in 1983 to 2013 when I joined Extension.
Joe: Tom is really ahead of us on all this recording podcasting radio game.
Emily: He is actually an OG.
Joe: Yes. Definitely, I'm sure we'll spend probably an hour after this just having him tell us what we could do better and figure out how to step up our game. That's a really valuable piece of Minnesota. When I was in practice, I listened to the radio constantly. I was in the truck driving everywhere and every barn I went into had the radio going. For me, I think a lot of the younger generations think of radio as something very old and outdated, and I still think it plays a really big part, especially in the ag side of things. Is that something you see, Tom, still?
Tom: Yes, very much so. I think especially in greater Minnesota too, because one thing that radio can do very, very well is it can be part of a community. Especially in some smaller towns outside the metro area, radio is very involved with local sports, high school sports. That's a community thing. Local agriculture, that's a community thing. The obituaries, the school lunch menus, all those things. It's a community-oriented business and it can do that in a lot of ways better than social media and newspapers because it's more immediate and it's easy to have on in the barn or have on in the house or wherever, your truck, your car.
You don't have to really interact with it like you might have to with social media. You can just listen and it is still very valuable in a lot of communities. Again, I think especially in smaller non-metro areas, it's a very community-based industry
Emily: I bet each of us could name several of those little small-town stations that fit that exact description, Tom. I think that's very accurate.
Tom: I used to run into a lot of farmers, not as much anymore but they could tell they would live in a part of Minnesota, maybe South Central Minnesota and they could get several radio stations throughout the day that played what we used to call polka music or old-time music. They knew the radio station here X would play it at nine o'clock and then somebody else would play it at ten o'clock and somebody else would play it at 11:00, and they would just kind of move around the dial following their old-time music. I thought it was great.
Joe: I love that. There's definitely some nostalgia to the radio. I still listen to it in the shop when I'm working on something. I don't usually have anything else out there but a radio. I'm all for it. Does it worry you at all, Tom, with-- To me, it seems like some of the radio industry is consolidating. It's becoming bigger and bigger and bigger and you're starting to-- I don't know, at least on the music side for sure, you're losing some of that local feel, at least that's what I'm saying. Does that make you worried at all for the ag side of things as well?
Tom: Yes. I think we've seen that over the years that-- just like in agriculture, we've seen a lot of consolidation. There are a lot less seed companies out there than there were 20, 30 years ago. We've seen that consolidation too in radio. There aren't as many mom-and-pop shops as there used to be. They're owned by bigger companies now. I think a lot of these companies have realized that the strength of those radio stations is not becoming just a vanilla milkshake. Their importance is in that community like I talked about earlier.
They try to keep that local identity even though they're owned by a bigger corporation now, or an outfit that might own a dozen radio stations if not more. They still try in many cases, not always, but in many cases they still try to focus on the community. I think that's the key.
Bradley: One thing that I remember listening to the community feel while Joe probably had practiced a veterinarian down in Zambrotta, so you're down in the mighty 9/20 KDHL radio era. That was a staple in southern Minnesota for some of us on the AM side to listen for farm reports, livestock markets, you name it. It was all there and it still is. Maybe not quite the as local feel as what it used to be, but yes.
Tom: Well, a lot of it is. I think Jerry Gross [unintelligible 00:09:47]. Jerry's-
Emily: I was going to say, shout out to Jerry.
Tom: Jerry, he still grows corn and soybeans down on his farm, family's farm in Wells in Southern Minnesota. He's about as local as you can get. Jerry's a great guy. I recall when he started many, many years ago, and I was around two when his predecessor Dean Curtis was still the farm broadcaster at KDHL. That goes back quite a long time.
Bradley: Well, and I think some-- from that standpoint, there were some other stations. Well, WCCO and the Twin Cities used to have farm broadcasting and a farm program. I don't know how much they do anymore. It's hard to get WCCO out here in Western Minnesota, but that was a big part of WCCO back in the day too, was farm Broadcasting. Well, Roger Strom was at least the one that I knew there.
Tom: Yes. You can go back to Chuck Lilligren and Maynard Speece and people like that, that go back a long time. As the metro area grew and more people moved to the cities, there were fewer farmers. They made a decision at CCO. CCO was one of our big competitors when I was at the Minnesota Farm Network, and so we watched what they did very closely. They made a decision many years ago to not focus on agriculture anymore. They wanted to focus where the people were in the metro area, boards, Vikings News, that kind of thing.
Greater Minnesota is still a part of their audience, but they knew that if they had a lot of farm broadcasting, a lot of market reports and that kind of thing, they would lose that non-farm audience at certain times. They thought, "Well, this is a decision we're going to make." They got away from farm broadcasting for that very reason. Those of us who were on other stations around the states, some other networks, and other stations thought it was a great move. I'm not sure it was for them in the long run, but we liked it at the time.
Joe: Yes, it was good news for you guys. I remember talking with you at a trade show, Tom, and I remember you telling me that when you were doing a lot of live programs, it was a little bit of chaos in your life trying to run between all the different shows that you had to do every day. I don't remember how many you said you did every day, but it was quite a number and that was live. You have to be someplace at a specific time. Tell me a little bit how your life has changed since you've gotten out of that.
Tom: You don't realize I have a friend in who was in radio a long, long time, and he says the same thing, that you don't realize that your life is run by the clock so much every day. You think about it because you look at a clock a lot, but you don't really realize it until you leave, 'til I joined Extension and you can breathe. You're not looking at a secondhand. When you did network radio, which is what I did most of my life, and local radio too, you make decisions and you stop and start on the second.
If something's at 12:58, it's at 12:58, not 12:57, 56. It's a second, and you operate like that. Like this podcast, we would have to end at an exact time. Sometimes, that's not easy to do if you're still talking about a subject or your guest is still rambling away and you're trying to cut them off.
Emily: It's definitely-- yes, that one happened with us.
[laughter]
Bradly: Or Emily still rambling or--
Tom: That's right.
Emily: I would never.
Tom: It was a different-- I did 16 shows a day in radio when I left, and somewhere short market reports somewhere longer newscast, weather commentary, that kind of thing, and 16 times a day you had to be in your chair looking at that clock, looking at the second hand. If you were traveling to a meeting somewhere or going to the St. Paul campus for an interview or whatever it might be, you had to fight the traffic and get your car parked and get inside and sit down. I remember many times closing the door as the second hand hit 12, and I'm breathing like this and try not to sound like you just raced into the studio, but a lot of people do that.
Joe: That sounds like a lot of work and yes, and stressful to be governed by the clock to that extent. It's not just five minutes here or five minutes there to the second, it's-- that would wear on you over after a while.
Tom: It's funny, I talked to a lot of people who are no longer in radio and they still have dreams at night that the second hand has hit 12 and they're not ready and then they wake up.
Emily: Oh, no.
Tom: Or they don't have any script in front of them and they don't know what they're talking about and their sounder goes off and they're ready and--
Emily: Wow.
Tom: It's one of those things that stays with you.
Emily: Apparently.
[laughter]
Joe: Yes, definitely stays with you.
Emily: Tom, before we move into talking a little bit more about what you do currently with Extension, I was just curious, as I was thinking about this earlier today, we were having you on, and I'm really curious and try to be brief, but what are the biggest ways that you've noticed the ag landscape has changed since you've been involved in ag?
Tom: Wow. Well, when I started, as I mentioned, it was in the '80s and I started in Minnesota in 1983, and it was right at the beginning of the farm crisis years. I was in my early 20s and I was still a greenhorn, learning things. That was a real difficult time. That was a real difficult time and it was hard. Now, we have the power of social media and interaction and the internet and 24-hour news cycles and we know what's going on a little bit more now than we did then. I think if we had all of this back in say, 1985 in the heart of the farm crisis, I think the landscape would've looked really pretty bad to a lot of us.
There was a tremendous amount of stress and it was tough. People were getting shot and suicide was a serious issue, but we didn't hear about it as much as we do now. It did change a lot. Emily, you asked how it really changed and for me, it doesn't really change that much. It goes in these cycles. Everybody knows in agriculture there's cycle. We know about price cycles and downs and the good years and bad years and we're seeing that cycle again of, well, things aren't always so good. Some people are doing well, a lot of people aren't.
To me, the change is the fact that it really hasn't changed. It's cycles, it's different, but there's still a lot of great people in agriculture, a lot of people that work so hard. I think folks in agriculture talk often about the people in the city don't understand agriculture and don't understand where their food comes from. You've all heard that, but to me, I don't think a lot of people in the city understand the stress that a lot of farmers are under just producing food.
It's a lot of work, you know that. Look at dairy alone, that's a lot of work. It's a lot of physical, it's a lot of mental stress but I don't think a lot of people who aren't from the farm really understand it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work and things don't always go as planned. We all know about weather issues and livestock diseases and other problems. There's a lot of things that people never think about unless they're dealing with it every day. I know that was a long, weird answer to your question, Emily.
Emily: No, that was great.
Joe: Yes. I'm actually really surprised how often I'm in the city because I live in the city now, and I run into people that do have an agricultural background in the city. Yes, maybe they didn't grow up on a dairy farm, but they spent time on a dairy farm at least and they have some kind of connection. I think that's probably pretty unique to Minnesota, maybe the Midwest in general. It's nice to see that there are still a lot of people in the city that have some connection. I wish it was more, I really do so they could understand the stress, like you said, Tom, that goes along with not only where your food comes from, but how it's made and how much effort it takes to do that.
Tom: Twin Cities are unique because we have companies here, so many big companies based in the Twin Cities CHS and Land O'Lakes and Cargill and the University of Minnesota and you can go on and on with all these companies. There is some ag knowledge in the Twin Cities, no doubt about it, but there's a lot of people that don't get it.
Joe: That's why we're doing podcasts like this, trying to get the word out, trying to do all these kind of things. We encourage everybody to listen, not just if you're a cow producer or dairy or beef producer. There's a lot to learn here on The Moos Room most of the time.
[laughter]
Bradley: It's even a lot of work.
Emily: Bold claim Joe. Bold claim.
Bradley: It's a lot of work even with one cow.
Joe: Yes, Bradley milked one cow.
Bradley: I've milked one cow through the pandemic. She went to another farm last weekend, but I just couldn't do it anymore.
Emily: Okay. Bradley, be honest. Did you cry when she left?
Badley: I was sad when she left
Emily: [laughs] Okay, okay.
Bradley: I didn't really [crosstalk] I was sad.
Tom: He didn't really answer the question, did he?
Joe: No, he didn't, he didn't answer it at all.
Emily: Was there something in your eye when you pulled out the drive?
Bradley: Yes, that's right.
Joe: For sure.
Emily: Funny how that happens.
Bradley: Anyways.
Joe: Tom said Go Twins earlier and I'm pretty sure he is a pretty big baseball fan. I even think that at some point that might have been a career option for you in the past.
Tom: You have a good memory. Yes, no actually I did stumble into farm broadcasting, I have to be honest. I started at the University of Minnesota. I mentioned earlier my father was a plant pathologist and I spent a lot of time on campus as a kid helping him water plants on the weekend and that kind of thing. I started at the U as an agronomy major, that's what I started as on the St. Paul campus, and then realized right away that that probably wasn't for me.
I enjoyed the science of it all, but I got into ag journalism right away, and after a couple of years, I was your typical 20-year-old, or 19, at the time, wondering what to do. I always loved photography and I loved baseball and I thought, "You know what? I'm going to go to a broadcasting school and become a professional TV cameraman." That's what I wanted to do.
When I got to the school, they found out I was in ag journalism for a couple years at the U and they said, "Why don't you become a farm broadcaster? There's a big demand for them out there." I said, "Well, sure, but what's that?" [laughs] I didn't have much exposure to farm broadcasting other than CCO that my parents had on. I was talked into going in that direction and got a job down in Iowa and worked down there and then back to Minnesota. I had a lot to learn, let's put it that way. Big learning curve. Really big learning curve for Tom.
Joe: Do still do some of the photography?
Tom: I still like photography, but that's changed. Emily was asking about how agriculture's changed. I have some wonderful gear that I'd be willing to sell you real cheap from the 1980s and 70's, but now everybody just holds their camera up and takes a picture and really nice pictures.
Joe: Yes. I used to-- even when I was in high school, we had a photography class and I would be in the darkroom and we used to develop x-rays in the darkroom as well. I've had that experience and there's something about it that's really nice. I like the darkroom, but yes, it's changed a little bit now that pretty much every phone has a camera that's better than anything I had in high school.
Tom: That's right.
Joe: You still follow The Twins, I assume?
Tom: Still follow The Twins. Yes. Hopefully, they'll be back to a normal season this year or something close to it.
Joe: I hope so. Do you make it down to spring training ever?
Tom: I went one year, but I didn't get a chance to go to The Twins. It was actually during a convention and something happened. I think we had weather issues and never got to see a game. I used to go to Arizona every once in a while and get to see the Cubs play and the San Francisco Giants play. I never really got to see a twin's game in spring training.
Joe: Well, it sounds like we just identified our next Moos Room trip that Tom will be joining us on.
Bradley: That is right. There's plenty of agriculture in Florida we can explore and learn about.
Tom: Count me in on that one.
Joe: Completely different system.
Emily: Yes, I know some people. I'll make some calls.
[laughter]
Joe: Okay. Emily's on it. We got two trips planned. We're going to Switzerland and Fort Myers. That's what we're doing.
Emily: Perfect. The Moos Room on the road.
Joe: We should talk about your job now, Tom. We've talked plenty about your past and I alluded to what you do now, but tell us about your role and briefly tell us about your role and then really tell us about how your role has changed since COVID started and how much harder it's become.
Tom: Well, there is change involved because as you know, the University of Minnesota offered an early retirement buyout to a lot of people. My three-person department is down to one. It's down to me now because my two coworkers are retiring. My job is changing as of January 1, so it'll be a little different. I'll be doing a lot of the same stuff in agriculture and going to trade shows and farm fest and that kind of work. I do now some government relations work and I'll be doing quite a bit more on the state and federal level for Extension.
Basically trying to get lawmakers and their staff to understand what Extension is all about. As you know, Extension's huge. There's a lot of stuff done at Extension. I'm still learning. I've been at Extension eight years and I'm still learning all the different things. All of you are involved in agriculture, which I think a lot of people associate Extension with, but it's also communities and families and youth 4-H, it's natural resource work.
It's huge and it's important to get lawmakers to understand, the general public to understand what Extension is all about. There's still a lot of people, maybe you get it, who think Extension is really means night classes at the university. That's what Extension is because that's what it was thought of years and years and years ago. You take an Extension class at night and you get credit for going to college. That's not Extension, but there are people that have that in their mind. Our job and my job is to try to help people in agriculture or elsewhere now in government to understand all that Extension does, and it's a lot.
Joe: It is a ton. I think Emily has talked about it before on the podcast that it's just-- it's huge and yes, we focus a lot on the ag, but there's a lot of other pieces and there's a lot of other people that do amazing work. I think a lot of times, it runs in the background and people are unaware that Extension is the one that's the driving force behind a lot of these things that are happening. I think it's great that you have the opportunity or the ability to get that word out there because we do. I'm not afraid to take credit, these guys know, but I think a lot of our other colleagues are a little more humble not Bradley, but--
Emily: Not to toot your own horn, but toot-toot, right?
Joe: Yes, exactly.
Bradley: You got to do that.
Tom: You have to remember that two-thirds, two thirds of the employees of Extension faculty and staff are outside the Twin Cities metro area. Part of the university that's all around the state of Minnesota, Extension has an office of various sizes in every county of the state, often associated with the county and 4-H programs. We're all over Minnesota doing good work and it varies from county to county the kind of work, but it's amazing when you look at the breadth of work that Extension is involved in.
Joe: Yes, I think it's a great place if you want to find people that are very proud of their state, proud of the culture that Extension has tried to build around the state. You're not going to find more passionate people in my mind who really love the state and really want to showcase what the state has to offer to the rest of the country and to the world. That's perfect. That's where we want to be.
Emily: Joe, that's so nice.
Joe: I know, it's weird. It's weird having it.
Emily: It's like I'm get a little bit choked up over here. Wow.
Tom: One of the things I really like about working at Extension is I'm often asked to moderate panels at various kinds of things, and I always look to see if there's someone from Extension on the panel, because without fail, when I moderate something and there's an extension person, there's never dead air. People with Extension love to communicate, they love to talk. That's what Extension's all about, is communicating knowledge to people and it's great. I love having Extension staff and faculty on panels because you're not boring. I'll tell all three of you, you're not boring. You have the gift of gab.
Joe: That's great.
Tom: That's a big deal. Nobody wants to listen to boring people. They want to listen to people who have something to say who enjoy what they're saying, who are passionate about their work, and that really sums up a lot of people in Extension.
Emily: Yes. Boy, if you're looking for three unboring passionate people, no further than The Moos Room, that's for sure.
Joe: Tom, I've actually noticed that that same thing holds true for Extension in other states as well. Do you get a chance to work with other state Extension offices or services ever?
Tom: No, I meet a few in some of the national gatherings that we've had for government relations work, but I don't really get to work in my role yet with too many folks from Extension in other parts of the state. A little bit with EDEN, which is the Extensions Disaster Education Network, but I'm still kind of new to that committee. Just starting to learn more about folks from other states.
Joe: I've noticed there's definitely an immediate comradery when I've been at conferences or other places and you say that you're-- especially veterinary conferences. If I say I'm a veterinarian that works for Extension, it seems like for whatever reason, all the Extension veterinarians tend to just end up together. Maybe it's because we're the only ones still at the bar at 2:00 AM, but we end up in the same place every time. There's definitely a sense of comradery with other states for the most part. I think it's an amazing group to be a part of.
Emily: Yes, you are so right, Joe. I think that is-- I've gone to different national conferences and you just have those people that become rock solid friends, like our former guest, John David. That's a perfect, perfect example of one.
Bradley: Well, one thing I have-- so how do we tell the public and other people in the state, the value of Extension? How do we communicate that value to people? Sometimes we struggle trying to think about what we do. Does it have impact for people? Does it impact people all over the state? Sometimes I think we all struggle with how do we communicate that and how do we determine the impact that our work in Extension has for the state or the US.
Tom: Well, you're right Brad. It's a difficult thing and I think if it was easy we would've all accomplished it already some time ago. I don't think there's one way to do it. I think it takes a collective group of not only people within Extension but our supporters, our volunteers at Master Gardeners or 4-H or wherever they might be to help spread the word as well. It's sometimes just person-to-person contact, a neighbor telling a neighbor. Sometimes it's you speaking at a conference talking about your work and the impact that it has on organic dairy farmers, for instance.
Everything we do adds up. I don't think any one of us can do something that's going to change the collective view of Extension, but with all of us making sure that we let people know that it's Extension doing this work and it's Extension staff and faculty bringing that knowledge to the public and this is our work and this is the impact it's having on people. I think that's how we get it done. We have to do it collectively because one of us isn't going to make a difference.
Emily: I think that's a really great point, Tom. I like that because I was reminded of this too earlier when you were talking about all the variety of work that Extension does. We have our different areas of work around the organization but we're also all very connected. In one way or another, our work feeds off of each other. I feel like that's also why it's important to have that collective voice from Extension because we can all tell a different part of that story.
Tom: A lot of people outside of Extension who have some knowledge of Extension, usually only understand Extension because of their connection. They might be a 4-H adult leader. That's really how they know Extension is 4-H or they might be connected at the tourism center somehow and that's their connection to Extension work. We have to make sure that people understand the breadth that we talked about earlier of all the things that Extension is involved in. That's what we try to do with lawmakers.
If you meet with a staff person, you only meet for 15 minutes, a half hour. There's no way you can explain everything that Extension does. You try to hit the highlights, you try to hit things that those lawmakers or others might be interested in but you always try to make sure they understand that there's a whole lot more that-- "We'll be back again to tell you about that too."
Emily: I've had the opportunity to go to DC with Extension and speak to our lawmakers and their staffers. I know it's overwhelming to think about, okay, I want to tell them everything I'm doing but I need to pick the one or two really big ones and keep it to 30 seconds. They always seem really interested in what we're doing and happy with what we're doing. It's been a little eye-opening to me as I have interacted with Extension employees from around the country.
There isn't always strong support from their state government for Extension. We are just so, so, so fortunate that we have so much support coming in from no matter the party, no matter the area of the state. There's a lot of respect for our work and people really see it as a priority. I think that's really, really cool and says a lot about what we do in Minnesota.
Tom: I think that says a lot about Extension personnel. Around the state. They do have an impact on their community no matter what area of Extension they're working in. They do have an impact. A lot of lawmakers do see that. They do know that. The work is not just a one visit and you're done. This is an ongoing educational process to let people know-- not just lawmakers, but everybody. You can't just do it once and move on. It's an ongoing educational process. I think we've done some good job and you and you're right, Emily. There are a lot of lawmakers that do understand the value of Extension in Minnesota and the research work at the University of Minnesota. Not just Extension but the collective [inaudible 00:33:35] University adds value to the state. That's brought to the state oftentimes by Extension.
Emily: Absolutely.
Joe: Perfect. Any other questions for Tom? Tom, any questions for us?
Emily: It's like a job interview. [laughs]
[laughter]
Tom: Any good movies? Have you seen any good movies lately?
Joe: Any good movies? No. Since my child was born, we have not watched a single movie.
Emily: Oh, wow.
Joe: Tonya Harding movie last night.
Bradley: [crosstalk] That's Emily's Field.
Tom: I was going to ask Emily if she saw that and if she thought of-- accurate.
Emily: [laughs] The actual skating in it was not accurate at all. There's one part I think they say like, "Oh, she did a triple toe loop," and the stunt skater did a double flip and it was like, "Okay, whatever."
Joe: We just opened a big can of worms with that. Sorry.
Emily: I'll put a lock on it.
[laughter]
Joe: I think before we get down to the wormhole of figure skating with Emily, I think we'll just wrap it there. We'll call it a day. Thank you Tom for being on. We really appreciate it.
Tom: Thank you for having me. It was fun.
Joe: We try to have fun here. That's what we try to do. If you don't think we had fun or you didn't have fun listening, you have scathing rebuttals, comments, questions, please send them to themoosroom@umn.edu.
Emily: That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M@umn.edu.
Joe: Please check out the website, extension.umn.edu, and check us out on Facebook @UMNBeef and @UMNDairy. Thanks for listening everybody. We'll catch you next week.
Emily: Bye
Tom: Bye.
Emily: Why didn't you push the Twitter?
Joe: I'm not ready yet. I don't even know what our handle is.
Emily: It's @UMNmoosroom.
Bradley: The Moos Room. T-H-E-M-O-O-R-S--
[laughter]
M-O-O-R-S. Did I mess it up?
Joe: Yes. Every time. Every time.
[00:35:45] [END OF AUDIO]

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