‘Here to celebrate you:’ PIP breakfast salutes agri-business
Published 12:10 am Saturday, March 22, 2025
Members of the FFA from Corriher Lipe Middle School led in the Pledge of Allegiance. They are pictured with Amy-Lynn Albertson, who served as the program emcee. She is the director of the N.C. Cooperative Extension, Rowan County Center. – Karen Kistler
Rowan County FFA students served the buffet breakfast prior to the start of the program. — Karen Kistler
Jolene Brown served as the
Pat Phifer, mayor of Cleveland, shared some remarks. The town served as one of the event sponsors. – Karen Kistler
Doug Patterson, president of Farm Bureau Rowan County, addressed the crowd. Farm Bureau was another event sponsor. – Karen Kistler
Karen Kistler
karen.kistler@salisburypost.com
A salute to agri-business was the theme for the Rowan County Chamber of Commerce’s March 20 Power in Partnership Breakfast, which was held in the newly opened Rowan Community Center on Jake Alexander Boulevard.
Sponsors for this month’s event were AgSouth Farm Credit ACA, Patterson Farm Inc., Farm Bureau Rowan and Town of Cleveland.
Iowan author Jolene Brown served as the guest speaker for the morning event as she addressed the topic of “It’s a Jungle Out There! Blazing New Trails in Agriculture” through storytelling and information.
She also provided opportunities for the audience to participate and ask and answer questions with those seated around them.
A professional speaker, author and as she was called, a true “Farmer Brown,” she said that a long time ago she learned “what it meant to be a neighbor. If somebody needs help, what do you do, you help your neighbor. And if you need help, they help you and never once was money exchanged.”
Brown then told those gathered, “I want you to know, I love being your neighbor from afar, and I am mighty glad to be here today” and encouraged them to celebrate this amazing new center.
Looking around the room as she spoke, Brown told of the things they have to deal with, such as weather, rules and regulation, including food safety, worker compensation and the marketplace.
“We’re riding on this roller coaster, and we need to do it together,” she said.
Four big influencers affect our decisions and the pathways we have to take, Brown said, as she related what those are to a hike she and her husband took while on a recent trip to Australia.
There was no trail and they had multiple challenges, both terrain and animals along the way, which they had to get through before they could reach their final destination of a beautiful waterfall.
Similar to those challenges on the hike, she said that influencers that affect us can be things that stop us.
So the first influencer she mentioned is that pace has changed.
“We want what we want and we want it right now,” Brown said, adding that “we are educated for that too” as she pointed out technology such as AI, ChatGPT, YouTube and Amazon.
“You see how the pace has accelerated. Have we kept up with the pace?” Brown asked. “The world has changed, and you can’t hide from technology.”
A second influencer is people, and she said, “there are people out there who don’t understand what we do, but they get to decide what we do” and added that thankfully we have the Farm Bureau who not only teaches but goes to the legislature and lets them know the partnerships that are needed.
Process, or how things are done, is the third influencer.
“I have learned that everything must be monitored and measured, she said, which includes the genetics of the seed, the processing, crop protection, how it’s stored and where it ends up. “They want to know everything along the way,” said Brown.
The fourth and final influencer she spoke about is products.
When asked what she does for a living, Brown said she doesn’t give that answer right away, but will let them know she is in the industry that is involved in making the food for their family, the clothing on their back and the fuel for their car. “I am an American farmer,” she said, which brought applause from the audience.
She then told the crowd, that “the value of what you and I do is in the eye of the purchaser not the producer.”
Brown said to the crowd that no matter what stage of life they are in and wherever they are in their career, they need to “be ready for surprises and understand how the pace, the people, the process and the products have all changed.” And then she concluded with a question, “But have we?”
Multiple other groups and individuals in the farming community participated in the program as well as being in the audience including the recipients of this year’s Conservation Farm Family of the Year and others in the farming industry, all who were asked to stand and be recognized.
Amy-Lynn Albertson, director of the N.C. Cooperative Extension, Rowan County Center, served as the emcee for the morning and thanked everyone for coming and when asking the farmers to stand, she said, “we would love to recognize you. This is about you. We are here to celebrate you.”
As guests arrived, a hot breakfast buffet awaited them, which was prepared and served by West Rowan High School Culinary and FFA students.
Students from South and East Rowan helped with the set up and clean up.
Albertson expressed thanks to the students who, she said, “got up really early this morning, and they’ve been working this week.”
Additional meal donations and decorations were provided by Rowan-Salisbury Schools Career & Technical Education, the Rowan County Farm Bureau Women’s Committee, Mean Mug Coffee Company, Lutheridge Dairy Farm, Cauble Creek Vineyard, Piedmont Research Station, Corriher Sausage, Patterson Farms, Church Creek Farm and Farmer’s Daughter Organics.
As the program began, FFA students from Corriher-Lipe Middle School led in the Pledge of Allegiance followed by Rowan County 4-H students leading everyone in the 4-H pledge.
Several individuals make remarks prior to the guest speaker coming to the stage.
One of these included Steve Fisher, chairman of the chamber board, who had everyone that works for Rowan County to stand, and as the applause continued, he said, “standing here and looking out over this room, I do it with great pride. This is an amazing space. Thank you all for this gift to our community. It’s incredible.”
Welcoming everyone to the chamber’s salute to agri-business, he told the crowd that the chamber is turning 100 years old this year. He reminded everyone about the ribbon cutting after the program and additional chamber events that are coming up in the year.
Pat Phifer, mayor of Cleveland, which served as one of the sponsors, spoke, telling that he, like Fisher, was blown away with this building and that for him, he couldn’t “think of a better group to stand in front of, people I have the absolute utmost respect for,” he said.
He recited something that he recalled hanging on his grandmother’s wall that he said, “explains why you guys mean so much to me.” He said it went like this, “those who plant beneath the sod and wait and see, believe in God.”
Thanking the chamber and commissioners, Phifer thanked the crowd and said it was a “great big honor for us to do this.”
Two members of the Patterson Farm family were acknowledged. One was Michelle Patterson, chair of the agri-business committee, was recognized by Fisher.
And, Doug Patterson, president of the Rowan County Farm Bureau, which also served as a program sponsor, shared a few words, first telling of their four generation family farm and thanking those who planned this event “to honor farmers.”
He said that many are probably aware of Farm Bureau Insurance but he also told of the Farm Bureau Federation, who he said, “is the voice of farmers in North Carolina.”
The farmers in the county can give their ideas to the federation, he said, who can then pass them to the state and they can take them to the federal.
Patterson said this was important because it’s “hard for the farmer individually to get their problems to the legislature. The farmers don’t have time to do that alone so collectively we take those ideas and take them to where they need to go so that we can help with regulations, policies, issues that concern farmers.”
He then announced that on Wednesday, there were 300 Farm Bureau members who went to Raleigh with the disaster, and it was approved for Western North Carolina.
“So help is coming to them, and we are so proud of that,” he told the crowd.
An emotional video about the farmers in Western North Carolina was shown about the farmers there, and while facing their own problems are reaching out and helping their neighbors first.
The video, Patterson said, is “about farmers and who we are,” adding that it “shows the heart of farms and farm families and community.”
The event concluded with Albertson once again thanking the sponsors and inviting everyone to join in the ribbon cutting ceremony.
