Saturday, February 14, 2026
Home Blog Page 464

The Worst Jobs I’ve Ever Had

By
Lee Pitts
-
0
lee pitts

Here are the ten worst jobs I’ve ever had.

#10- Turning over hay bales- As a teenager I worked on a ranch hauling hay from the fields to the hay shed. Before the bales could be stacked on the truck the bales had to be turned over so the elevator could pick them up. I walked along kicking over the bales knowing that under one out of ten bales there’d be a snake and in one out of ten of those instances it would be a rattler. Needless to say, it kept me on my toes!

#9- Smudging- I grew up in the “citrus capital of the world” and one of my jobs in high school was having my own smudge crew. Before it got down to 28 degrees I’d call up my team members and we’d go light smudge pots which burned a thick nasty oil that turned the air black in our valley. I darn near froze to death and I had a smoker’s cough at age 18 without ever having smoked anything. Smudging did have one bright side. The following morning we had to refill the pots and that was an accepted excuse for missing school.

# 8- Mucking out stalls- I liked being around the horses but it was at a riding academy for rich girls. When they’d see me at school they’d look down their snooty noses at me and pinch them as if I stunk. I give this as the reason why I never had a single date in high school.

#7- Picking lemons- I did this for a rich lady my mom sewed for. I picked with a professional crew who could average 50 boxes per day, while the best I ever got up to was 19. This job also had a good side. The lady saw I was a hard worker and hired me to park cars for her when she had fancy parties. What other 16 year old can say they drove both a Corvette and a Rolls Royce?

#6- Compressor plant- I was the assistant to a mechanic in a compressor plant in the oilfields in one of the hottest spots in America. We’d work in short 15 minute bursts inside the plant where it got up to 125 degrees and then run outside to cool down where it was only 115.

#5- Teaching college- Believe it or not, I taught at a junior college part time. I taught animal science to classes of six or eight urban kids who only took the class because they thought it would be an easy A. I hated teaching, felt guilty taking their money and never gave anyone an A.

#4- Killing rabbits- One of my more profitable enterprises in high school was raising rabbits to sell to misplaced Okies and Arkies who grew up eating rabbit. The cute white bunnies still visit me in my nightmares.

#3- Painting trees- Another job in the citrus industry was painting the trunks of lemon trees with a nasty substance that was called something like “bore-dough”. It stopped ants and spiders from crawling up the tree trunks and I think it’s the reason I’ve been a chronic in the sick pen most of my life.

#2- Selling ads- I was hired at the ripe old age of 21 to travel a territory for a livestock paper. I was supposed to sell cattle auction ads in return for my working the upcoming sale as a ring man. My territory included southern California, Arizona, Utah and Clark County, Nevada which contained not a single cow. My commission was 33% but driving two days to Utah and back and paying all my expenses for one third of $350 didn’t seem like a good way to get rich.

#1- Dusting furniture- I began my career at the age of ten dusting furniture every Friday for my Grandpa who owned a furniture store. On one side of the store were the appliances, couches and carpet which really didn’t require that much dusting. Naturally, my older brother got to dust that side of the store. I had to dust the building next door which contained unfinished wooden furniture, every square inch of which had to be dusted. Rubbing salt in the wound, we both got paid the same dollar.

I’ve never dusted a piece of furniture since then!.

HPAI detection in Kansas diary herds

By
tammiehoeme
-
0

The Kansas Department of Agriculture (KDA), in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA– APHIS), has identified highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in two commercial dairy operations. These are the first cases of HPAI in commercial dairy operations in Kansas. Initial testing by the National Veterinary Services Laboratories has not found changes to the virus that indicate mammal-to-mammal transmission, indicating that the risk to the public remains low.

There is no concern about the safety of the commercial milk supply or that this circumstance poses a risk to consumer health. The pasteurization process of heating milk to a high temperature ensures milk and dairy products can be safely consumed, as confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). In line with long-standing policy, the CDC does not recommend consuming unpasteurized milk or raw milk. Pasteurization has continually proven to successfully inactivate bacteria and viruses, like influenza, in milk. Dairies are also required to only allow milk from healthy animals to enter the food supply chain.

KDA continues to encourage all dairy producers to closely monitor their herd and contact their local veterinarian immediately if cattle appear infected. Symptoms are mostly restricted to late-stage lactating cows and include a drop in milk production, loss of appetite, and changes in manure consistency. We encourage dairy producers to minimize wildlife access to their dairy cattle’s water and feed sources.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment works to protect and improve the health of all Kansans. The agency has been notified of the findings and will monitor the situation as they did for HPAI when it was found in the poultry industry.

The Kansas Department of Agriculture is dedicated to serving Kansas farmers, ranchers, agribusinesses and the consumers/customers they serve while promoting public health and safety, protecting animal health, and providing consumer protection and food safety to the best of its ability.

HPAI Detection in Kansas Dairy Herds

n in Kansas diary herds

What’s holding back US hard white wheat in world markets?

By
Guest Columnist
-
0

A wheat variety introduced just 34 years ago shows great promise for United States wheat producers to better compete in world markets, if some challenges can be overcome.

Hard white wheat was created as a distinct wheat class in 1990. A very close genetic cousin of hard red winter wheat, its main difference is that it lacks the red coloring in its endosperm. That red color imparts a taste to flour made with hard red winter wheat that some consider more “wheaty” or even bitter. Hard white wheat flour can have slightly less protein than hard red winter wheat, although its protein content is still much higher than traditional refined white flour.

Hard white is the flour in bread you see labeled “whole wheat white” in the supermarket bread aisle and in bakeries. It’s popular among millers because they can get more flour per unit from hard white kernels. It’s very popular with U.S. consumers, who want the nutritional benefits of whole wheat flour, but with the “sweeter” taste and appearance of traditional white-flour bread and none of the “grainy” texture and feel of whole wheat bread made with hard red winter wheat.

The golden wheat picture above is a photo by Ipezibear from Pixabay.

Asian influence

Hard white wheat was originally developed for Asian noodles and soft bread products, like the steamed buns popular in many Asian cuisines. It can be grown in Pacific Northwest states, close to West Coast export outlets to Asia. Demand for products made with hard white wheat is strong both domestically and in foreign—especially Asian—markets.

One big advantage of hard white wheat, according to Kansas wheat producer Ron Suppes, who grows hard white wheat and white food-grade sorghum, is that Russia doesn’t grow any. Russia currently manipulates world market prices for hard red winter wheat by its massive output, controlling a portion of Ukrainian wheat output and lowering its prices. Its hard red winter wheat is lower in protein than the American variety, but Russia is under-pricing American hard red winter wheat in the Middle East and African countries.

So with all those advantages going for hard white wheat, what is keeping U.S. wheat growers from growing more of it?  The U.S. Wheat Associates’ Hard White Wheat Committee estimates U.S. hard white wheat production to be just about 463,000 metric tons, vs. 514 million bushels (13,988,767 metric tons) of hard red winter wheat in 2023.

Hard red winter wheat

Hard red winter wheat, used mostly for bread flour, accounts for about 40% of total production and is grown throughout the Great Plains (northern Texas through Montana). Hard red spring wheat accounts for about 25% of production and is grown primarily in the Northern Plains (North Dakota, Montana, Minnesota and South Dakota). Soft red winter wheat, grown in more southerly states, makes up 15% to 20% of wheat production in any given year.

U.S. wheat growers recognize the advantages of hard white wheat. According to U.S. Wheat Associates, it’s become especially popular in west central Kansas, although thousands of acres of hard white wheat had to be abandoned—like other acres — during the drought of the past two years.

According to a study last year by the Kansas Wheat Commission, Kansas Association of Wheat Growers, Kansas Grain and Feed Association and the Kansas Cooperative Council, “Hard white winter wheat varieties continue to be popular among some western Kansas farmers for their high yields, disease resistance and quality. As U.S. wheat importers understand, the biggest challenge for hard white is market liquidity and continuity of trade into the marketplace. Kansas Wheat continues to work with the grain handling industry and Federal Grain Inspection Service to revise the grain standards to facilitate hard white movement in domestic and international markets and lessen the burden on grain handlers.”

One challenge is infrastructure. For growers and handlers to fully service foreign demand, while continuing to supply robust domestic demand for hard white wheat, significant investments for separate handling and storage facilities would be required.

More needed

The next best thing to that expense is to increase the amount of hard white wheat allowed in other wheat types. Several wheat organizations asked the Agricultural Marketing Service for classification changes in 2022, either creating one blended “hard winter wheat” category that allows up to 25% of hard white wheat to be blended with hard red winter wheat or by allowing the same amount of “other wheat categories” in the hard red winter wheat classification. Others said they remained satisfied with the current classification system, though, and the AMS made no changes in 2022.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Small Grains Annual Summary, released Sept. 29, 2023, production of the 2023 U.S. hard white crop was estimated to have increased by 32% from last year’s 0.5 million metric tons, equal to the 5-year average, but still totaling only 0.6 mmt. Most of that is used domestically. Although overseas demand is strong, “We have to be specific where and how we promote it overseas because we just don’t have that much of it left over for export,” said Steve Mercer, vice president of communication for U.S. Wheat Associates.

The prospects for hard white wheat offer a window of opportunity for beleaguered dryland wheat growers, but they are threatened by the same factors impinging on all wheat growers this year.

“Although some input costs have moderated from a year ago, other things have not,” Suppes said. “Several big bear factors have come into play since last year. Perhaps the biggest is interest rates. Currently operating loans are a minimum of 10% interest. Hard red winter wheat prices have dropped about $3 per bushel, sorghum prices have dropped about $2 per bushel as well, while machinery costs have gone up. All these factors greatly affect our bottom line. But the biggest factor in front of us at present is looming drought.  Although we have been fortunate to be able to get a good stand of wheat, it will soon be running out of available moisture.”

Digital Edition 03.27.24

By
tammiehoeme
-
0
digital edition

Digital Edition 03.27.24

4 Kansas Pharmacists Are Taking On The Prescription Drug Industry, And Their Company Is Growing

By
Guest Columnist
-
0

By Bek Shackelford-Nwanganga
Kansas News Service

The four pharmacy owners formed their own pharmacy benefit manager to take on the huge companies that influence how much people pay for medications.
After years of frustration with mega companies, a group of four Kansas pharmacists is working to change the pharmacy benefit manager trade from the inside out – by creating their own, different kind of pharmacy benefit manager called Oread Rx.
Nate Rockers, owner of Rockers Pharmacy in Paola, Kansas, said the current pharmacy benefit manager situation is dire.
“The industry has morphed away from what we think is the right practice, in an industry that is rife with opportunities for abuse,” Rockers said.
The Kansas company formed in late 2018 is aimed at disrupting a multi-billion dollar industry where major companies decide how much people pay for drugs in their insurance plans, and critics say the pharmacy benefit managers are making big profits in the process while lacking transparency.
To understand what is different about Oread, it helps to understand the complex business of pharmacy benefit managers, also known as PBMs.
PBMs: the ‘middlemen’ of the pharmaceutical world
Health policy expert Karen Van Nuys is the executive director of the University of California Shaeffer Center’s Value of Life Sciences Innovation, a research program aimed at transforming health care.
Pharmacy benefit managers were created in the 1960s when insurance companies started offering prescription medication as a benefit. According to some research, the first PBMs were created by pharmacists. Van Nuys said PBMs were originally designed to help insurance companies process claims.
“It was a sort of high volume, low margin, back-office kind of business,” she said. “Figuring out who needed to be paid what and then processing those transactions.”
Now, PBMs create what are called formulary lists, which include the medication brands that insurance plans will cover. Also, the companies negotiate prices with drug manufacturers and process claims. Over the years, as the health care landscape evolved, the influence of PBMs has, too. The top three pharmacy benefit managers are commonly referred to as the Big Three. CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and Optum Rx are owned by mega insurance companies. And two of them also own major pharmacies, including CVS Pharmacy and Express Scripts Pharmacy, a mail-order pharmacy.
Van Nuys said when companies integrate like this, it puts them in a position where they can see pharmacy transactions from all angles and gives them a massive amount of power.
“The fact that they have that visibility means that they can capture profits or design contracts in such a way to bring more money to them,” she said.
According to Van Nuys, the three large PBMs control 70%-80% of retail prescriptions. She said they rake in billions of dollars using controversial methods like spread pricing — which is when the PBM charges the payer (a health plan or Medicaid program) more than what they pay the pharmacy and pocket the difference.
Van Nuys said pharmacy benefit managers are not transparent with insurance companies or patients. She said the PBM industry is largely unregulated, so they are allowed to operate this way.
These are all things the pharmacists who formed Oread want to change. They said PBMs and their policies are choking out independently owned pharmacies.
The trade group representing pharmacy benefit managers disagrees.
The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, also known as PCMA, did not return requests for comment on this story. But in a previous statement, the group said pharmacy benefit managers understand that independent pharmacies play a vital role in prescription accessibility for rural Kansans.
“In support of that critical role, PBMs support rural pharmacies in Kansas, and nationwide, through innovative programs that increase reimbursements and allow rural pharmacists to spend more time with patients,” Katie Payne, senior vice president and spokeswoman for PCMA said in an emailed statement.
“A strong relationship between PBMs and rural pharmacies means a better experience and more affordability for patients, which is our shared priority,” the statement continued.
The pharmacists
behind Oread
In addition to Paola pharmacist Nate Rockers, the group of founders includes Dared Price, Tyson Mullen and Matt Morrison. The guys have a lot in common. Not only are they pharmacists, but they all own rural Kansas pharmacies and three of them graduated from the University of Kansas.
Their mutual qualms about the PBM industry put them on an unexpected path. Rockers said when they decided on their career paths, their initial goal was to take care of patients.
“We felt that pharmacy was that pathway,” Rockers said. “Becoming business owners was a byproduct of how we thought we could best serve patients.”
Matt Morrison owns Gibson’s Pharmacy in Dodge City, Kansas. He said he hit a breaking point and realized there had to be a better way after a large local employer approached him with concerns about ever-rising prescription expenses.
“I was like, ‘Well, that’s funny, because reimbursement keeps declining,’” Morrison said.
So in late 2018, the group founded Oread, their vision of an equitable PBM. They named the company after Mount Oread, a hill in Lawrence, Kansas, where parts of the University of Kansas campus sit.
How Oread works
Rockers, the Paola pharmacist, said Oread has three main distinctions from a traditional PBM. The company is transparent, it does not engage in spread pricing and passes 100% of manufacturer rebates back to clients.
“Our mission with Oread is to put the patient and the plan in the driver’s seat of their health care to ultimately achieve the best outcome at the best price,” Rockers said.
Oread customers
One of Oread’s early, large clients was the Winfield school district. The district started working with Oread in 2021 when Nate Reed was the superintendent. Reed said when he heard about the new company, he did not know employers could change PBMs.
“It was kind of like an onion where you just peel back layers, you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh,’” Reed said. “Why don’t more people know about this?”
Reed said before switching to Oread, the district’s insurance rates varied and were on the rise, mostly due to prescription costs.
Reed said he requested an explanation and wanted to see the data on the district’s prescription drug spending. But his requests didn’t get him anywhere.
“You don’t get to see your data. It’s not transparent, even at request,” he said.
But switching the district of about 600 employees was no small feat. The district had to change over to a partially self-funded insurance plan, which Reed said was a bit of a headache.
Ultimately, Reed said Oread saved the Winfield school district more than $270,000 on prescription drugs the first year. The savings allowed them to stabilize insurance costs and give employees ‘premium holidays,’ which are months when workers did not have to pay for health insurance.
Last summer, Reed changed careers. He now works at a heating and cooling company in Wichita called Building Controls and Services, Inc., or BCS. Reed said BCS uses Oread, too, and he’s getting to enjoy Oread from the consumer side now.
“You just feel like you’re being well taken care of and you’re being heard,” he said.
Oread serves several other school districts in Kansas, as well as various counties and municipalities, including the city of Derby, Kansas. Human Resources Director Jenny Turner said they started using Oread in 2023.
So far, the city has seen significant savings on specialty prescription drugs, and their rebate returns have doubled. Turner said before moving to Oread, they were told the PBM they used was fully transparent.
“So we believed them. And then when we moved to Oread, and now we’re seeing savings that are twice the amount,” Turner said.
Like in Winfield, Turner said it was somewhat difficult to change PBMs. But she said Oread was clear and easy to communicate with.
“I think it’s great that someone who’s dealing with the same kind of issues that we are, who shops local,” Turner said. “They don’t feel so far removed the way the big PBMs do.”
Oread is not a nonprofit. It makes money from a fixed admin fee. Rockers said for the company to stay successful, it will have to process a high volume of claims and grow its client base. But he said, unlike other PBMs, they do not steer patients to the pharmacies they own. Rockers said at Oread, they want patients to choose the pharmacy that works best for them.
Morrison, the Dodge City pharmacist, said ultimately, there are parts of the PBM system he sees as problematic that they can’t avoid, like building formulary lists, for example.
“We’re playing in a sandbox that we didn’t build,” Morrison said. “There are things about this system that, frankly, are not advantageous to anybody but the processor in some cases.”
The founders said they are also actively pushing for legislative reform of the industry. They want stronger regulations on pharmacy benefit managers that force them to be more transparent and operate more like Oread.
https://www.kcur.org/health/2024-03-19/4-kansas-pharmacies-banded-together-to-fight-the-big-players-in-the-drug-industry-and-theyre-growi

1...463464465...4,797Page 464 of 4,797

Kansas News, Auctions & Classifieds

Trending

Categories

© Rural Messenger