Small-town agriculture newspaper has big reach

In his travels across the United States and Canada, Byron Bayers discovered a common thread among cattle ranchers.

By Perry Backus of The Montana Standard

"You can go into Alberta or travel into Texas and if someone didn’t know these people were from different regions, you’d never know," said Bayers. "Ranchers everywhere are trying to do the same thing and achieve the same end result."

"There are just a lot more similarities than people realize," he said.

That’s one of the many observations Bayers has had over the last seven years as the co-owner of the largest independently owned newspaper on the Hereford breed of cattle in the United States.

Bayers, 73, of Twin Bridges, and his daughter, Jill Hotchkiss of Reva, S.D., have published "Hereford America" — which boasts a circulation of 15,500, including readers in every state and 11 foreign countries.

"We’ve become the largest privately owned Hereford newspaper in the United States," said Bayers. "In reality, we’re the largest
Hereford newspaper in the world. What often is the biggest in the United States is the biggest in the world."

After a livelihood in cattle ranching, and a stint as a Madison County commissioner, the newspaper business kind of found him. When the editor of the Montana Hereford Association’s newspaper retired, no one else seemed willing to take his place.

Bayers volunteered to give it a try. At the same time his daughter, Jill, was editing the South Dakota Hereford News. Both newspapers were owned by state Hereford associations and were both struggling financially.

Bayers and his daughter put their heads together and came up with a plan of combining the publications, expanding the area they cover and making it an independent newspaper. After talking it over with both associations, the pair received the green light to give it a try.

So armed with the knowledge that comes from a family involved in raising certified Hereford cattle for 86 years, Bayers and Hotchkiss went to work writing about the issues that concern cattleman.

"Right from the beginning, we tried to give an independent slant and offer both sides of an issue to our readers," Bayers said. "When an association owns a newspaper, they very seldom give both sides of an issue."

"We’ve also done a few other things differently. For instance, we use a lot of letters to the editor. People can speak out and speak their piece and we publish it."

That format has been successful in attracting readers from all over the globe.

"We’ve just hit a niche that for some reason no one else has filled for many, many years," Bayers said. "It seems like every breed of cattle and horse has its own newspaper."

"When you get into this business, there are a lot of people who want to talk to you about a lot of different issues," he said. "You have to be well versed on all those issues so you can talk intelligently about them."

There are plenty of issues to talk about. The pair has written about everything from DNA testing to identify a tenderness gene in cattle to the benefits of creating a branded product like Certified Hereford Beef.

The cattle industry needs to do better in providing a consistent product that consumers can depend on, Bayers said.

"We’ve seen a tremendous amount of branded beef products coming onto the marketplace," said Bayers. "I think it’s a good thing for the industry. They are typically a better quality of meat, although many are geared toward specialty markets."

"Quality control will always be a challenge for the beef industry. I think we have to keep working harder to put out a better product."

And at the same time, Bayers said producers and meat packers have to be careful not to price their product out of the reach of common person.

"Beef still has to be affordable for the masses of people," he said. "I think that everyone likes beef, but a lot of people have trouble affording it. That has the potential to become a big problem. The producer still has to get a decent return on his investment."

Cattle prices to the producer are as high as they’ve been in quite a few years, said Bayers.

"There are always plenty of things to write about," he said.

Reporter Perry Backus may be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

http://www.mtstandard.com/articles/2003/12/04/newsbutte/hjjgihjfjbhegb.txt