Taylor Brown featured speaker at Chamber annual banquet

The annual Havre Area Chamber of Commerce banquet featuring guest speaker Northern Ag Network's Taylor Brown is set for Wednesday, Jan. 15, from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Duck Inn Olympic Room.

Chamber Executive Director Julea Robbins said the banquet is an event for the public to come and hear what has happened in the past year and then what is coming up in 2020.

"We'll go over our successes. We started our Events Committee which has been wonderful this year, we did a couple new vendor shows, we did the Holiday Stroll and our Festival Days was bigger than ever, so we'll go over those things," she said.

"We'll move on to 2020 and talk about things coming up, so any changes that we think are relevant to the community," she added, "and then, along with any new events like our marathon and such, we like to put it out there as this big, like, 'this is what we are going to do and get behind if you want to,' and just put it out there for all the community to see because the community doesn't get to see behind the board."

She added that the public will also have a chance to hear what the Chamber offers the community, and businesses, hear about all the Chamber committees and find out who the public needs to contact if they would like to get involved, and more.

The event is $20 for Chamber members and $25 for non-Chamber members, which includes lunch.

To reserve a seat, people can visit the Chamber's Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/events/2411787782264952 or call the Chamber office at 265-4383. 

For the coming year, Robbins said, she is "looking forward to our marathon. I'm excited to get it off the ground. I think it's going to be huge. I think it'll be amazing for our community and I'm just really excited for it."

She added that she is also getting excited for Festival Days as she and the Chamber are in the process of looking for a new theme.

"It's always such a fun thing to put together, so that's what I'm excited for," she said. 

Robbins said at this year's banquet, people get to hear from the most recognizable voice in Montana, Taylor Brown, who will speak about things that are happening in the local community. 

"He just happens to be ag, which affects Havre greatly, so anybody that has anything to do with the ag community, but even businesses in general. There is always something to pull from it, so it's kind of huge," she said.

Brown, the owner of Northern Broadcasting Systems that includes Northern Ag Network, Northern News Network, Northern Sports Network and Billings' oldest radio station, is an agricultural broadcaster who grew up on a family ranch in eastern Montana near Sand Springs, between Grass Range and Jordan.

He said he has been working in the agricultural broadcasting business for the past 40 years.

"I started broadcasting farm and ranch news 40 years ago on the Havre radio stations, KOJM and KPQX when I went to work for the Northern Ag Network," he said. "Then, about 35 years ago, a fellow who owned that network was Conrad Burns, he became our U.S. senator for 18 years and when he went to the U.S. Senate I purchased the network from him."

He added that Burns, who started Northern Ag Network in 1975, got him interested in broadcasting, and that Brown also knew him through the cattle business - Burns worked for a live auction market in Montana.

Brown said agriculture is important in broadcasting because, "in Montana, of course, agriculture is our number one industry. It has been the biggest drive in our economy and for families like mine who have been in that industry for generations. For example in our family we've been on that ranch for 60 years this coming April."

"This coming April 1 will be our 6oth anniversary since we've moved to that ranch, but we ranched for 40 years in northern Wyoming before we moved there," he said. "For families like ours, agriculture is critically important to the state and to the people of Montana. We are the ones who are responsible for taking care of much of the natural resources base, the watershed, the wildlife, not to mention the soil and water resources and providing open space to the general public wants to enjoy. All of that happens because there is a farmer or rancher who is successfully taking care of that land, not to mention providing the economic base for so many of us to have jobs and careers in Montana."

Brown said he still runs his family ranch near Sand Springs.

He also served in the state Legislature as a Republican senator from 2009 to 2017, including serving as majority whip in 2011-12. He could not run for re-election due to term limits.

Brown said that when he comes to an event like the Chamber banquet, he will talk about the relationships ag producers have with each other, the land and the rest of the state, how they can help each other, how they depend on each other and how they are interconnected in a business relationship and societal relationship and more.

"We have a lot in common. We face many of the same challenges and, currently, since I own a radio station here in Billings and I own a radio network that serves stations all over the state, you can consider me a mainstream businessman probably in that respect because I'm a radio owner. But at the same time my family has been in the livestock and ranching business for so long that I'm a livestock producer and agriculture producer," he said. "For me, that relationship, I'm on both sides of that relationship. ... Our family has been involved in both broadcasting and agriculture so long that to come in and talk to business people like in Havre who are, much like we are, trying to serve those farmers and ranchers and provide those products and services, to help them succeed and help them thrive.

"It's such a joy for me to come and talk about how those two factors can work together and also during challenging times like we are in right now," Brown said.

Robbins said she has great anticipation for his presentation.

"I'm excited to hear his outtake on our local ag community and the problems that are facing agriculture today and those types of things," Robbins said.