Convoy to Kansas helps provide relief

The Farm Bureau Young Leaders group finish loading hay, fencing and feed supplies last week as part of a coordinated wildfire relief effort to help farmers and ranchers in Kansas.
The Farm Bureau Young Leaders group finish loading hay, fencing and feed supplies last week as part of a coordinated wildfire relief effort to help farmers and ranchers in Kansas.

 

State Rep. Tom Hurst was back from Kansas on Monday after helping lead a convoy carrying relief supplies to west-central Kansas.

"It went great," Hurst, R-Meta, told the News Tribune. "For the most part, everything went pretty smoothly."

They left Meta at 4 p.m. Friday and had announced plans to send about 16 trucks loaded with hay, other animal food and farming supplies to help farmers devastated by wildfires a couple weeks ago.

"I think it was 22 trucks" that actually took part by the time they left Mid-Missouri on Friday afternoon, Hurst said. "For me, it was about a 1,200-mile round trip.

"Saturday night we only slept about two hours - we stopped in a parking lot, took a nap and went on."

He's not even sure where he went.

"We ended about 22 miles down a gravel road," Hurst said. "There was no cell service. There weren't any towns around - there was nothing. I couldn't really tell you what the nearest town was."

But the folks at the end of the convoy were grateful.

"This is just getting them through that interim term until they can be back on their feet," he explained.

Many of the farmers lost livestock, barns and, in some cases, their homes in the fires that raged about two weeks ago.

For the cattle and other animals that survived the fires, their food supplies were destroyed.

"What we took out there was hay and protein," Hurst said, "(to) get them through to where they get rain and (grass) starts growing back."

Hurst said the Missourians drove through rain for much of their weekend trip, so he's hopeful the areas of Texas, Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska that were hit by the fires will be able to recover.

He said the earth still smelled of burnt residue, but "there was actually some green starting to come up."

Most of the area still was dry, though.

"If they could get rain, that grass would pop right back up, and the cattle would have grass to eat and wouldn't need the hay," Hurst predicted.

The Mid-Missourians - mainly from Maries, Gasconade and Osage counties - hauled more than 400 hay bales to western Kansas.

Most of those bales were contributed by one Belle resident, Jeff Maples.

Hurst said he usually can feed about 50 head of cattle with one bale - so the 400 bales, plus the extra protein supplements that went with the convoy, should help the Kansas farmers for a while.

The caravan also carried fencing materials and other supplies the Kansas folks can use to begin restoring their properties.

Hurst said organizers made up some T-shirts for the drivers and volunteers who went to Kansas this weekend, "but people got wind of it and they wanted shirts so they started selling them - and by (Monday), they had sold 700 T-shirts. At a $10 profit, that's $7,000 more that we'll be able to send out there."

People still can buy those shirts, for $20 each, he said, by contacting organizer Jimmy Zumwalt, of Belle, through his Facebook page.

"They can message him from there," Hurst said. "His wife is the one who's getting all the orders put together."

Cash donations also can be given to the MFA in Owensville, which will use the money for more fencing and food supplies, or to the "Fire Relief Fund" at Mid-America Bank at any of its branches in Wardsville, Holts Summit, Linn, Meta or Belle.

Hurst suggested people who want to make donations also could contact the Missouri Farm Bureau, which has been involved in several relief efforts in the affected states.