VOL 28 No. 47
Congratulations
Pa. Daily Princess
Tamara Lynn Cree
Four Sections
(Turn to 818]
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, September 24,1983
Ron Kopp, Middletown dairy
farmer, faces TV cameras and
explains his problems with
discarded cans and bottles,
including the loss of a top
producing cow.
Spend 5 cents to save a cow
BY DICK ANGLESTEIN
MIDDLETOWN - The year of
197 b was a memorable one for
agriculture.
It was the Bicentennial Year and
tributes were pouring out fur the
"embattled farmers who fired the
shots heard round the world” and
founded a nation 200 years before.
Agriculture was booming and
machinery companies quit running
equipment ads because they didn't
want to create any more demand
that they couldn't fill.
The machinery that was
available was allocated to dealers
and farmers scrambled to snap it
up.
But for Kon Kopp, dairy tanner
located just off Hi. 283 near the Pa.
Holstein farm, it was memorable
from another standpoint.
On June 17, 1976, he lost one of
his best cows to hardware disease
'1 came out in the morning and
she was just lying there,” he
i ecalls.
Suffolk named Ephrata winner
BY LAURA ENGLAND
EPHRATA It may have been
raining cats and dogs at the
Ephrata Fair Wednesday night,
but a stylish group of lambs
competed for top awards despite
the constant downpour.
Under a roof with two open sides,
the rain threatening to dampen the
entire show arena, 13-year-old
Heidi Fisher lead her 112-pound
Suffolk lamb to the championship
title.
A daughter of Bill and Dee
Fisher, East Earl, Heidi won the
overall honors for the first time.
She raised her champion lamb as a
junior agriculture project at
Garden Spot High School. An
eighth grade student, Heidi is a
member of the seventh and eighth
grade Ag Club.
Capturing reserve market lamb
laurels was 15-year-old Lori
Martin, Narvon. A member of the
Grassland FFA Chapter at Garden
Spot High School, Lori competed in
the contest for the first time this
(Turn to Pago A3O)
"In the haylage in the feed bunk
we found a shredded can
"She hadn't been ill so it must
have been the only cause.
"She was one of our best
producing cows.”
Kopp recalled this painful
memory at a press conference
Wednesday convened by the
Pennsylvania Farmers’
Association to drum up support for
the mandatory deposit beverage
container laws that have been
introduced in the Pa House and
Senate.
Kopp, who farms with his
brother,Jay and father, Howard,
hasn't lost any cows since then, but
he's had continuing problems with
cans and buttles.
Recently, he had to replace a
front tractor tire and have a rear
one repaired due to bottles The
dir.cl cost was about $l5O, plus
downtime on the equipment and
lost tune in the fields
“The other day I was out in the
Heidi Fisher, East Earl, poses with her 112 pound Suffolk
lamb which was named grand champion at the Ephrata Fair
Sheep Show.
57.50 per Year
field and sav this car going by with
someone hanging out the window
he baid
“The guy winged a bolUe at the
speed limit sign along the field
They like to throw them at the
Mglte."
Kopp and Keith Eckel, HKA
president, walked along the road
next to the exercise yard, and
collected a variety of soda and
beer cans and bottles for the
television cameras at the on-farm
press conference
Tl would almost pay me to hire
someone to just pick these things
up,” Kopp remarked
Eckel explained the purpose ot
the proposed law now in effect in
several stales that requires a five
cenl mandatory deposit on
beverage containers, particularly
soda and beer cans and bottles, to
discourage roadsides and fanners
fields from being the garbage can
tor passing drinkers
(Turn to Page A 23)