A22—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 31,1984
Centreport milk
BY ROBIN PHILLIPS
Staff Correspondent
CENTERPORT - A public
notice was printed in the local
paper in July, 1965; “Notice is
hereby given that application will
be made to the Governor of the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
by Paul S. Phillips, John H.
Jacoby, Nicholas J. Kopicz, Rufus
Z. Bashore, John E. Yoder,.... for
the charter of an intended
cooperative agricultural
association to be known as the
Centreport Milk Hauling
Cooperative.”
It was a modest beginning back
then and one that took a lot of
thought by those five Centre
Township dairymen. But, with
their stoic determination ac
companying a handful of shippers
and three can trucks in the
beginning, these five men have
watched their little co-op grow to
100 members and seven modern
tank trucks, hauling over 76
million pound so fmilk in 1983.
“It snowballed,” explained
Rufus Bashore on the eve of the
19th annual meeting of the
cooperative.
“All of a sudden he quit,”
(meaning the previous hauler)
Bashore said.
The newly-formed co-op had to
pick up milk sooner than it had
planned since the previous hauler
was very upset with the new
organization being formed and
“dropped us like a hot potato.”
Not liking some of the new
regulations of the hauler,
dairymen had been having
problems with him-one of the
<gi iryi
treport Co-op in 1965 include, from the left, John Jacoby, R 1
Mohrsville; Rufus Bashore, R 1 Mohrsville; Nicholas Kopicz,
Rl Mohrsville; and Paul Phillips, Centreport.
John . ~ son of the secretary-treasurer of the co-op, is
addition to the tanker fleet and one of seven full-time drivers.
reasons behind the new
cooperative. At that time, milk
was still shipped in cans.
It was back-breaking work,
lifting those cans in and out of
coolers and in and out of trucks,
remembers Paul Phillips, One of
the new regulations facing the
dairymen was to have the cans out
of the cooler waiting to be picked
up by the hauler. Although this was
much easier on the hauler, it
resulted in warm milk and higher
bacteria counts. Cans were left at
farms and disputes with the hauler
became common.
“We decided then we were going
to form a co-op,” Bashore said.
Paul Phillips was one of the first
advocates of the co-op. “We had
meetings and meetings and
meetings,” Phillips stated. “A lot
of these guys were skeptical, but
we were determined to haul our
own milk,”
These five dairymen were able
to recruit neighbors and friends
from the Centreport-Mohrsville
area for a charter membership of
35 producers. With a $25.00
membership fee, three can trucks
were purchased and drivers hired.
The first membership meeting was
held on August 12,1965 and the five
initial dairymen made up the
board of directors and officers. All
members shipped to Lehigh Valley
Dairy and were from Centre and
Penn Townships.
“We had rough sailing for the
first couple of years,” Phillips
stated. “We did a log of running
around.” The directors looked at
trucks, toured dairy plants, and
drove the trucks themselves when
haulers near 3rd decade
Trent officers and members of the board of directors of the Centreport Co-op in
clude, from the left, Nicholas Kopicz, John Jacoby, Donald Landis, Richard Hoffman,
Willard Stauffer and John Krall.
there were problems.
From July to September that
first year, 4,044,177 pounds of milk
were hauled to Lehigh. The first
full year in business, 1966, showed
6,049 tons of milk hauled to the
dairy. Members were assessed per
hundredweight, as they are today.
“The directors felt as long as we
could meet our expenses, we
weren’t out to make a profit,” John
Jacoby explained. Milk pickups
were tallied and members were
charged what was needed for
expenses.
Even with the low hauling
charges, Centreport Mike Hauling
Cooperative purchased its first
bulk tank truck in April, 1966 and
began bulk pickup.
“At first,” Phillips explained,
“we had so little milk, they
couldn’t take a sample.”
In June, 1968, the dairy stopped
accepting cans. Although some
members discontinued dairying
because they did not want to install
a bulk tank, and membership sank
to 30, the Centreport co-op con
tinued to haul milk for 24 cents to
26 cents a hundredweight. A
second tanker was added in 1969,
third and fourth in 1978, the fifth in
1979, the sixth in 1982, and the
seventh added in November of
1963.
“The big boom in membership
came in 1976,” Jacoby stated. He
remembers someone saying at a
meeting: “if Centreport could haul
milk for 30 cents, why can’t the
others?” Centreport was hauling
for six to eight cents below the
other haulers, paying all their
bills, and increasing their assets to
the full advantage of its members.
More producers joined in 1979
Iriver of tl
ic newest
•' * ■** *■ " • .vt •*
?v.:? 4;-
Roy Hetrick, left, director with Lehigh Valley Cooperative;
and Bernard Morrissey, insurance agent who discussed
antibiotic contamination coverage, were among speakers at
the 19th annual meeting of the Centreport Co-op.
when Lehigh discontinued its
hauling trucks.
Today, the co-op employs seven
full time drivers and seven sub
stitutes. They drive seven tankers
throughout Berks, Lebanon, and
Schuylkill counties. From 100
members, over 76.5 million pounds
of milk is hauled annually, making
up approximately one-tenth of the
total volume of milk at Lehigh
Valley Dairy.
The current rates are still some
of the lowest to be found. In ad
dition to the low rates, Centreport
does not charge a milkhouse stop
fee, usually |2.00, and has no fuel
adjustment clause, (as fuel prices
rise do does the hauling fee) Ac
cording to John Jacoby, secretary
treasurer of the co-op for 19 years,
this keeps the bookkeeping simple
which keeps expenses down.
“Most fellows don’t know what
those milk house stops mean
anyway,” he said.
The 19th annual meeting held on
March 23 at the Tulpehocken
Church, Richland, also brought
another advantage to members. In
a unanimous vote, the bylaws were
changed to reduce the membership
fee from $25.00 to $5.00. Any
current member who had paid the
$25.00 will get the $20.00 refunded
to him. This will be reimbursed at
the same time that the dividend
funds are sent.
Jacoby explained that the co-op
is in fine shape and the higher
membership fee is no longer
needed. He also stated that one of
the competitors is using this fee
against the cooperative to get
more members.
Centrepbrt Milk Hauling
Cooperative’s current board of
directors include; Donald Landis,
R 1 Myerstown, president;
Nicholas Kopicz, R 1 Mohrsville,
vice president; John Jacoby, R 1
Mohrsville, secretary-treasurer;
Willard Stauffer, R 1 Womelsdorf;
Phares Musser, R 1 Newman
stown; John Krall, Lebanon; and
Richard Hoffman, R 1 Bernville.
Nicholas Kopicz and John Jacoby
have served on the board since the
charter and are the only two of the
original five members left with the
cooperative.
Rufus Bashore’s son has taken
over his operation in the Mohr
sville area and Paul Philips’ sons
have started their own dairies in
the Centreport area.
Roy Hetrick, director, Lehigh
Valley Cooperative Farmers,
spoke at the meeting and fielded
questions from the audience.
“Lehigh does need more milk,” he
stated. He pointed out the new
antibiotic policy of the dairy. In
stead of the penalty system
previously imposed, farmers are
not responsible for insurance to
cover the cost of any damaged
milk.
“We’re the people who put those
antiobiotics m those cows, let’s see
that it stays out of that milk,” he
said.
He was questioned by President
Landis on whether it was
necessary for Centreport to haul so
much milk to the Lansdale plant
“lt’s costing us 1000 gallons a
month more fuel,” Landis stated.
Hetrick explained that all haulers
are treated equally by loads and
because of the Baltimore plant,
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