A2O-Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, February 23,1985
The “REAL” Vincent Price meets local dairymen
BY WENDY WEHR
SYRACUSE, N.Y. - A record
number of Northeast dairy
families gathered in Syracuse on
Monday to hobnob with entertainer
and dairy spokesperson Vincent
Price, and to celebrate the 25th
Actor and “REAL” Seal spokesman Vincent Price chats with the dairy royalty from
New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
ADA board
BY WENDY WEHR
SYRACUSE Even as dairy
farmers lined up for an autograph
and an encouraging word from
Vincent Price, other important
dairy promotion business was
being conducted at the 25th Annual
Meeting of the American Dairy
Association and Dairy Council,
Inc.
Consolidation of the ADA/DC
and DC policy boards was con
cluded at the annual meeting, and
a new director from Pennsylvania
was added to the board. Roy Book,
Lancaster, will join the other
ADA/DC board members as a
representative of Inter-State Milk
Producers Cooperative.
With the addition of Book, eight
Pennsylvania dairymen sit on the
ADA/DC board. Four of those
represent four geographic regions ,
m northern and central Penn
sylvania, while the other three
serve as directors-at-large.
The policy board consolidation
served as evidence of the annual
meeting theme: “Partners in
Promotion.” In his president’s
address Raymond Johnson
pi iy Johnson . quest rom the
promotion agency’s 25th annual meeting on Monday.
Annual Meeting of the American
Dairy Association and Dairy
Council, Inc. The glittery event
took place at the Hotel Syracuse on
Feb. 8.
More than 700 dairy enthusiasts
packed the banquet hall on Mon
adds Inter-State member
stressed the partnership idea as he
cited the opportunities for coor
dinated efforts of ADA/DC with the
National Dairy Board, with the
marketing sector of the dairy
industry, and with the dairy farm
families of the Northeast.
Executive vice-president Brian
Ward also honed in on the part
nership theme. With the inception
of the mandatory deduction
program, the need for ADA/DC
fund-raising activities sub
stantially diminished, said Ward.
“Now we can turn our attention to
the stronger working relationship
that needs to be developed with the
actual marketers of your
products.”
In commemoration of the
promotion organization’s 25th
anniversary, Ward also stressed
the history and development of
successful promotion and nutrition
education programs at ADA/DC. A
special audio-visual presentation
was shown during the evening
banquet which reviewed the
organization’s history and ad
campaigns through the years.
And in keeping with the look
back over 25 • w this vear’s
aAa
At ADA/DC Annual Meeting
day evening to listen to Price’s
comments about the goodness of
real dairy products and to hear a
few anecdotes about his extensive
entertainment career.
“As spokesman for ADA’s
“REAL” Seal program,” said
ftft Dairy
Service to Dairying Award was
presented to members of
ADA/DC’s original board formed
in 1960. The award is presented
each year as part of ADA/DC’s
annual meeting to acknowledge a
group or individual who has made
a significant contribution to dairy
promotion.
Announcing this year’s
presentation, president Johnson
cited the founding directors for
their courage, foresight, and
commitment in founding the
promotion agency and establishing
a strong and unified program.
In other business at the meeting,
dairy producers reviewed their
1985 budget and milk promotion
program plans. Roughly 70 percent
of ADA/DC’s 1985 budget of $lO.B
million will be invested in media
advertising. Funds will also
support local nutrition education
efforts and supermarket and
restaurant milk promotions.
ADA/DC is a producer-funded
and directed dairy promotion
agency that serves dairy
producers in New York, New
Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
iry producers during the
Price, “I’ve been given the op
portunity to promote something I
truly believe in cooking with
real dairy products.
“Working with ADA has
provided me with a deeper un
derstanding of the dedication,
imagination, creativity, and just
plain hard work that goes into
making up the dairy industry
today,” he added.
At a press conference earlier in
the day, Price showed his ap
preciation for the hard times that
dairy farmers are experiencing.
When asked whether government
should be taking a role in
protecting the family dairy farms,
Price had a succinct response.
“I’ll let David Stockman’s
mother answer for me on that
one,” he fired back as he reminded
the reporters of Mrs. Stockman’s
comments last week from her
farm in the Midwest in which she
criticized her son’s desire to axe
farm support programs.
Price has served as spokesman
for the dairy industry’s “REAL”
Seal program for over three years.
“Since 1981,1 have been proud to
consider myself a “Partner in
Promotion,” said Price in his
banquet address.
“I find I am very much identified
with this program. When
John and Pat Baker of Covington, Tioga County.
Bakers receive Briggs award
BY WENDY WEHR
SYRACUSE John and Pat
Baker, dairy farmers from
Covington, Tioga County,
received the Leo Briggs
Memorial Fund award on
Monday evening at the
ADA/DC annual meeting.
Presented to a dairy couple
who are active in milk
promotion and NEDCO’s Young
Dairymen’s Organization
(YDO), the Briggs award
consists of an expense-paid trip
to the UDIA meeting this month
in Kansas City.
“The endowment was
established to help enrich the
lives of young agricultural
leaders involved in dairy
promotion,” said ADA
president Raymond Johnson as
he presented the award to John
and Pat Baker.
The Bakers farm with John’s
father and brothers in a four
way partnership. Both John and
Pat are avid supporters of dairy
promotion activities, and John
is a YDO district director. But
Pat, especially, has found her
niche in organizing milk
promotion programs in the
Twin Tiers.
While both started attending
promotion meetings a few years
ago, says Pat, John soon found
that his responsibilities on the
farm m.I rioted his in-
something is successful, people tell
you about it,’’ he noted as he
related some stories of the com
ments about dairy products that he
gets from friends and people in
public.
Often, when he’s marketing with
his wife, said Price, shoppers in
the supermarket will accost him
with their own style of humor. “I’ll
be standing by the dairy case,”
intoned Price sarcastically, “and
some woman will say, ‘I suppose
you’re buying margarine! ” ’
In addition to his roles as actor,
lecturer and author, Price is also a
well-known connoisseur of art and
food. His travels have enabled him
to dine at some of the best
restaurants in the world, and from
these he collected recipes for his
cookbook, “A Treasury of Great
Recipes.”
“In accepting the invitation of
the great chefs to eat,” com
mented Price, “there was also the
challenge of trying to find out why
the food was so good, and how it got
that way. One of the reasons was
the high quality ingredients,
especially in dairy foods, with no
' substitutes for butter, cream,
cheese or ice cream.
“I think consumers, as I do,
believe in the genuine goodness of
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volvement. But she continued to
attend meetings and take a
larger role in educating the
local farmers about the benefits
of dairy promotion.
“His life is the farm,” says
Pat in reference to her husband,
“so I’m doing my part by
getting involved in local milk
promotion, getting to know
people, and letting the dairy
farmers know how our 15 cents
is spent,” says Pat. Too many
farmers don’t understand why
they don’t see the milk com
mercials on television, she
adds, and they need to know
that advertising must be aired
where it will have the greatest
impact.
Today Pat serves as
secretary-treasurer of the
North Central Milk-Makers.
This group of young dairymen
initiated a successful mall
promotion in 1984, and have just
completed the second annual
milk promotion at the Amot
Mall, Horseheads, N. Y.
Last year NEDCO and
ADA/DC were the only dairy
organizations represented in
the mall promotion, explains
Pat. But this year Eastern,
Dairylea, NFO, Agway and
some other organizations also
joined the activities for a bigger
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