Your source for Missouri News and Sports
The Missouri Tigers won their season opener against UT-Martin 83-68. Laurence Bowers led the Tigers with 16 points off the bench, 14 of those coming in the first half. Keith Ramsey added 15 and Marcus Denmon had 10. In all, 11 players scored for the Tigers. JT Tiller left the game with a sprained foot.
Deer hunters are hunting deer…while the conservation department hunts something in the deer. The good news is that it hasn’t been found.
The conservation department has been watching for signs of Chronic Wasting Disease for some time. It’s a disease that attacks the nervous system of deer and other animals of the cervid family such as elk, and moose. It’s always fatal and can spread from deer and their family in the wild to similar animals in captive herds.
The Missouri Tigers rolled out their new Big 12 champion and Elite 8 banners prior to the start of the season opener against UT-Martin. The Tigers then started with their player introductions. (Click on the pic to view the intros) This year’s theme. Defend the ball, defend the court, defend the title. There wasn’t a big crowd, but they were pretty vocal and the Tigers cruised to an easy season opening win.
A new group has formed to promote what many just a few years ago might have thought didn’t need promotion: the value of agriculture to Missouri.
Missouri, one of the nation’s top farm states, is losing touch with its farm roots, at least according to pork producer Sharon Oetting, a member of the Missouri Farm Family Agriculture Alliance. Oetting farms with her husband, Steve, near Concordia. She tells of visiting with students at a grade school near her town of 2,000 located between Kansas City and Columbia. None lived on a farm. Few had any immediate relatives who lived on a farm.
“What that says is that you don’t have a grandparent or an aunt and uncle or a parent or anyone close to you that has a farm so that you have a working knowledge of where food comes from,” Oetting says. “I mean there are people who think the bread and milk comes from the grocery store.”
Oetting believes that could become a problem, even in Missouri. Members of the Missouri Farm Family Agriculture Alliance worry about the impact on agriculture of animal rights activists, extreme environmentalists and what they term “overzealous lawyers”. The alliance claims such activists could threaten the livelihood of farmers. It has kicked off a yearlong educational effort to promote Missouri agriculture and preserve its agri-business industry. It is composed of various farm interests, not just restricted to family farms.
Oetting says education is the key.
“Well, the challenge is that farmers are just good, hard-working, salt of the earth people and they think because they are doing a good job people will understand and they won’t question how they do things and why they do things,” according to Oetting.
Missouri has more than 100,000 farms with a wide range of crops and livestock that generates $12 billion a year, ranking it as the state’s number one industry.
Missouri Tiger head basketball coach Mike Anderson rounded out the early signing period in a big way on Tuesday, when he announced that “Five Star” wing Tony Mitchell (Dallas, Texas / L.G. Pinkston) has signed a National Letter of Intent to play at Mizzou.
