| The Gilmer-Calhoun County FSA Committee is composed of five farmer elected committee members. In addition to the Committee Members, there is an Advisor who represents all area producers and provides assistance to the Committee to assure equal opportunities for the farmers in Gilmer and Calhoun Counties.
Current members include: Leonard Montgomery, Chairperson, Holly Eagle, Jr, Vice-Chairperson, Jennings Ellison, Rodney Moss and Ed Talbott. Patty Maxwell serves as the Advisor. The County Committee meets in the Gilmer-Calhoun County FSA Office on the first floor of the Post Office Building in Glenville. The meetings begin at 9:30 a.m. on the fourth Monday of each month.
The FSA County Committee election process is currently underway. This year a new election procedure has been initiated with ballots being mailed directly to producers from a national distribution center. The ballots for the Gilmer-Calhoun FSA Committee election will only have one name due to only one nomination being made per LAA.
However, election procedure permits producers to vote for other potential candidates that are eligible to serve on the FSA County Committee via a write-in. On November 18, 2003 ballots will be mailed to all producers on file with the Gilmer-Calhoun County FSA Office whose farming interests are located in the Local Administrative Areas (LAA) 1 in Gilmer County and Local Administrative Area (LAA) 4 in Calhoun County.
LAA 1 comprises the same physical area as does Gilmer's Magisterial Districts of Dekalb and Troy. For this election, the only person nominated for LAA 1 was Ed Talbott. Ed and his wife, Mabel, operate a cow-calf and stocker operation on their farm on Leading Creek Rd. in Gilmer County. Ed also produces hay for farm use.
LAA 4 comprises the Northern and Western physical areas of Calhoun County and is bounded on Rt. 33/119 on the Roane County line and then with Rt. 33/119 to Millstone then with Rt. 16 to Grantsville then Rt. 5 to Gilmer County line. For this election, the only person nominated for LAA 4 was Holly Eagle, Jr. Junior and his wife, Genieve, have a cow-calf operation on their farm in the Mt. Zion area of Calhoun County. Junior also produces hay for farm use.
The ballots for this election must be postmarked or returned to the Gilmer-Calhoun County FSA office by December 1, 2003. Ballots will be tabulated at the FSA Office in the Post Office Building in Glenville on December 5, 2003 at 9:30 a.m.
Anyone with farming interests in LAA 1 or LAA 4 who does not receive a ballot and desires to vote in the elections, should contact the FSA office as soon as possible.
Charles Brown, County Executive Director, for the Farm Service Agency would like to stress the importance of voting for your representative on the Gilmer-Calhoun County Farm Service Committee. The FSA Committee is responsible for the overall direction of the operations of the local Farm Service Agency office and the administration of various federal farm programs at the county level.
During 2003 the County Committee has been instrumental in providing disaster assistance to the area farmers from the drought of 2002 and assistance with fence repair and debris clean-up from the ice storm in February 2003. In both Gilmer and Calhoun County $101,107 was provided to farmers in the Pasture Recovery Program (PRP) and $72,468 was allocated for the Emergency Conservation Program.
The Gilmer-Calhoun County Farm Service Agency was also allocated $295,235 to provide payments in the 2003 NRCS administered EQIP program. In addition to these programs funding was provided to county agriculture producers through the DCP grain program, the Lamb Meat Adjustment Program, as well as FSA Farm Loans and Loan Deficiency Payments in both counties.
If you have any questions about the FSA County Committee elections or any of the programs administered through FSA, please feel free to contact Charles Brown, CED, Gilmer-Calhoun County FSA Office at 304-462-7171 or 1-800-284-4960.
| 
