Local beef program expands to school county-wide

A small rural school of 160 students, K through 12, in Hulett was the recipient of a new program thanks to the local Crook County Cattlewomen. The program has now been expanded to include the Moorcroft and Sundance schools.

Instead of the highly processed soy-based meat traditionally served for the lunch programs, students and staff at all schools now enjoy locally grown pure beef. When you know where your food comes from, you know you are making a healthier choice. And, it is believed, when kids eat better, they learn better.

The Crook County Cattlewomen started a pilot program “Beef for the Hulett School” in the spring of 2018. The program was mirrored after a similar program in Montana and has been well received by the Crook County School District, which was very much in favor of the program. The School District has received a grant from the State of WY to help pay the processing fees.

The school cooks receive far more compliments from both staff and students when they are served the donated beef for lunch. Supersizing, when students go back for seconds, has more than doubled from the soy-based meat previously served. And, the lunch count has increased with older students staying at school for their meals.

To begin with, the Cattlewomen sent out 50 letters to local Hulett area ranchers, telling them about the program and asking for USDA Certified beef or monetary donations. If a beef was donated, but needed to be fed out, the Hulett School FFA program would be able to buy feed and feed out the beef with these donations.

Market steers, open heifers, cull cows and cull bulls are the types of beef requested for donation. The steers and heifers are processed for ground beef, roasts and select cuts, while the cull cows and bulls are mostly used for hamburger. The roasts will be used for shredded beef recipes for special school functions.

In order to keep the program, running the Cattlewomen will continually need donations, so please consider donating. Below are the names of who to contact. When they are notified of a donation, they contact the school of your choice.

The rancher then needs to arrange a time and date with Sturgis Meat Service (USDA Certified) for processing. When processing is complete, the beef is transported to the Central Office in Sundance where it is stored due to limited freezer space in the smaller schools.

As the lunch program needs beef, a representative from each school picks up what they need from Sundance. At this time Hulett has enough beef but you could donate to Sundance or Moorcroft.

To date the Cattlewomen had the following cattle sent to Sturgis for processing. They have also had four monetary donations from Jensen Livestock LLC, Ted and Joellen Parsons, Jerry Fish and Ruth Ann Collins, and Ben and Amy Pravecek.

HULETT MOORCROFT SUNDANCE COUNTY WIDE

Jim and Roxie Dacar Jensen Livestock LLC Jensen Livestock LLC Ista Ranch

DJ and Natalie Wolfskill FA Bush Ranch (2020) Muleshoe Ranch Jim and Roxie Dacar

Tom and Donna Wolf Jim Geis

FA Bush Ranch

Please keep in mind, in order to continue the program, more donations will always be needed! Anyone wishing to donate can contact Cattlewomen Criss Neiman (467-5245) or Tracy Bush (467-5352).