Mid-County Newsletter MCnewsletter.fall16

YOU’RE IN y r t n u o C Mid-County Fall Messenger INSIDE: Page 2 - 3 Energy Page 4 - 5 Agronomy Page 6 - Auto, Truck, & Tire Fall 2016 • Vol. 30 www.midcountycoop.com The Mid-County Story The older I get, the more I like old stuff and the more I like to tell the Mid County Story of our people, our customers and our commitment to service with Honesty, In- tegrity and Value. We recently completed our 1941 antique International parade truck which made Bill Reimers its debut at the Stiftungfest parade. (See General Manager (952) 466-3721 pictures). The [email protected] Mid-County shop (Lynn Zellman and others) performed the mechanical work on the unit; it was a multi-year project that we worked on when time al- lowed. Storms Welding rebuilt the tank and skirting on the unit. After the me- chanical work was done, we handed the unit off to Jerome & Bob Bergmann from Hamburg, who took care of the bodywork and paint. We fi nished the truck just in the nick of time to par- ticipate in the Stiftungfest Parade in August. Speaking of Lynn Zellman, he recently celebrated his 40th year at Mid-County. His experience allows him to work on a 1941 International, as well as a 2016 Chrysler. The automobile has obviously changed since he started his career in the mid ‘70s. Other notable accomplishments within Mid-County: Paul, Sue, Daniel and Clare Stuewe are this year’s Carver County Farm Family of the year. Paul is the Secretary/Treasurer on the Mid-County Board of Directors. Aly Dieball, daughter of Jim and Wendy Dieball, traveled to New York with her family for the National Junior Holstein Con- vention. She participated in the national public speaking com- petition for the third year in a row. Jim is also on the Board of Directors. The energy markets have been a bit of a roller coaster recently. It has been very hard to identify a trend in the diesel fuel market; it starts to gain strength only to back off again. Gasoline prices declined at the end of August, but have been rising recently. One reason is a pipeline from the Gulf of Mexico up to the Northeast- ern part of the US ruptured and needed repair. We have not been aggressive at this point to encourage our customers to contract diesel for the fall, but we are getting close to a point whereby we have to take advantage of our large storage capacity to ensure we have adequate sup- ply for the fall. Whether you contract or fi ll your tanks, diesel fuel is still a pretty good value, under $2.00 per gallon on current deliveries. We are starting to increase our inventories in our storage facilities, but we will probably want to end the season with the tanks on the low side. When it comes to value, I always look at what is the upside and what is the downside. Right now we prob- ably have minimal downside with fall har- vest coming, and it is not uncommon to see prices rise during harvest. Mid-County’s fi scal year ended August 31, and we are eager to give you a complete fi nancial report at our annual meeting this December. We are very encouraged with the preliminary results and expect to be close to last year’s record earnings. With the strength of our balance sheet, we retired a substantial amount of equities by the age of the stockholder and by the age of the stock this past year. We also invested heavily into improv- ing and expanding our fl eet, as well as several property improve- ments. After all that, we still do not carry any long-term debt with our lender. Thank you for your support and keeping Mid-County a strong company for over 80 years. HONESTY • INTEGRITY • VALUE AGRONOMY FUELS • PROPANE • LUBRICANTS 710 Lake St., W., Cologne, MN 55322 (952) 466-3710 Serving You With Honesty, Integrity & Value since 1935 700 Lake St., W., Cologne, MN 55322 (952) 466-3720 700 Lake St., W., Cologne, MN 55322 (952) 466-3730 COLOGNE Hwy. 212 & Hwy. 284, Cologne, MN 55322 (952) 466-5657 (952) 466-3700 • 888-466-3700 • 700 Lake Street West, P.O. Box 177, Cologne