McKenzie County and the Job Development Authority will present the North Dakota Stockmen’s Association with a $250,000 donation for the organization’s Building Campaign. The groups confirmed the major gift at the McKenzie County Commission meeting last Tuesday and the JDA meeting on Monday.
“This is an incredibly generous gift,” said Building Committee Chairman Dan Rorvig, a McVille, N.D., cow-calf producer. “It propels the campaign for the state’s cattle industry headquarters forward and moves the organization all the much closer to its goal.”
The NDSA and the North Dakota Stockmen’s Foundation have been working together on the historic project, breaking ground in April 2023 and moving into the modern, 10,000-square-foot facility in late-January 2024.
“McKenzie County has played an important role in the NDSA’s history,” said Randy Schmitt, the newly elected NDSA president and a Rugby, N.D., cattleman, explaining that Watford City was the birthplace of the organization and that the county was home to many of its charter members, including Andrew Johnston, the NDSA’s initiator and first executive officer, and John Leakey, the group’s inaugural president. “It continues to play an important role, and will into its future. We are so thankful for the generosity and support.”
Like in North Dakota, the beef industry is an economic pillar of McKenzie County, which ranks in the state’s top five counties for cattle and calves and is deeply rooted in animal agriculture.
McKenzie County and the JDA join fellow McKenzie County-based Founders Club donors Walton and Andrea Van Dyke, Jim and Karen Van Dyke, Vic and Bobbi Van Dyke, Kaye and the late Alvin Nelson and Bill and Pam Jorgenson, who honored their parents, Einar and Ann Jorgenson, and their grandparents, Louis and Kathryn Signalness, with an earlier donation to the project. There are approximately 400 unique Building Campaign donors.
Established at the old Christensen Hall in Watford City on June 6, 1929, the now 95-year-old NDSA has nearly 3,100 cattle-ranching members and a mission to unite, protect, promote, educate and serve the state’s beef cattle industry. To learn more about the trade organization or campaign, visit https://www.ndstockmen.org/association/association/.
NDSA news release
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