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Annual sheep banquet features lamb dinner
(Posted March 10, 2010)
The Madison County Sheep Improvement Committee will hold its annual banquet at 6:30 p.m. March 15 at St. Patrick School, 226 Elm St., London.
The night will feature an all-you-can-eat roasted lamb dinner prepared by members of St. Patrick Church and served by the St. Patrick School Athletic Boosters. The meal comes with potatoes, dressing, green beans, Jell-o salad, sweet rolls and desserts.
For the third consecutive year, the committee is purchasing the lamb for the dinner from the student meat lab in The Ohio State University’s Agriculture Department.
Tickets are $15. The evening also will include a performance by “The Music Men of London,” a barber-shop quartet, and door prizes from the agriculture community.
The Sheep Improvement Committee started in the 1940s, thanks to John Moore who was the county Extension agent. The purpose was to improve the quality of sheep in the county to increase the price received for the products.
One sub-group bought rams. They took orders for rams of each breed, went to flocks around Ohio, and placed orders for the rams to be delivered to London stockyards on specified dates.
A second committee was the lamb pool. Producers Livestock graded the lambs as they were brought in. Every Tuesday, lambs were shipped by railroad from London to New York. As many as 2,000 lambs were shipped each week.
Another group of committeemen bought western white face ewes and sold them to the farmers. Another furnished five bred ewes to farmers who then returned five lambs for payment.
Each year, a banquet was held to announce the results of the year’s activities.
This year’s committee includes: Monroe E. Harbage, president; Wayne Snyder, vice president; Roseann Harbage, secretary and treasurer; James Becker, Brian Bigham, Steve Blair, Bob Bradfield, Roger Call, Phil Ernst, Bob Godden, W.C. Godden, Jeff Harris, Dan Howard, Levin Hutson, Carl Rush, Paul Schrock, Ramona Sheehy, Geoff Smith, Phyllis Stickel, Donna Wiseman, Dick Witteman, James Witteman and Jeff Worthington.
For more information about this year’s banquet, call Monroe and Roseann Harbage as soon as possible at 614-879-5716.
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