■•tiring Presldant R. H. VoortMes, J«r>«y county, presidas at annual meeting of llllnoii 

 Agricultural Auditing Company in St. Louis. Others at table art (L to r.) Carl Logo, B. H. 

 Horan, Roy Edwards, George Metxger, Nancy Anderson, secretary, and Manager C. E. 



Strand. 



Southern Illinois 

 Picks 4-H Camp 

 At W. Frankfort 



JUl^AiF 



Farmer-Owned Cooperatives finish 

 Greatest Year in Their History 



THE 32 accountants who work for the Illinois Agricultural Audit- 

 ing Association scanned the books on an estimated $250,000,000 

 worth of business transacted last year through cooperatives owned 

 principally by Illinois farmers. 

 C. E. Strand, manager of this unique cooperative, an associated 

 company of the Illinois Agricultural Association, rejX)rted at their 

 annual meeting held during the lAA convention in St. Louis that this 

 was the greatest year in history for farm cooperatives in Illinois, in- 

 cluding the auditing cooperative. 



Organized in 1924 as the first cooperative of the Illinois Agricul- 

 tural Association, the auditing company this year handled the books 

 for 471 member companies. 



Its members consist of 92 Farm Bureaus, 67 Farm Bureau sub- 

 sidiaries, 36 cold storage lockers, 98 grain elevators, 21 livestock com- 

 panies, 85 service companies, 3 Home Bureaus, 31 dairies and cream- 

 eries, 5 insurance companies, and 33 miscellaneous organizations. 



Strand said it took 45,135 hours of work and 140,208 miles of 

 travel to handle the work for this year. 



ARM advisers and home advisers 

 representing 28 southern Illinois 

 county Farm and Home Bureaus 

 have unanimously approved the se- 

 lection of a 4-H Club camp site at 

 West Frankfort City Lake for the 

 southern Illinois district. 



.1 



G. E. MERKER JOINS 

 lAA LEGAL STAFF 



GEORGE E. MERKER of Harvey has 

 joined the legal staff of the Illinois 

 Agricultural Association under the direc- 

 tion of General Counsel Donald Kirk- 

 patrick. He will be 

 engaged in general 

 law work for the As- 

 sociation. 



Merker was born 

 and reared in Chica- 

 go Heights where 

 he attended local 

 schools. He attended 

 Thornton Junior Col- 

 lege, the University 

 of Chicago, and was 

 graduated from the 

 Kent College of Law, Chicago, in 1942. 



He passed his bar exam in September 

 1942 and went into the army the fol- 

 lowing month. He served with the 

 90th Infantry in the Philippine and 



Okinawa campaigns and was dis- 

 charged in January, 1946. Since his dis- 

 charge, he has been practicing law as a 

 partner in the firm of Adler and Merker 

 of Harvey. 



The camp site, comprising an area of 

 approximately 100 acres, was oflFered to 

 the 28 southern Illinois counties by the 

 Chamber of Commerce, the Kiwanis Qub 

 and the city council of West Frankfort. 



Twenty-five acres of the site were 

 given as an outright gift and the re- 

 maining 75 acres were offered on a 99- 

 year lease agreement. Terms of the lease 

 were scheduled to be drawn up the first 

 part of December by Paul Mathias, lAA 

 secretary, and representatives of the Uni- 

 versity of Illinois extension service. 



The camp will be for the use of all 

 rural young people's groups in southern 

 Illinois. The lake on which the camp 

 fronts is approximately 254 acres in area 

 and will be an excellent site for swim- 

 ming, fishing and boating. 



The new camp will be the third in a 

 series of four being laid out in the state. 

 The northern Illinois camp is Camp 

 Shaw-waw-nas-see in Kankakee county; 

 the central Illinois camp is at Camp Al- 

 lerton in Piatt county. A fourth camp 

 is to be selected for western Illinois. 



6. E. Mericer 



A group of soutiiern Illinois farm advisers who took part In the meeting approving the 

 selection of a 4-H Club district camp at Loice West Franlcfert are shown together during 

 the lAA convention in St. Louis. Left to right: Paul T. Wilson, Saline county; J. G. Mc- 

 Call, Perry; C. J. Chrlstenson, Franiciln; Don Lee, Jefferson; W. C. Anderson, Jaclcson; and 



Edward V. Barnes, Richland. 



JANUARY, 1948 



35 



