[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 142 (Tuesday, November 1, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S12123]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          TRIBUTE TO SAM MOORE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to the 
voice of Kentucky agriculture, Mr. Sam Moore. Mr. Moore is retiring as 
president of the Kentucky Farm Bureau after 7 successful years and will 
be forever remembered as the Kentucky farmer's greatest advocate.
  Mr. Moore, a native of Butler County, first became involved with the 
Kentucky Farm Bureau in the late 1960s when he joined the Bureau's 
Young Farmer Program. By 1973 he was selected as Outstanding Young 
Farmer by the Kentucky Jaycees, and he knew he had found his calling in 
working with and for his fellow Kentucky farmers.
  Mr. Moore has served on the Kentucky Farm Bureau's board of directors 
since 1975, and will continue to serve in an at-large capacity after 
his term as president ends. He is also a member of the American Farm 
Bureau's board of directors, and holds positions on the boards of the 
Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company and Farm Bureau BanCorp. He 
has also served as president of the Kentucky Farm Bureau Mutual 
Insurance Company.
  Mr. Moore has been a leader of the Butler County Farm Bureau and is a 
member of the American Soybean Association, the Kentucky Beef Cattle 
Association, and the Kentucky Corn Growers Association. He also serves 
on the boards of the Kentucky Grain Insurance Fund and the Kentucky 
Council on Agriculture.
  Mr. Moore was elected as the bureau's president in December 1998 
after 7 years of service as its first vice president. Immediately upon 
assuming office, he was faced with a major change in the tobacco 
farming industry: the leading tobacco companies and the State 
governments had reached an agreement called the Master Settlement 
Agreement, which would place significant funds into the various States' 
treasuries.
  Mr. Moore was the driving force behind a bill in Kentucky to allocate 
half of Kentucky's proceeds from the Master Settlement Agreement--$3.6 
billion over 25 years--into a new State fund that would dedicate the 
money to projects that develop the State's agriculture market, 
encourage environmental stewardship, support family farms, and fund 
agricultural research and development.
  The whole process is overseen by the Kentucky Agricultural 
Development Board, which Mr. Moore has served on since its inception. 
Thanks to Mr. Moore and the board's efforts, Kentucky's agriculture 
industry is transforming to meet the needs of more Kentuckians.
  But perhaps Mr. Moore's crowning achievement is his pivotal role in 
engineering the tobacco buyout of 2004. I worked side by side with Mr. 
Moore in that effort, and can testify that his hard work and dedication 
to moving that project through was critical to our success.
  Thanks to Mr. Moore's efforts, Congress passed and the President 
signed a tobacco buyout bill that will guarantee $2.5 billion to 
Kentucky farmers and their families over the next 10 years. Farmers now 
have the opportunity to explore other areas of agriculture, free from 
the restraints the government placed on tobacco farming for so long. 
Nothing was more important to Sam's Kentucky Farm Bureau members--and 
so Sam worked long and hard, until he delivered.
  Sam is the co-owner of the Green River Feed Mill and also serves as a 
director of Morgantown Bank & Trust. He farms over 4,300 acres, 
producing corn, soybeans, wheat, and cattle. He and his gracious wife 
Helen have six wonderful children.
  Sam has dedicated decades of his life to farming and his fellow 
farmers because he loves farming so much. He has made a lot of friends 
across the State over the years, and I am proud to be one of them. Any 
friend of Sam Moore will tell you he spent his entire career with the 
Kentucky Farm Bureau thinking only of what was best for his members.
  Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me in commending Mr. Sam 
Moore for his years of service to Kentucky.

                          ____________________