NOTE:
ABBA President, Russ Arend sent me the following copies of eight
(8) letters for this file to be placed
onto the website. When I
scanned the copies the readable quality
was very poor, therefore
all letters were re-typed.
Richard Butterworth,
ABBA Website Administrator
American Brace
Beagling Association
Russ Arend
“TO PROTECT AND
PROMOTE TRADITIONAL BRACE BEAGLING”
Mr. Billy Bobbitt
President
National
Beagle Club
Dear Billy,
I
am writing to give you a summary of how each brace beagle club
that
was presented $1,000.00 used their share and the impact it had on
each
club and beagling in general. The
Purina Parent Club Partnership
Program,
in cooperation with the National Beagle Club made this
possible by providing a $7,000.00 grant
to the American Brace Beagling
Association. In order to keep each clubs grounds in
tip top shape, each
club spends several thousand dollars
each year to make sure the entire
habitat is healthy. As you will see from each and every
individual letter,
(copies attached), the club members
were thrilled beyond belief to first
of all be recognized, and secondly, to
get a boost financially as all clubs
are having to tighten their belts with
the economy and rising costs of
feed, lime, gas for tractors, etc.
I
personally, attended four of the federations and presented the
president of the host club with the
check and an explanation of where
the money came from and its
purpose. This presentation was made
at
the business meeting where all clubs
were represented.
I
can assure you no other gift from the National Beagle Club and
Purina could have been more appreciated
or put to better use than the
grants to these seven clubs.
During
2009, a total of 1,863 beagles were entered and participated
in these seven federation events. Again, thank you. We look forward to
a long relationship with the National
Beagle Club and the Purina Parent
Club Partnership Program.
Sincerely,
Russell
Arend
President
ABBA
Macclenny,
FL. 32063
cc Mike Allway
Southern Federation
LOOKOUT BEAGLE CLUB
To: National Beagle Club
Purina and American Brace Beagling
We
would like to start off saying how much we appreciate the grant
money allocated to our Beagle
Club. We started a lime program
three
years ago and this money will help us
pay for the lime. Lookout Beagle
Club consists of 80 acres broke up into
3 enclosures. We have two 20 acre
enclosures and a 40 acre
enclosure. We average spreading 2
tons per acre
a year. The cost is between $2,500 and $2,800 a
year. Hosting one of the
biggest Federations in the country and
three licensed brace trials puts
great demands on our rabbits and
running grounds. Since starting our
lime program we have seen a big change in
our cover and our ability to
raise rabbits. Beagle clubs across the country that
raise rabbits
consistently know lime is the key for
success. The grant money we
received will help us continue this
program. Enclosed are some photos
of
our Beagle club and the truck spreading
the lime. We would like to thank
everyone from the National Beagle Club,
Purina, and American Brace
Beagling Association who’s time
and hard work made this possible.
Sincerely,
Kevin
Price, President
Lookout
Beagle Club
Mid
American
Brace Beagling Association
Attn: Russ Arend, President
Re: $1,000.00 Check
Dear
Russ:
We
at
keeping
our running grounds in good shape for our trials. The members
at
Catawba work hard all year to make sure we have sufficient game for all
the
trials we have each year including the Mid
The
$1,000.00 we received from ABBA through the National Beagle Club
and The Purina Club Partnership Program
was a great help to keep our
rabbit farming on schedule. We sprayed our grounds for ticks and
fleas
at a cost of $1,300.00, fertilized our
feed strips at a cost of $1,600.00 and
put out rabbit feed at a monthly cost
of $424.00 ($5,088.00 yearly). The
cost to keep a good rabbit program is
more than a club can afford at times.
We Would like to thank all who had a part
in sending the $1,000.00 check,
the people who feed Purina, Purina for
making the money available, the
National Beagle Club for agreeing to
cooperate in this program and to
ABBA for your concern for the beagle
clubs that work hard to host the
federations.
Hope
to see you soon and until then thanks for your effort to help the
sport.
Sincerely,
Ernest
Williams, Jr.
Secretary
Hartland Federation
July
12, 2009
American
Brace Beagling Association
Russell
Arend, President
Macclenny,
FL. 32063
Dear
Russ:
On
behalf of the
Federation, we wish to extend a sincere
thank you and report on the
use of the $1,000.00 grant monies
received for our annual rabbit
farming program.
The
includes
the following: hiring help to haul in pine trees for brush piles,
mowing
feed strips 12 times per year, spreading lime over our 135 acre
field,
feeding 3 ton rabbit pellets and 3 ton ear corn, plowing/seeding
new
strips and tractor repairs. In
order to maintain a good rabbit supply
on
our 135 acre running enclosures, expenses for the annual program
ranges
from $6,500.00 - $7,000.00, depending on changes in commodity
prices.
This
year we applied the $1,000.00 grant money toward lime on one-half
of
our enclosure which cost $1,500.00.
Late this fall we plan to lime the
other
half of our enclosure.
Again,
we wish to thank ABBA, the National Beagle Club and Purina for
making
this grant money available!
Sincerely,
Dale
E. Bado
VP,
Midwestern Federation
Rolling Fork Beagle
Club
May
11, 2009
Dear
Russ:
Received
the check for $1,00.00 and the members of Rolling Fork
Beagle Club
thank you for all your efforts thru ABBA.
We also thank the
National Beagle
Club and Purina for their efforts through this program.
This money
will be used to help buy our lime, fertilizer and seed this year.
We’ll
spread approximately 55 tons on our enclosure ground at a cost
of
approximately $850.00. We worked up
4 plots of ground and seeded
it with
annual rye, white dutch clover and serica.
We also fertilized with
200 lbs. of
19-19-19. This cost us
approximately $200.00. We will also
drill
rye grass
in all of our feed or walking strips.
The rye seed and
fertilizer
will cost approximately #300.00. We
have spent approximately
$3,500.00
the last 5 years on rabbit pellets.
We at Rolling Fork Beagle
Club,
thanks you, National Beagle Club, and Purina again for everything.
Yours
Sincerely,
Jimmy
W. Sanders
President
Rolling
Fork Beagle Club
Eastern Federation
Swatara Beagle Club
From:
Robert Hartman <beaglebobby@comcast.net
Date: Aug 4, 2009 1:05 pm
One
of the foreboding problems in brace trial beagling is the aging of
the
participants, and, thus, the aging of the work force. Inherently then the
work
force becomes decimated at an overwhelming rate. This necessitates
finding
alternate and creative ways to control the growth of underbrush.
The
contribution of #1000.00 from the folks at PURINA allowed the Swatara
Beagle
Club to hire Charles Flexor to bring the large equipment onto the
Club, thus
making everything more manageable.
What a psychological
lift!!
Swatara
Beagle Club thanks Purina, The National Beagle Club and
ABBA for
their continuing efforts on our behalf.
Robert J.
Hartman,
President
International
Federation
Coraopolis Beagle Club
Thanks
to Hounds and Hunting for giving us space to thank all who
were
involved with the ABBA grant.
We
all know that the beagle clubs are really rabbit farms. The
members at Coraopolis work very hard
all year to make sure we have
sufficient game to run all the trials
we have on our grounds. I think, so
far, this is one of the better years as
far as game goes. Money is an on
going project as with all clubs.
The
$1000.00 we received will be used for improvement of rabbit
habitat. All winter it is bush cutting. Springs brings the lime truck. All
year long we feed pellets at two week
intervals.
The
pictures that Art has taken show the fields we have made over
the last several years. New strips were planted with alfalfa.
Thanks
again to ABBA, National Beagle Club, Purina and of course
the folks who send in their
circles. We look forward to seeing
all our
friends and hope we will continue to
improve your expedience at Cory.
Jerry
Gileot, President
Coraopolis
Beagle Club
Northeastern
Federation
Dear
Russ:
We
would like to thank you for the most generous gift of $100.00
check that was given to the
Northeastern Federation. We work
very
hard at
money will be used for lime, fertilizer
and pellets.
Thank
you,
Jim
Haines, President