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TehamaCountyCat- tlemen and CattleWomen have many nice, useful items donated for their 14th annual Scholarship Fundraiser tonight at the fairgrounds starting at 6 p.m. Among the items is a one hour scenic flight with Kevin Borror in a Cessna 185 airplane. Over the New Year's holiday I had the opportunity to fly with Kevin and Linda to visit my sister Marilyn and brother-in-law Bob in So- noma. We flew south over the foothill ranges to the west of I-5, and I never realized there was so many roll- ing hills covered in brush and trees with an occa- sional valley tucked in be- tween, too high to see cat- tle grazing. Then we were looking down on the burned area near Clear Lake, and over to the right was the large lake. Lake Berryessa was to the left and we could see many vineyards carved into the hills. From the air, some of the homes looked like mansions with their swimming pools and lawns. 48 minutes in the air, while I plan three hours for the drive. No wonder Kevin and grandson Bryce like their plane for travel- ing to the Adin ranch in- stead of driving up the canyon and over Hatchett Mountain. Coming back we were closer to I-5 and you could really see all the water covered rice fields. All the grazing land that is now covered in orchards. A great trip. Tonight's event will start at 6 p.m. with wine tasting from Burnsini Vineyard and Cline Cel- lars, and olive oil tasting from Lucero and Corn- ing Olive Oil. Tickets are $30 at the door of the au- ditorium, and Vic Wool- ery's crew will prepare the prime rib dinner. The silent auction will include a carrot cake made by Kendra McCluskey, while her sister Linda Bor- ror has made a lemon me- ringue pie. They learned to bake, cook and sew from their grandmother Anne Willard McNabb. Both will be delicious. There will also be a prime rib dinner for four from Scotty's Landing. Sun glasses from Gumm's Optical. An extra large pizza from Firehouse Pizza. 15 bales of alfalfa hay from Don and Denae Brown. Two ski passes at Sugar Bowl from Corning Ford. A beaded handbag do- nated by Steve and Lau- rie McCarthy. $100 your choice beef sticks and $50 toward farm slaughter from Ranchers Meats and Deli. An ice bucket, cham- pagne and two champagne flutes from Tom and Dee Hill. Red Truck Rock Yard gave a $250 gift certificate. Family Six Pack Cosmic Bowling at Java Lanes. A wine rack from Corn- ing High School Wood Shop. Sugar Shack gave a gift certificate. Reynolds Ranch and Farm Supply with The Loft gave three different lots. "The Performance Horse" book and date book; "Cow- girls in Heaven" book and date book; plus a horn bag, cantle bag, water bot- tle or cell phone holder. ••• As a TCCA and TCCW member of Red Bluff Te- hama County Chamber of Commerce, congratu- lations to the Green Barn Steak House and Red Bluff Bull & Gelding Sale for 55 years of membership. On the 4th we cele- brated the life of another "icon" of those early years of the bull sale. Liz Dil- labo, Velma Growney, and a couple other ladies al- ways had a luncheon at the Green Barn when Joan Verdugo came for the bull sale with her husband Bill. Elizabeth Dillabo was a charter member of the Te- hama County CowBelles. The State Theatre will host another memory of earlier Red Bluff Bull Sales with "Roots & Boots" at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 24. Sammy Kershaw, Pam Til- lis and Collin Raye will be on stage. Be sure to get your tickets. During those early Bull Sales, Dave Minch would put on a vaudeville show. Later at the State Theatre with entertainers Donald O'Connor, Patti Page, Ten- nessee Ernie Ford are a couple I remember. But earlier it had been a dinner show. From the 1946 Daily News: "But the greatest en- tertainment plum of all will be reserved for Fri- day evening, when ap- proximately 450 persons will ankle in to the for- mer Minch store in Main street for a succulent ban- quet and vaudeville enter- tainment. Previously re- stricted in size capacity for fun by the physical limits of the Women's clubhouse, this years enjoyment will exceed in size and vari- ety anything previously of- fered in these fields. "The dinners, going swiftly at $2.50 per per- son, will be served from buffet tables. After the serving, individuals may have their choice of com- fortable seats for all, with unrestricted vision and hearing for the entertain- ment to follow. The cater- ing will be under the su- pervision of the famous lo- cal chef, Mrs. Inez Tatro. "The new site for the dinner and show has been improved and em- bellished by the construc- tion of an entertainment stage, where all revelry will be centered. The ex- ception will be that the dance, traditionally fol- lowing the dinner, will be held immediately after the show in the Women's club- house. Admission to the dance is included in the $ 2.50 dinner and fun fee. Ray Horne and his musical maestros will pound out the energizing rhythms until 12 o'clock. "Dinner entertainment will be furnished by pro- fessional actors from San Francisco, Seattle and Sac- ramento. Chairman Dave Minch and committeemen 'Babe' Rubel and Joe Cro- show have formed a com- mittee of citizens to meet all incoming trains up to the day of the sale." "The Entertainment Program for Banquet Red Bluff Hereford Sale. "Master of Ceremonies. Russell Byrd, Baritone. Rich and Adair, Novelty team and their Old Sol- dier Act. Penny Bennett, Acrobatic dancer. LeMur Hamble, Piano specialties. Frank and Mary Shannon, Juggling. The Collings, Se- attle dance team. Andrini Bros.; novelty intrumen- talists, now playing on the Golden Gate theater stage in San Francisco. Char- ley Marshall, Sacramento funny man, guitarist, and NBC entertainer. Girls Trio, consisting of Waneta Young, Gladys Kane and Evelyn Minch, popular lo- cal singers." Earlier on Feb. 7, 1946, 303 Hereford bulls and 85 heifers had been graded. They had been consigned by 42 nationally known breeders from Montana, California, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming and Arizona at the fifth annual event. That evening there were free refreshments, buffet dinner and entertainment for consignors and visitors in banquet hall of Tremont Hotel sponsored annually by the Red Bluff Chamber of Commerce. The menu for the Red Bluff Hereford Sale Ban- quet, Tremont Hotel, was shrimp, smoked tongue, salami, liverwurst, olives and celery, tomato aspic, Roast Steer Beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, succo- tash, ice cream and cook- ies. JeanBartonhasbeen writing her column in the Daily News since the early 1990s. She can be reached by e-mail at jbarton2013@ gmail.com. JEANBARTON Tonight's the night for the Winter Dinner By Diane Nelson Food & Agriculture Most of the 5 million cat- tle that graze on Califor- nia'srangelandsliketodine in the valleys and hang out by creeks. This can lead to overgrazing in riparian ar- eas and let perfectly good forage on hillsides go to waste. But some cows are dif- ferent. They prefer to climb hillsandmountainsandeat alongtheway.Ifmorecattle followed the road less trav- eled, rangelands would be more productive and sus- tainable throughout Cali- fornia and the West. That is why a team of re- searchers, including Uni- versity of California, Da- vis, animal geneticist Juan Medrano, is working to de- velop an easy, inexpensive genetic test to help ranch- ers improve cattle distribu- tion by breeding hill-climb- ing cows. "It's very exciting re- search," said Medrano, a professor with the Depart- mentofAnimalSciencewho is collaborating with scien- tists throughout the West. "DNA technology makes it relatively easy to test and breed for production traits like milk yield and growth rate. But it's brand new to identify genetic markers linked to animal behavior. This could have a huge im- pact on food security and rangeland management." Nature and nurture OnethirdofCalifornia— 38 million acres — is range- land.Mostofitismountain- ous or hilly and managed for livestock production. Grazingon rangelandfeeds livestock, but also offers many environmental bene- fits such as keeping weeds and other invasive species in check, providing water storage and carbon seques- tration,andsupportinghab- itat for animals and plants found nowhere else in the world. Problems arise, though, when rangeland is over- grazed and cattle spend too much time near run- ning water, where manure and calving can create wa- ter-quality risks for peo- ple downstream. That is especially true in Califor- nia. Some 80 percent of the state's drinking and irriga- tion water is stored on or passes through rangeland. Researchers at UC Da- vis and beyond have been working for decades with ranchers to keep cattle from overgrazing and con- gregating by creeks. They build strategic fencing, for example, andprovidewater and salt licks on ridgetops away from running water. Cowhands often herd cat- tle from low-lying pastures, but that is labor-intensive and only a temporary fix. A few years ago, Derek Bailey, a professor of range science at New Mexico State University and a col- league of Medrano, had an intriguing thought: What if we combine nature and nurture? "I've been watching cat- tle for years, and there are always some cows that just take off for the hills, like they didn't know they weren't elk," Bailey said. "They could be belly-deep in green grass, and just bolt for the hills. They like itupthere.Wecanbreedfor other traits. Why not select for hill climbing?" Bailey joined forces with Medrano and a team of re- searchers including ani- mal genetics expert Milton Thomas at Colorado State University. Funded by a grant from Western Sus- tainable Agriculture Re- search and Education, the group is close to developing a genetic test for whether a bull is likely to sire daugh- ters who like to climb hills. Locomotion, motivation and spatial learning To identify hill-climb- ing cattle, Bailey and his crew put GPS collars on 180 cows on seven ranches in three western states and took measurements every 10 minutes for months at a time. They tracked the cat- tle'sslopeuse,elevationgain and distance traveled from water. They also took blood samples that Medrano and his team analyzed for chro- mosomal commonalities. Medrano found overlap in genes linked to locomo- tion, motivation and spa- tial learning. "Results so far are very encouraging," Medrano said. "Soon we will be able to test and breed for hill- climbing behavior." With both plants and an- imals,breedingforonetrait can sometimes produce un- intended consequences like predisposition to disease or low calf weight. Research- ers are looking closely at that possibility, and have so far found no correlation between hill-climbing be- haviorandundesiredtraits. "We've looked at calf- weaning weights, preg- nancy rates, blood pres- sure, even disposition," Bai- leysaid."Wehadonetheory that hill-climbing cows tended toward the meaner end of the scale, but that's not the case. "Some cows just prefer to climb more than other cows," Bailey said. "And if breeding can move the bell curve in that direc- tion,managementtoolslike fencing and herding will be much more effective." California ranchers are intrigued by the possibility. "I can see many ecolog- ical and economic benefits to breeding for cows who like to travel," said Clayton Koopmann, a rancher and rangeland-management consultant who runs cattle on hilly ground throughout theSanFranciscoBayArea. "Foragewouldbeconsumed moreevenly,andthat'sgood forlivestockproductionand for the environment." UC DAVIS Hi ll -c li mb in g co ws m ay help rangeland stability CONTRIBUTEDPHOTO Tehama County Cattlewomen and Cattlemen members Candace Owens, Kelly Mouton and John Owens will be serving prime rib, salad, baked potato, beans, roll, butter and horse radish Saturday evening at the annual winter dinner. Freshcoverage5days Tuesday,January24 Wednesday, January 25 Thursday, January 26 Friday, January 27 & Saturday, January 28 ContactyourAdvertisingRepresentativetoday published only in the Deadline for 5x Flights: Friday, January 20 at 10AM Bull&GeldingSale Gayla Eckels: (530) 737-5044 geckels@redbluffdailynews.com Suzy Noble: (530) 737-5056 snoble@redbluffdailynews.com CUSTOM DAILY EDITIONS RUNNINGS ROOFING and CONSTRUCTION SheetMetalRoofing ResidentialCommercial • Composition • Shingle • Single Ply Membrane ServingTehamaCounty 530-527-5789 530-209-5367 NoMoney Down! 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