16 NEBRASKA CATTLEMAN December 2025 Rebuilding Local Strength Ask him how you reach non-members – the people who are doing business in Nebraska but not plugged into Nebraska Cattlemen – and he doesn’t say “mail them an application.” He says you start where they live. “It really needs to start at the local and grassroots levels,” he says. “We’ve got local affiliates trying to rebuild. We need to help them with topics that are actually relevant. Help them find speakers. Partner with the university. Use things like the Feedlot Roundtable and rangeland management programs. Those are great opportunities to bring in non-members who care about a specific issue.” He’s practical about the challenge of getting younger producers in the room. The old model – supper club and handshake politics – doesn’t always work for 30-year-olds who are raising and/or feeding cattle, trying to pay for land, raising kids and hauling those kids to wrestling, basketball, 4-H and FFA. “Some local affiliates are already saying, instead of this just being a good old boys’ club with a steak and a drink, can it be more family-oriented?” he says. “Part of that is identifying the young people in that county and getting them on the board. Expose them to the issues.” To do that, he admits that older members are going to have to get out of the way sometimes. “Let’s not impede these younger producers,” he says. “They’re not going to do it the way we think it needs to be done. Believe me, I know that. I’ve got a lot of young people working for me, and they can humble me pretty fast. But that doesn’t mean we’re wrong, either. It’s the difference between listening to them vs. talking at them. And that’s a big difference.” Family, Roots, Reality Uden lives at Johnson Lake in Dawson County – or, as he jokes, “kind of in central Nebraska, not really Elwood, not really Lexington, not really Cozad.” He’s a partner in Darr Feedlot, which he helped build starting in the early 1980s and, while he stepped back from daily pen and people manageNO STRANGER TO LEADERSHIP CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15 While many equate Uden with Darr Feedlot, he, his wife, Terri, and their children and spouses are highly involved in the cowcalf sector as well.
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