The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • E2

2E Sunday, August 5, 2007 THETENNESSEAN www.tennessean.com BUSINESS Drought: Ag official expects losses of $500M or more work with farmers then as they are now, commodities prices were lower and, in some places, land values were declining, he said. Farmers also are more likely today to have alternative income sources such as farm tours, corn mazes and off-farm income, Gerloff said. "Agriculture is a lot more sophisticated," he said. Paula and Randall Carr, for example, own Carr's Wild Horse Burro Center just outside Cross Plains. They maintain about 300 head of cattle.

Since 1979, the couple also has worked with the federal government to gather wild horses and burros from Western states and find homes for them in the East. And, they give free tours to anyone interested in learning about agriculture. "Altogether, it makes a business that keeps us pretty busy," Paula Carr said. This year, they are hoping that selling half their herd and that Randall Carr's work with wild horses in Tennessee and other states will offset ever-rising hay prices. With hay supplies in Robertson and other parts of the state well below normal because of the drought, the Carrs have not been able to buy the 50-pound bales of hay they usually purchase for $2.50 to $3.50.

Instead, neighbors and hay dealers with whom they have standing relationships and out-of-state hay sellers are charging $7.00 to $9.00 for the same size bales. Carr said the couple is thinking of buying hay from as far away as Wisconsin and selling more of their herd. "There are some green "It's hard to put a definite number on the damage or to really describe how hard a year this has been for our farmers," said Ken Givens, the state agriculture commissioner. Givens expects losses of $500 million or more, but "we won't know until the fall harvest what the financial losses and, I guess, the reactions to those losses are going to be." If he's right, it would be the biggest loss in at least 20 years. Farmers face trying time Givens and several farmers said this is the most trying period for farmers since the 1980s, when the number of farms across the state fell 7.3 percent, from 96,000 to 89,000, according to federal estimates.

Between 1990 and 2006 the number of farms in Tennessee fell another 7.9 percent, to 82,000. Officials are hopeful there won't be a surge in the number of bankruptcies, foreclosures and farm sales. If the number of farmers contacting the department this year for information about its $26 million slate of cost-sharing programs for freeze- and drought-resistance measures is an indication, farmers hope to stay in the business and want to reduce their risk, Givens said. Not only were some of the farm foreclosures of the 1980s weather-related, but also interest rates were higher then, said Delton Gerloff an agricultural economist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Lenders weren't so willing to LAVONDIA MAJORS THE TENNESSEAN Paula and Randall Carr, owners of Carr's Wild Horse Burro Center outside Cross Plains, feed some of their wild horses Friday.

They hope that selling half of their herd of cattle will help offset the rising price of hay to feed their other animals. land values could tempt some farmers to sell. Selling was on the minds of some farmers at a Tennessee State University Small Farm Expo last week in Ashland City. They talked about how much money they could lose because of the drought and about the constant temptation of selling their land to developers. Mel Maxwell, who operates a farm with about 120 cattle in Putnam County, said he isn't interested in selling his land, at least not now, "but you can see why these farmers might consider it." The drought has left Maxwell with so little pasture Yaeger: GM says families support Nashville Sounds baseball While financial pressure on farmers is great, there is hope that most farmers can avoid bankruptcy or foreclosure, said Jim Garrison, senior vice president of credit with Farm Credit Services of Mid-America.

Farm Credit's default rate has risen 0.17 percent this year, but Garrison attributes most of that slight increase to problems with rural home mortgages, not agricultural loans. Garrison is optimistic about what may happen with farm earnings, in part because certain crops such as corn and soybeans, fetched record high prices at market. "I think a lot will depend on how many farmers were able to leverage last year's crops and take advantage of those prices earlier this year," he said. Optimism is essential Osborne said good prices earlier this summer for soybeans and corn, combined with his farm's low debt his equipment is 30 years old but paid off and his wife's off-farm job, should help him break even this year. So, he will keep farming.

"If you are a farmer, you have to be optimistic," Osborne said. "Otherwise you'd have to get out of this business. But you can't ignore your numbers, your costs and your sales, your rain Right now, they are telling a pretty bad story." It's a story his son, Samuel, knows well. He said, "If we had another year of two like this, I don't think I could keep going. I'd pretty much have to do something else." Reach Janell Ross at 726-5982.

Glenn Yaeger Positions: general manager, Nashville Sounds; chief operating officer, AmeriSports Companies LLC. Age: 43. Education: bachelor's degree in accounting, University of Illinois; master's of business administration, University of Chicago. Family: wife, Laura; three sons, John, Michael and Andrew. TODD PACK churches that are here.

We'll give our sales force something to sell. We put together that package, and it's been huge. Our Friday attendance averaged around 4,000 before Faith Nights. Now it's 9,000. (On Tuesday, Woodland, Calif-based Tower Investments LLC and Atlanta-based Barry Real Estate Cos.

announced plans to work together on a proposal to develop the former site of the Nashville Thermal Transfer Plant, the same riverfront location where the Sounds had wanted to build a ballpark.) Are you in talks with the developers? In the past, we have talked to Tower Investments. Tower is very interested in downtown development, and I think they view the team as being very valuable there. They wanted to participate when it was on the Thermal site. I'd be real interested to know if they're programming a ballpark. Have any other developers looking at that site contacted you? Yes, but I do not want to have Discussion One with a developer about that site until I know what the priorities of the new (city) administration and council are.

We need to be working together Will you wait until after the (November) election to see what the support is before you decide what to do next season or in '09? I think it's important to understand the priorities of the city, the priorities of the council, where they see the value of the team, the value of the stadium, and that will dictate our process for a new ballpark Are you looking at leaving Nashville? Not from my perspective. I am not looking at markets outside Middle has been phenomenal. I think that shows the support of baseball here in Nashville Friday and Saturday nights, our average attendance is about 9,000 people. What is it during the week? About 4,000. It builds.

Monday, 2,500. Tuesday, it goes up a little bit more. Wednesday, it dips back down; church night. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, it goes back up again. How does that compare with other teams in the league? We're right in the middle.

The two biggest drivers are market size and age of facility. We're at the top in market size but the age of our facility, we're at the bottom end. So, it makes sense we're in the middle. Good market, bad stadium Where do the crowds come from? Fifty percent from Davidson County, and then it's a fair distribution in all the surrounding counties. (When plans for a new ballpark in downtown Nashville fell through), there was some noise about, perhaps, the city of Franklin being interested.

Would you consider staying in the metro area but, perhaps, moving to Williamson County or one of the other counties? I think the surrounding counties are viable options, if we can't get something done downtown. Would the Davidson County fans follow you to Franklin or Henderson- ville? I don't know, but Major League Baseball really doesn't care what my attendance is. They want an adequate facility for the development of the players. spaces when you go to White House and Gallatin," said Carr. "But out here, we are really wrestling with this drought." Some farmers could sell Although Gerloff said he is optimistic that many farmers would be able to avoid either foreclosure or bankruptcy, he isn't sure how many would stay in farming.

Between 1990 and 2007, the average price of farmland in Tennessee climbed almost 219 percent, from $1,067 an acre to $3,400 an acre, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Gerloff said higher Are you looking at other sites in Davidson County (besides the riverfront)? One hundred percent of my focus right now is dealing with Greer Stadium, with the requirements for us to continue to play baseball here and trying to get my money (for stadium maintenance) from the city. I think this market is attractive enough that our league, the Pacific Coast League, is going to want us to exhaust all available options to figure this thing out. (When the Sounds began playing in 1978), Nashville didn't have the Titans.

It didn't have the Preds. You're now a minor league team in a major league city. Has that hurt the team's ability to get support from the city? Do minor league teams in major league cities tend to have these same kinds of issues? No. You've got a minor league team in Indianapolis, which has pro basketball, pro football, and they've built a new (baseball) facility in the last five years, a state-of-the-art facility in downtown Indianapolis. Sacramento has an NBA team, and they lead our league in attendance and (there was) support for a new ballpark out there (which opened in 2000).

It can be made to work. Have you done any research to find out how many times a person comes (to a game) in a season? Three to four. I think our turnover is higher than most other teams in the league, and the reason I say that is that our season ticket base is lower. Do you think a new stadium would drive season ticket sales? Yes, it would. We know that to be a fact.

We had close to 2,000 people who had signed up to buy season tickets for the downtown ballpark who are not current season ticket holders. How did you get into this business? Ten years ago, I finished up getting my MBA and I started my job search, and one of the guys I met in that job search was Al Gordon, who's the owner of the team. My background was accounting and finance. At the time, they were looking for a chief financial officer of American Sports Enterprises, which was a holding company that owned two minor league teams and was purchasing a third. In 1999, the grass he has had to increase the proportion of a costly protein-barlike grain mix that he feeds his cattle and sold some of his calves at a loss last month.

Feeding a calf often costs $500 to $600 before the animal sells for $700 to $800, he said, but feed costs this summer are closer to $750 to $850 a head. If the drought continues, Maxwell said he can imagine a point where selling his land would be worth more as real estate than as a farm State data on the quantity of farmland and farmland sold for development won't be available until sometime in 2008, state statisticians said. LARRY MCCORMACK THE TENNESSEAN says because the Titans and the Sounds are well-positioned. product was positioned as the professional sports franchise. People were like, "No, no, no, no.

We got the Titans and the Predators. If you're going to ask me if I'm going to a major league professional sports event or a minor league professional sports event, I'm going to choose the major league." There was no mascot. There were no in-between inning promotions. There was nothing fun for the kids. Have you ever wondered why we have a cougar as a mascot? I have.

The mascot from King County is the King County Cougars. When we took control of the (Nashville) team in April 1997, they had no mascot. We had two (mascot) uniforms in King County. We said, "Send one down." After that year, the kids had already identified with this cougar as our mascot, so we could never change him. If we'd tried bringing some guitar player into town as our mascot, it never would have worked.

You also started Faith Night. Everyone did a church night Catholic night, Presbyterian night, Methodist night. We said here's an idea: Why don't we pick a night, come up with a ticket package for churches, and we'll actively sell that and create an event. It's not just Church of Christ night and we'll name off the 30 C'mon, as a kid you dreamed about this kind of opportunity. America's Favorite Neighborhood Ice Cream Shop is Expanding! Exciting New Store Design and Logo.

Over 5,600 locations worldwide. New, existing, single and multi-units available. bdSkiKil JrobbiNS Celebrating over 61 years in business Call 866-5614474 orvisitvraw.baskinrobbins.com to set up a confidential interview Mil. Financial Requirements: $100,000 liquid assets, $300,000 net worth General Manager Glenn Yaeger Predators dont play in summer, partnership was being broken up, and the assets that were left were the Nashville team and the team in Chicago, the King County Cougars. Al took over controlling interest in the Sounds, and the other two partners took the King County Cougars, which is a Single-A team in the Chicago area.

For the first two years, we hired and fired two different general managers, and then in 2003, as we were interviewing for the position again, I said to Al, "I think I can do this." Were you a baseball fan? I'm a huge baseball fan. Didn't know a lot about the minor league industry, though, until I started interviewing for the position We had one Single-A team in King County. Before I interviewed, I made sure I got out there. I was shocked by the number of people attending the game. It was all families.

You asked me if it's tougher with the Titans and the Predators. I think it's creating a nice niche for us. It's a place where the families go. It's affordable. And the Titans and the Predators don't play in the summer.

I like where we're positioned in this market. When you came here, how was attendance? It was bad. For the first 20 years (the Sounds) had a pretty easy run here in this market. When the Titans and the Predators did come, this Frchise Owners 1 I We are looking for i self motivated i. personable hardworking chicken lovers to help us grow our concept through Ftanchised Locations.

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