April issue of Livestock Plus Inc. will be the last

Mike Sorensen of Greenfield made a big announcement last week, saying the April 2023 issue of Livestock Plus Inc. will be the last.

The publication that began in Greenfield has been going for 28 years, known as the publication for cowboys and kids. Sorensen said he’s sad to see it end, however, he and his family made the decision so they can experience a little slower-paced life.

“Both Mike, Dixie and their partners the Allen Family are living a life with what they think are active 25-year-old minds, but we have 70-year-old bodies that say slow up a little and take some stress out of our lives,” Sorensen wrote in an announcement in the April issue to customers and followers. “To do this, we have decided that the April 2023 issue will be the last issue of Livestock Plus, Inc.,” as it is today.

Livestock Plus began with just Sorensen’s family. He acknowledges there were people who questioned him, however with a lot of help from various people, it became a success.

“Other people that I think were instrumental in making Livestock Plus, Inc. successful were the folks that said it wouldn’t last a year,” he said. “They made this bull-headed, half-blood Dane mad enough that we made it work for 28 plus years.”

The very first edition of Livestock Plus was printed by the Adair County Free Press here in 1995. Sorensen remembers walking into the Free Press to arrange for the first issue to be printed with then pressman Larry Woods. “I said I need 1,000 of these and he looked at me like I was crazy, “Sorensen said. “Eventually after the fourth issue we grew to where Larry said ‘I can’t do this anymore. We can’t print that many.’”

Sorensen chose the Creston News Advertiser as its next printer because of a higher volume they were able to print. He remembers how time consuming it was to get every issue out through the mail. Livestock Plus was printed in Creston, and issues were loaded in a truck to be hauled to Greenfield where they were unloaded, labeled, and sorted by hand, according to zip code, in a small office off the west side of the square that is now owned by Fox Welding.

Once the newspapers were re-bagged, they were loaded back in a truck, taken to the post office, weighed, the postage paid, and they were off to readers.

Sorensen said he remembers handling each individual publication five times before it was sent. At the end of that arrangement, they had five tons of papers to do that with. It was then that they transitioned to a bigger printer in Clarion.

Shortly after Mike’s Clarion partner, Eugene Allen, passed away he and new partners the Allen heirs to the Allen Family estate, switched to the glossy print publication. Now the publication is sent off digitally to the printer in Fullerton, Missouri and mailed from that location.

In similar fashion, the process of making the publication has changed vastly. Once a process all done from Greenfield, production is now all done in Fullerton. In 2020, Sorensen said he hadn’t ever visited the printing facility for Livestock Plus, though they remained very hands on with the other aspects of the business. As of the April 2023 printing, Livestock Plus, Inc. gets mailed to 16,600 mailboxes in 43 states and two foreign countries.

Sorensen and his employees still plan on doing many of the livestock promotion things as usual, only digitally and through word of mouth.

When he looks back on the journey that has unfolded, it is the people who helped Livestock Plus get off the ground in Greenfield that Sorensen is the most thankful for.

Sorensen said that at some point every member of his family has worked on the publication.

“At the beginning, we had 16 feet of table in my office where we all sat around the table and hand-labeled each issue. Those are the people I’m appreciative of. There are a lot of those people who are gone now,” Sorensen said. “It turned out to be a neat working social event.”

Upon the announcement of this transition, Sorensen still has that sentiment of gratitude toward those who have been a part of the journey.

“To our very valuable customers, thank you. I have met so many great people on this trip that I will never forget. We are very appreciative of all of you,” he wrote. “To the employees past and present, I and we appreciate all your efforts. I will always treasure your friendship. Hopefully you will continue your efforts as valuable livestock fieldmen and ring men.”