Annual meeting to feature award-winning photographer, Paul Mobley

By Kerry Watson, Director of Communications

The 48th annual meeting of MKC stockholders is scheduled for Thursday, July 11, and will be held at the Sunflower Building on the Kansas State Fairgrounds in Hutchinson. Events will begin at 6:00 p.m. with a dinner followed by the business meeting to include election of board members. This year’s meeting will feature keynote speaker, Paul Mobley.

Mobley is an award-winning photographer who has traveled the world over to capture and celebrate humanity. Firmly grounded by his Midwestern roots, Mobley’s early training as a photographer began at Detroit’s Center for Creative Studies, and continued in the New York studios of such leading photographers as Annie Leibovitz, Steve Steigman, and David Langley, where he apprenticed for many years before embarking on his own career. Since then, Mobley has successfully worked with a broad range of corporate, advertising, and editorial clients including American Express, Sony, Max Factor, Microsoft and many others.

In 2005 Paul set out to capture the soul of rural America. Traveling across the country Mobley and his camera were welcomed time and again into the homes of over three hundred farm families, who graciously shared their personal histories and private thoughts, along with the fruits of their labor. Visit after visit, Mobley came to know the independent farmer's spirit from both behind the lens and across the dinner table. The result, American Farmer: The Heart of Our Country, won the 2009 Western Heritage award for "best photography book" from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

In Paul’s presentations, he shares photographs and tells the stories behind the pictures of America’s unsung heroes. From Walter Jackson, a 104-year-old Florida citrus farmer; to Patsy Fribley, a stockyard dealer from Montana; to Aaron Bell, a young 9th generation organic dairy farmer in Maine, Mobley's exquisite photographs and narrative reveal the true face of American farming and remind us what it means to live with simplicity, contentment, and decency in a world that so often forgets.