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CapitalPress.com
August 21, 2015
People & Places
Family recipe produces business
Charlotte
Armstrong starts
flapjack enterprise
from scratch
Established 1928
Board of directors
Mike Forrester ..........................President
Steve Forrester
Kathryn Brown
Sid Freeman .................. Outside director
Mike Omeg .................... Outside director
Corporate officer
John Perry
Chief operating officer
Capital Press Managers
Mike O’Brien .............................Publisher
Joe Beach ..................................... Editor
Elizabeth Yutzie Sell .... Advertising Director
Carl Sampson ................Managing Editor
Barbara Nipp ......... Production Manager
Samantha McLaren .... Circulation Manager
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
DECLO, Idaho — Char-
lotte Armstrong cooks up a
batch of flapjacks for her hus-
band, Tom, almost every morn-
ing, and Tom never tires of the
old family recipe given to Char-
lotte by her mother-in-law.
That recipe and five years
of marketing and wheat variety
research are the foundation of
Cowboy Tom’s Flapjacks, an
enterprise Charlotte launched in
2005.
The product line, which fo-
cuses on flapjack mixes that in-
clude a blend of dry ingredients
and unprocessed grains, started
in Charlotte’s kitchen after a
friend raved about the flapjack
mix Charlotte and Tom sent her
for Christmas.
“Her question was ‘Why
aren’t you guys selling this
stuff?’” Charlotte said.
Tom flinched while Char-
lotte jumped in with both feet
and started doing her homework
and experimenting with differ-
ent varieties of wheat.
Narrowing a long list down
to five varieties — including
one grown on the Armstrong
ranch — she held taste tests in
her home. Testers scored the
flapjacks for texture, tenderness,
flavor and appearance.
Everyone picked the same
variety, and it wasn’t the soft
white wheat the Armstrongs
grow, she said.
It was a dryland hard red
variety. Dry farming makes the
wheat naturally higher in pro-
tein, which gives it more flavor,
she said.
“That’s the difference; that’s
what you taste,” she said.
The grower of the winning
variety had grown wheat organ-
ically, but not certified, for 25
years and was particular about
his production. Charlotte was
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Charlotte Armstrong works on some of her Cowboy Tom products. She started the Declo, Idaho, enterprise 10 years ago.
Western Innovator
Charlotte Armstrong
Occupation: Owns and operates
Cowboy Tom’s Flapjacks with her
husband, Tom
Location: Declo, Idaho
Founded: 2005
Products: Flapjack mixes, including whole wheat and gluten-free
teff and buckwheat, maple syrup
Recognition: TechHelp Idaho’s 2009 Spirit of Continuous Innova-
tion
Web: cowboytoms.com
E-mail: cowboytom@safelink.net
confident in the quality of his
grain and was ready to move
ahead.
Then she had to find some-
one to do the processing, pack-
aging and labeling. She found a
great partner in the University of
Idaho Food Technology Center
in Caldwell and her “packaging
posse” of grandchildren.
The company’s flapjack in-
gredients are individually pack-
aged at the Food Tech Center
and assembled into retail and
wholesale packaging at the
Cowboy Tom’s facility back at
the ranch.
Charlotte started out ped-
dling her wheat flapjack prod-
uct to independent shops but
expanded sales to Whole Foods
and Natural Grocers and at the
National Finals Rodeo in Las
Vegas.
She also sells wholesale
through a Billings, Mont.,
wholesale market and the pres-
tigious Gourmet Market at the
Dallas Market Center.
Doors have opened for her
every step of the way, and cus-
tomer requests have led her to
expand her offerings to include
maple syrup — which began
production at the Food Tech
Center and is now produced at
her on-farm facility — and glu-
ten-free grains.
She sources gluten-free
buckwheat nearby in Cassia
County and gluten–free teff, an
Ethiopian food grain, from a
Boise grower.
She also wrote a tall tale —
the Legend of Cowboy Tom —
to accompany her flapjack mix
and syrup in a gift pack and was
embraced by the cowboy artists
whose works she used to illus-
trate the book.
“It’s been much, much more
than I ever thought it would, and
it keeps growing,” Charlotte
said of the business.
A lot of people have tried to
figure out the recipe and what
makes Cowboy Tom’s Flap-
jacks so good, but they can’t,
she said.
Eighteen years ago, she re-
tired from an accounting job
with Kraft Foods to marry
Tom, who was managing a cat-
tle ranch in Arco, Idaho. Now,
between production, sales and
trade shows, she’s putting in
long hours, she said.
Cowboy Tom’s now pro-
cesses and markets 12 to 16 tons
of grain and at least 3,000 bot-
tles of syrup annually.
While the Armstrongs are
thrilled with the success of
Cowboy Tom’s Flapjacks,
Charlotte has built the busi-
ness with the intention of
selling it — not working un-
til she’s 80. But it has given
her new experiences and has
allowed her to push past busi-
ness fears. It has also forged
strong relationships and
brought many personal re-
wards, she said.
University of Kentucky shows off hemp plots
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By BRUCE SCHREINER
Associated Press
LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP)
— Tobacco production has
waned in Wolfe County, so
its agricultural extension
agent checked out hemp re-
search plots Thursday to see
if the crop that’s just starting
a comeback could grow into
a substitute for farmers in his
region of the Appalachian
foothills.
Daniel Wilson, the ag
agent, liked what he saw
while inspecting stands of
hemp — marijuana’s non-in-
toxicating cousin — at a Uni-
versity of Kentucky research
farm. Some hemp plants tow-
ered eight to 10 feet tall.
Hemp could become an
option on the acreages where
tobacco once dominated in his
hilly county, he said. Wolfe
County used to produce up
to 3 million pounds of burley
tobacco during the crop’s hey-
day. The county’s production
is now 100,000 to 150,000
pounds yearly, he said.
“With tobacco out, it’s
got good potential to replace
some of that,” Wilson said.
“Anything that can help off-
set some of the income for
some of these farmers, I’m
for it.”
Hemp is prized for oils,
seeds and fiber. The crop was
historically used for rope but
has many other uses: cloth-
ing and mulch from the fiber;
hemp milk and cooking oil
from the seeds; and soaps and
lotions.
The challenge isn’t grow-
ing hemp, which thrived in
Kentucky’s soil and climate
until getting caught up in the
government’s fight against
marijuana. The question is
whether farmers can find re-
liable markets.
Wilson was among about
250 people touring the hemp
plots. Participants included
AP Photo/Bruce Schreiner
University of Kentucky agronomist David Williams talks to a group
checking out research plots of hemp at the school’s research farm
Aug. 13 in Lexington. Kentucky has been at the forefront of efforts
to revive the crop.
farmers, processors and ag
extension agents. Some peo-
ple took photos of a crop that
remains a novelty.
UK agronomist David
Williams said hemp’s long-
term viability will hinge on
whether it can fetch a strong
enough profit for farmers.
Without that assurance, farm-
ers will raise other crops.
“We do have strong evi-
dence that suggests it will be
at least in that neighborhood
with the current commodities
as far as profit for farmers
goes,” he said. “All that’s de-
termined by the consumer.”
Hemp products sold in the
U.S. last year had a total re-
tail value of at least $620 mil-
lion, according to the Hemp
Industries Association. The
crop is grown in many other
countries around the world.
Growing hemp in the U.S.
without a federal permit was
banned in 1970 due to its
classification as a controlled
substance related to marijua-
na. Hemp and marijuana are
the same species, but hemp
has a negligible amount of
the psychoactive compound
that gives marijuana users a
high.
For now, growing hemp is
strictly limited. The federal
farm bill restricts hemp pro-
duction to research projects
designated by agriculture de-
partments in states that allow
the crop to be grown.
Twenty-six states have
removed barriers to hemp
production, according to
Vote Hemp, a group that ad-
vocates for the plant’s legal
cultivation.
Space salad: 1 small bite for Celebration of life planned
man, 1 giant leaf for mankind for Chauncey M. Hubbard
By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — These are the
salad days of scientific research on the In-
ternational Space Station. On Monday, for
the first time astronauts munched on red
romaine lettuce that they grew in space.
After clicking their lettuce leaves
like wine glasses, three astronauts tast-
ed them with a bit of Italian balsamic
vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil.
Astronaut Kjell Lindgren pronounced
it awesome, while Scott Kelly compared
the taste to arugula. They talked about
how the veggies added color to life in
space.
If astronauts are to go farther in
space, they will need to grow their own
food and this was an experiment to test
that.
Astronauts grew space station lettuce
last year but had to ship it back to Earth
for testing and didn’t get to taste it.
MONROE, Ore. — Friends and
family are welcome to a celebra-
tion of life in honor of Chaunc-
ey M. Hubbard at 3 p.m. Sunday,
Aug. 23.
He died April 24 at age 96.
He was born Oct. 27, 1918, in
Spur, Texas, to Chauncey Mulks
Hubbard and Mary Jane (White)
Hubbard. In 1939, the family
moved to Monroe, Ore., where
young Chauncey lived for the rest
of his life. He farmed and raised
Hampshire sheep with his father
before starting out on his own.
Chauncey was preceded in
death by daughter Marilyn Hub-
bard Reedy; mother and father
Chauncey Mulks and Mary Jane
Hubbard; and wife Kleva June
(Lindseth).
The celebration will be held at
Hubbard Memorial Park, 27511
W. Ingram Island Road, Monroe,
Ore. For more information, call
Cuevas at 541-554-1439.
Friday-Sunday
Aug. 21-23
Thursday-Saturday
Aug. 27-29
Clackamas County Fair & Rodeo, 10 a.m.-
10 p.m. Clackamas County Event Center,
Canby, Ore.
Farwest Nursery Show, 8 a.m.-7: 30 p.m.
Saturday, Aug. 22
Oregon State Fair
Howell Territorial Park, Sauvie Island, Ore.
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Index
California .............................. 13
Idaho .....................................11
Markets ............................... 15
Opinion .................................. 6
Oregon .................................. 8
Washington ......................... 10
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