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The Montana Wool Growers Association

The Montana Wool Growers Association (MWGA) was formed in January of 1883 in a meeting in Fort Benton.  Montana territorial sheep producers saw a need for and organization to represent the wool and lamb business that was starting to flourish in the territory.  The sheepmen in attendance elected Paris Gibson as its first president, the same man who would later lay out the plans for a city along the Missouri River, now called Great Falls.  Gibson had come to the Monana territory to raise sheep ont he rolling plains of the West.

On behalf of Montana sheep producers, the MWGA represents producer interests on the issues of federal land management, predatory animal control, imports of lamb and wool from foreign sheep producing countries, taxation and land use planning.  The association hosts and annual ram sale in Miles City the second Thursday after Labor Day in September and their annual convention in Billings the first weekend in December each year.

MWGA is affiliated with the American Sheep Industry Association (ASI), the national organization with offices in Centennial, Colorado and Washington, D.C.  Montana is also associated witht the work of the Sheep Institute at Montana State University.  Among the projects leading increased sheep production is the use of sheep to graze noxious weeds such as leafy spurge and spotted knapweed.  Sheep are proving to be a valuable tool in the war on weeds and environmentally friendly.

Membership is open to any Montana sheep producer with dues structured at four cents per pound of shorn wool.