Jimmy Connell, vice president of Keith Connell Inc. in Kansas City, MO, said the company’s decision to launch Connell Texas this past November could not have been timed better. “This is the first year we’ve opened a shipping deal,” he told The Produce News Feb. 12. “So far, it’s going pretty good.”

The broker and distributor moves a full line of fresh produce to its customers throughout the nation, with a concentration in Oklahoma, Arkansas and southern Missouri.

Liberty Fruit’s Annual Golf Tourney will be in full swing Sept. 16 at the Tiffany Greens Golf Club in Kansas City, MO. The tourney continues to generate important donations to Children’s Mercy Hospital and other local charitable organizations.

“Last year we netted $480,000 for our charities,” said President Allen Caviar. “This year will be another successful tournament.”

The Caviar family has been fully committed to this event since its inception more than a decade ago. “I believe in giving back to the community,” said Arnold Caviar, chief executive officer.

Dave Haun, president of Haun Potato Co. in Shawnee Mission, KS, said the current potato- and onion-marketing season is one of polar opposites.

The broker-distributor has specialized in potatoes since the 1960s. Most of the volume being marketed by Haun Potato this season comes from the storage crop. “We had awesome growing weather and historically high yields,” he told The Produce News. “We have a burdensome amount of potatoes to move. Prices are cheap. We are running on really high volume of potatoes in the store.”

Kansas City’s Historic City Market is a gentle reminder that people in the region have always been tied to the land.

“From the earliest days, everyone would come here with their produce,” Market Master Deb Connors told The Produce News. “Then it evolved into a wholesale market with truckloads of goods.” Ethnic influences, particularly Italian, have always been strong and important.

Kim Matthews, who with her husband, Terris, owns Matthews Ridgeview Farms in Wynne, AR, told The Produce News that the company had an awesome sales year with the current crop.

“The crop was good — not bumper — but good,” she said. “But we did have an outstanding sales year. As of late January we had about 55 percent of the crop remaining in storage. Our projections are that we will have a tight run of supplies when the 2013 harvest starts the first week of September.”

In 1913, U.S. watermelon growers began holding a series of informal discussions about how to better their position. As that year progressed, so did they. It soon became clear that this loose collection of growers needed a formal organization to represent their interests and in March 1914 the group gathered in Atlanta for the first time as an assembly. They left as what today is the National Watermelon Association, which will kick off its centennial celebration at its annual convention Feb. 20-24 at the Westin La Cantera Resort in San Antonio, TX.