McPherson County rancher and Sustainable Beef LLC co-founder Rusty Kemp will complete the term of resigned Nebraska Public Power District board member Charlie Kennedy, Gov. Jim Pillen announced Monday.
The 51-year-old Kemp will represent NPPD’s Subdistrict 5, which covers 21 west central Nebraska and Panhandle counties with customers of Nebraska’s largest public power district.
Kennedy, of Scottsbluff, had won the seat by ousting incumbent Thomas Hoff in the 2018 election. The NPPD board accepted his resignation March 9.
Kemp, whose 30,000-acre spread lies near the McPherson-Hooker county line northwest of Tryon, told The Telegraph that “I was asked to apply” by some acquaintances to finish Kennedy’s term.
He intends to run for a full six-year term in the 2024 election, he said, adding that Pillen interviewed him for the seat about two weeks ago.
“I appreciate the governor’s confidence in me,” said Kemp, a former member of the McPherson County school board and McPherson County Co-Op Credit Union board.
“To me, agriculture is the No. 1 industry in the state of Nebraska, and my No. 1 priority is to keep electricity reliable and affordable for Nebraska agriculture and its other (electric) consumers.
“That starts with keeping the Gerald Gentleman plant running,” Kemp added, referring to NPPD’s largest coal-fired power plant south of Sutherland.
Kemp and his wife, Rachael, raise Black Angus and Hereford cattle on their ranch 11 miles west of Nebraska Highway 97. The couple has two sons, Cash and Tucker.
He received an agribusiness degree in 1998 from the University of Nebraska at Kearney, then worked in Morgan Stanley’s Kearney office for three years before he and Rachael bought their ranch in 2001.
Kemp’s grandfather, Emerson “Tom” Kemp, arrived in North Platte on a Union Pacific train in 1936 to join two brothers in Tryon.
A conversation between Kemp and then-Gov. Pete Ricketts during a 2019 Vietnamese trade mission sparked the organization of Sustainable Beef.
Source: starherald.com
Photo Credit: Sustainable Beef
Categories: Nebraska, Government & Policy