Great measures are taken to keep dairy cows comfortable during the summertime heat, but it is just as important to make sure the people working on the farm are cool too.

If you are visiting Union Bridge, Maryland, be sure to check out the five-star accommodations at the Cow Comfort Inn, where “cows enjoy their stay” and people do too.

Dairy farmers started the checkoff to increase demand for dairy. One population that needs it most has the hardest time getting it: the needy and hungry who must turn to food banks, where milk has traditionally been in short supply despite a high demand.

Local checkoff staffs are taking a proactive, comprehensive, integrated approach to move more milk through the Great American Milk Drive during June Dairy Month and all year long. Here are some local highlights:

STEM is the new “buzz word” in education. Policy-makers, curriculum developers and school administrators across the country are looking for ways to incorporate science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) into the teaching platforms preparing tomorrow’s leaders.

U.S. dairy product prices have moved in harmony with oil prices for more than a decade. Since 2005, price gains in nonfat dry milk have always coincided with price gains in oil; collapses in milk powder markets have occurred while crude oil prices declined.

As with everything in life, things are always changing. The dairy industry is no different. New technology, new business processes and new infrastructure allow and force businesses to evolve. Dairy is no different and has been changing and evolving since its inception. What has driven the changes?

Is hiring an opportunity or just a headache? A dairy farmer desperate to hire someone told me that he looked out his kitchen window and said to himself, “If that person who just drove in the driveway makes it to the door and knocks, he is hired.”

What is the future of the family-owned dairy? As the average age of the American farmer increases to 58, this question becomes an industry-wide concern.

As a graduate student in the late 1970s, I went to my first annual convention of the American Psychological Association. Rushing about with thousands of other young professionals, most wearing khakis or some other beige clothing, I remember walking past protestors outside the convention hall holding placards with pictures of dead animals.