Badlands Media - America First Stories Ep. 1: From 90 Hives to 3,000, Survival, Beekeeping, and Grassroots Power with Mo Benson

Episode Date: March 22, 2026

Jon Herold launches America First Stories by sitting down with Mo Benson of Benson Honey Farms, one of Badlands’ earliest supporters, to share the real story behind her family business and her fight to survive a life-threatening medical crisis. Mo walks through the brutal health battle that nearly took her life, how it reshaped her perspective, and the strength it took to come back while raising five young children and rebuilding their operation. The conversation dives deep into the world of commercial beekeeping, from starting with 90 hives to scaling into thousands, the realities of pollination across the country, and the hands-on process of producing raw honey. Mo explains the economics behind the industry, the challenges facing American beekeepers, and how foreign honey impacts local producers. Beyond business, Mo shares her journey into grassroots politics, detailing how local involvement can create real change from the ground up. From county-level organizing to working alongside elected officials, she breaks down how everyday people can step into leadership and influence the direction of their communities. This episode blends resilience, entrepreneurship, and civic engagement into a powerful introduction to the stories behind the people who support Badlands. Visit Benson Honey Farms: https://badlandsmedia.tv/honey

That's a hell of a new. Well, good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the first episode of the newest show here on Badlands called America First Stories. This is a show that we are basically doing for our sponsors and for you guys in the audience. You know, we have so many people that have supported us and do support us in what we do. And we thought it was only right that we start telling their stories, not just about their business. It's not going to be an infomercial. But we want to get, we want you guys to get to know our sponsors. And it'll help us get to know them as well.

So we have so many amazing people behind the scenes that have been there for us. And when I was thinking about doing the show, it's been kind of in the works or in, you know, kicking around on my head for a couple months now. The one person I thought of that would be great to start this whole thing off with would be Mo Benson of Benson Honey Farms. She was there with us from the beginning. I think she was literally the first sponsor we signed up to support here at Badlands Media. And you guys have obviously heard of her, probably bought honey from her and her family. So with that, I'm going to bring her right on. And we're going to get to know Mo Benson a little bit better.

Mo, how are you doing? Hi, I'm doing God. I'm very excited to be here. Yeah, very excited to have you. You know, there's so many questions I have for you because you've been through a little medical scare recently and still kind of going through it, it sounds like. So before we even get into like your history, do you want to, Tell everybody what you've been going through. Yeah, I, you know, I had a pain start in my side.

And I'm sure you understand this, John, running a business. You kind of push things to the side. You think, oh, you know, I'll be fine. No big deal. And then you wind up in the emergency room and they tell you that your liver enzymes are sky high. And, you know, your billory don't look too good. And then you become almost like a science experiment trying to figure out what exactly is wrong. And in my case, you know, unfortunately, we all know this that not all doctors are created equal.

And it took many doctors to figure out what was wrong with me. And the doctor that figured out what was wrong with me was in California. And I was in South Dakota. So, yep, we had to fly out there. And unfortunately, I lost 30 inches of colon. I had a colon blockage. And I also had a billory infection. I went septic three times.

I blew a hole in my elyum, which is my stomach. It was just like an endless, it wouldn't stop. It was almost, the story is almost unbelievable. It really is. And I look back and it's a, I don't know, it's a traumatic time, but it's an eye opener because it's really showed me like what really is important in life. So life experience. And I guess at the end of the day, it's really made me stronger. It really, it really has.

That's amazing. I mean, you, I remember getting a text from, I think it was somebody on my, my team, one of the, I think it might have been Amy or Jessica. I was like, hey, did you hear that Mo's like in California? She's like on her deathbed essentially. Like, things were so bad that you were, that they didn't think you were going to make it for a period. No, I had a, if you look, I had a midline. I actually was so bad, John, this is a great, that my dad uncle was talking to me. No way.

So yeah, the night that they didn't know if I was going to make it, they were trying to get me blood transfusions because my platelets were so low. I was delusional. I had no idea what was going on. You know, I lost too much weight. My labs didn't look good. I wasn't able to talk. I had a gastric tube down my nose. Pretty much had machines keeping me alive.

I was TPN. I didn't eat for six weeks. My stomach wasn't really functioning. I had jaundice. I was yellow. So it was, it was brutal. I was scared to death. Well, I didn't know what was going on.

But yeah, it was real and it's scary. Yeah, I can't imagine. And you have a very young family. Like, how many kids do you have? So I have five children. I have a one year old. I have a two year old. A four year old.

I have an eight year old and a 12 year old. Unbelievable. I think I met one or two of your kids at a guard. You met Cortland. So that was baby number. number four. He was the dart baby. Yeah. You're calling him. Yeah.

That was number four. Yeah. It's so cute. I mean, yeah, I can't imagine. Like, what did your family do? You were in California. Did your, was your husband even able to come out with you? Or did, did the kids come with? Like, what did you guys do? No. So I'm just going to be honest with you. Like, my husband's, like the love of my life. We're, we're like soulmates. We're both Leo. So we fight a lot, but we also, we can't be away from each other. I mean, we're a way. And so he wouldn't leave my side and unfortunately when he did try to leave my side, I would almost die again. So it was nearly impossible. And so we have a huge support system. We're from Nebraska and I'm sure you're from North

Dakota. And it's like everyone in town is your community. The school here did a fundraiser for me. And I was just shocked. And it enabled my husband to come out and stay with me by my side. You know, unfortunately, our business did. Our bees don't look too great, but we are recovering, you know, when you're not in your bees and you're not looking for mites and such. And they're just kind of sitting out in the field and no one's taking care of them. They kind of go downhill. So he stayed with me. Kids stayed in Nebraska with my best friend, my mother-in-law.

It was a streamline of people coming in and out of my house. But they were taken care of. My husband stayed with me. That's great. Yeah. That's good. And so the bee situation, that's interesting. I want to get into that a little bit.

How did, like, how does one get into bees? You know what I mean? Like, it seems like such a random thing. Like, when did you start, do you farm bees? I don't even know what the terminology is. What does I call? You could say bee farmer. I mean, if you're talking to the government, it's a bee farmer.

We're considered farmers under the USDA. So technically, yes, we are bee farmers. You know, in the bee world, there's hobbyists. So anyone under the count of five, but for commercial beekeepers, if you only have like 10, 15 hives, we consider you hobbyists. So my husband, there's a story behind this. So my husband's uncle has been doing bees for a long, long time. And my uncle, his uncle had him be an apprentice. And so I met my husband when he was out with his uncle in California.

We pollinate almonds as well. And so he worked for his uncle. I don't know what that means, pollinate almonds. Yeah. So almonds require bee pollination. And 90% of the world's almonds are in California. And so you have to have bees pollinate almonds cross-pollinate to get almonds. And so there's a big migration in the United States for almond pollination.

She had no idea. Anyway, sorry to interrupt there. No, you're totally fine. I know there's so many, so many things here. So honeybees make honey, but they also pollinate plants. And so many plants like almonds and watermelon and cranberries, stuff like that, they need to be pollinated to produce for what we need for farmers. So he was working for his uncle out in California.

And he was young, just had gotten out of high. school 20-ish I went to college to be alignment like to fix power poles didn't like it decided hey I'm just going to go California with my uncle and help him with the bees like I did in high school and see where it goes um so when I met him he had just bought in his first 90 hives 90 hives 90 hives we were rolling we thought we were we were rolling we were rolling then um we were just too young broke people with a dream yeah but you guys meet out in california we did we did we actually met at a at a really country bar that had like the bull and like the whole honky tonne vibe oh that's awesome what's wrong with yeah we we did we met at a bar which i don't know people do that nowadays but we

people meet online probably yeah we met at a bar and um you know i guess i'll just go ahead and say i was young and dumb and i asked a bar i was lighter i used to smoke way back when for like a year when it was cool asked if i was lighter and he asked me what i was going to do for it so i just sat on his lap. And that's how it happened. And now you own bees. So you got 90 hives to start. And did you guys stay in California with those? Nope. They come back to Nebraska. So currently, so what happens is during the migration is they pollinate almonds and they come out of the orchards about now. So my husband's out in California right now. And we do something called nuking, which is where you take your hives and because they get big and you split them and you create more. And you create

more hives and we just put new queens in them. And we re-queen because we work our queens to death. Really? And so we always have new queens who are laying good eggs. You know, a lot of the problem with bee lost right now is genetics. So you always want to have a good queen with good genetics. And so where do you get the queens from? We make our own.

How do you make a queen bee? Like, this is fascinating. Yeah, it is fascinating. So you go out to the field. and you find your strongest and your best hive. And you nuke her genetic. So you bring frames of her brood, little eggs back, and you actually take her eggs out.

And you put them in a nurse hive. And those nurse bees are queenless. And so thus they draw queen cells out, use rural jelly, and make queens. We take them out before they hatch, put them in an incubator. And then we wait the time, which is approximately like three days, eight days,

there's a whole timeframe. Yeah. we put him in the queenless hive and voila she flies three times and gets mated she has to mate three times by drone bees and um she goes back to the hive and starts laying eggs unbelievable okay so that's crazy so how many hives do you have right now in the brad like how many i think have a picture of you sent over is this what like the farm looks like or the yeah so like that's some of the i just sent that as an example so this is like um us unloading and loading uh beehive And so that's kind of what it looks like.

Currently, we had 3,000 hives. We're looking at about 2,000 now. It goes up and down depending on the season. Like I said, we had kind of a big loss this year due to inability to treat them. However, we are nuking our numbers back and our hives look good. And so that's kind of an example of what a be yard looks like. A large b yard. Typically, we take those hives and we space them across large farm areas.

they have to be about three miles apart, 40 hives each yard. Wow. Three thousand up to that many. That is crazy. How often do you get stung by a bee? Out in the yards. Or just generally, like doing this stuff. I mean, I suppose you guys probably wear, you probably wear these things.

Yeah. So me and my husband, we wear the, if you look, we have the tan pants on. The bees can sting right through those, but they don't do it that often. Yeah. Um, my kids wear the full suits you can see. Um, and the bees don't really sting through the jackets unless you really put your arms down on them. But yeah, I get stunned probably every day I'm out. But if it's like the fall and it's a little chilly, a lot more. They don't like us in the fall. Weird. So that, so then what's the process? Like so you have he's there now. He's nuking and bringing back. He'll bring a whole semi full of, of bees. here or to Nebraska not here it'll be it'll be about four semis four semis so does he go back and forth or do you have people that do with you yep we we actually pay commercial truckers to truck our bees across the United States wow okay and so then when they get to you guys you put them out

in the field like the separate fields yeah and then what's the product like from that moment to you guys have the honey in a bottle like how long does it take to get there um so typically they go out in the fields around mid-May, but they don't actually start producing. The nectar and the flowers don't really start producing until maybe the beginning of June, if it's a warm year. So at that point, when they get here, we really need to make sure that we have them treated for nozema. It's nozema is when they're sick or they, you know, bees get stomach aches too. So we, yep, and we treat them for mites. Mites is one of the number one causes of losses of bees in the United States, the varro mites. So we treat them for that.

And we do use like lemon grass oil and spearmint oil in our hives to help them with that. We make something called honey be healthy. And then once they're all treated, they go out to the yards. And we essentially just let them sit there. And we make a routine pass. We have all all like 47 of our yards on a sheet. And we routinely pass. We pop each hive.

We smoke them, pop each hive. And we see how much room is in that hive. Does the queen have room to lay blue? or does she need another box? These will store the honey upstairs. The queen will lay eggs below. And so we do that all summer until the end of July. Is that like every day?

Every day you have to go and check all that stuff? Yep. Monday through Friday, we make passes to check the bees. Yep. Correct. That is remarkable. And so then the honey starts getting made in June. Like when do you start pulling the honey out?

So it depends on the flow. And it also depends on if we need some to come to market, like if we don't have any in the barrel. We also look at if we want to pull the honey early and maybe split the hive again so we can have more numbers for pollination. But typically we're looking at pulling the honey early August, which is why it's so hard to come to Gart in the beginning of August. So we always, from smack dab into July, all the way until the beginning of September is when the honey goes from the hive to the bottle or the bear. And so how like the the thousands of hives that you have, how much honey does that actually produce for you guys?

So it's year to year, but it typically like I think our highest year, we averaged like 83 pounds a hive. That's insane. But in recent years, you know, John, there's a lot of row crop in Nebraska going in. And unfortunately, our CRP is not too great. And so we're looking at 46 pounds a hive right now, 43 pounds, which is kind of like a national average. So if you average that out into the barrel, I think around 70 barrels. Wow. What is what is row crop like just like crops of or rose?

soybeans and corn. Yeah. And soybeans and corn are not ideal for honeybees. They're just not. Sometimes the soybeans will put off the bloom. And if it's hot enough, they'll put off nectar. And the bees love it. But, you know, that's here or there.

You know, the last couple of years, our July has been really rainy. And so we didn't get the bloom. And it's hit or miss on the sunflowers. We're lucky enough actually to have some sunflowers going in around us. Okay. And how many acres do you guys have down there? So we live on a six acre farm. However, we, what we do is, is we actually yard rent these areas.

So we have around 47 different farmers that we, right now, but we're going to be getting more locations. We like less honeybees in each location. They make more honey. So, yeah, we actually pay yard rent to them, money and honey. Yeah, that's interesting. So do you guys do any other farming? Like, is the honey your primary source of income?

Yes, absolutely. Yep, it is. Wow. That's fascinating. The pollination, almond pollination in California is a huge, huge moneymaker for, people but the thing is is taking care of a beehive feeding it and treating it trucking it across the country buying new frames for it is a very expensive process especially in the United States things here seem to be more expensive

and so also we have a lot of honey dumping going on you know I'm sure you've heard about foreign countries coming in and dumping things into our country like shrimp and crawdad stuff like that honey the honey industry is one of them them and the honey, our honey in the United States tends to, they want to buy it cheap as well when our quality is much higher than what you would get, say, from Argentina. So that really affects as beekeepers too. So I think I'm a little confused with the almond pollination stuff. How do, like, do people pay you to come down there with your bees to pollinate that?

Yeah, so there's brokers in between. there's large companies like Permanagh and Bull House that are out there. And what they do is, is they grade you, you sign a contract and you say, okay, we want 400 bees on these trees. And then you sign a contract. And then you place your bees into the orchard. And they come out and they grade your bees. They open your hives and they make sure that your hives are good enough. And then they pay you per hive.

Wow. That is what. See, this whole ecosystem and world exists and I had no idea. Yeah, and I'm sure it's like that with most things, but unbelievable. So you said that, you know, you had a little setback. Are you guys, like, do you still have product that you're selling? Oh, yeah. Even though while you were, like, are you able to keep this?

I'm sure it's well preserved for a long time. Ever? Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't go bad. Yeah, I sent you the picture of me and all the barrels. We have in our honey side of the shop, we have all those barrels just full. And we have a process system where we can actually. I'm trying to find them.

We could actually like, yeah, like that. So that's, those are awful. It was actually funny. He had double stacked those that time, which we don't do. But we ran out of space in the storage. So we put them in the main shop just until the semi came and it actually put cracks in our floor a little bit. Oh, no way.

It was so heavy. But yeah, so that's what the barrels look like. And then all, all we do is is we have a forklet just like everything else. And we move the honey over. It goes through the bottling process. We slowly warm. with blankets and then it goes through the bottler. At all times, we have honey. We're never, we're never out. Wow. So what does the bottling process look like? So you say it goes from barrel,

you warm it up with the blanket, like you just put a blanket around it? Yeah. So if you're a large packer, that's not how you do it. Large packers dump it into large heaters and they burn it. We don't do that because we're raw. And so we actually, our honey granulates faster than most people. I mean, this is a great way to educate the viewers. If you buy honey from us, It granulates very normal because we sell clover honey. And clover honey typically has the lowest moisture. It's the best. It's great A.

It's clear. And so those barrels granulate. And so we have to heat them back up slowly, very slowly because we don't want to burn any of the enzymes or molecules in them. And then we have a system that actually sucks it up into a automatic bottler that shoots it back down. And then it goes into the bottle and through and then into labels. Wow. So one barrel, like how many bottles of honey do you get out of that? It's roughly 230 quarts.

Okay. Wow. And when you say granulate, you mean like where it, like it's hard? Okay. Interesting. That is so fascinating. And how many years have you guys been doing this? You guys, you said you were young.

15. 15 years. Now everyone's going to calculate my age. Yeah, we won't do that. Well, some might, but I won't do that. That is just crazy. But on top of this, like, are you running into issues with, your local government with some of this stuff because I know you're very politically active

in there in Nebraska. Yeah. Let's talk about that a little bit. Yeah. Well, are you talking about like government and honey? Yeah. Well, we can talk about that. But then also I want to hear about you and how active you are because I know you're,

you're like right there with everything in your local community. So yeah. Yeah. Honey is big right now. There was just the Honey Integrity Act was just actually introduced. on March 13th in the Senate and was a there's a companion act to it as well into Congress it was by Tommy Tuberville I always say his name wrong tubberville too too too too that's right yep he introduced it now this was already brought forth before but he's been working on it and basically that is going to

help beekeepers so that when you buy a bottle of honey from the store it's going to actually tell you how much American honey's in it right now it says American honey the blend is maybe So if you're buying from nature, if you're buying from nature's Nate, you're not getting like, you know, you're not getting what you think you're getting if that makes sense or even at Walmart or anywhere. They're blending. They'll take like actual American honey and just put it a little bit in there just so they can call it American. Yes, correct. That's dirty. Yeah.

Yeah, correct. That is that is actually what's happening. And that is why the Packers that buy from us, they want our honey because it's, it's, it's. It's tested. We have standards. They test her honey. It's clear. And then they blend it with like Argentinian honey that is half the cost of ours. And they called American honey. That is that's just gross. And so Tuberville, he's, um, isn't he Alabama? I think. Possibly. I don't know where he's not. I know he's not your rep though, but I had no idea that got got put in there. And I didn't even realize that was an issue. Yeah. Do you have any like role in in talking to, you know, senators or congressmen about getting some of the stuff passed? Yeah. So here.

my state, I'm pretty, so I'm actually really active in politics and it happened through the whole Trump 2020 election thing and the whole precinct strategy. You know, I followed the whole grassroots patriot type thing where you get into your local county parties and once you get there, you work to the top to try to see, you know, try to navigate the political atmosphere to try to change the way politics are. And I think a lot of people look at Nebraska like the, you know, cattle state, the breadbasket. It's so perfect. But unfortunately, the politics in the state are kind of underwraps and quiet. And so navigating it here wasn't so easy. But now I do. I work very well with Adrian Smith. He's our congressional third district congressman. And he's fantastic.

And you send a picture of him over because I don't know. Yeah, of me and my daughter and him. Yep. Okay, so that'd be, I've got to find this one. Yeah. That was actually like three, four days before I went to the hospital. Yep. No way. So you were like in pain in this picture probably? Yep.

The pain started that thought that Sunday. And this was that Tuesday. Yep. Wow. Okay. And then I mean, there's so many great pictures here. You and Don Jr. Yep.

So I was, I actually worked for a campaign here in Nebraska for Charles Herpster. He's an amazing businessman. He's on the board of the America's First Policy Institute. And I helped him with this campaign. I did like moms for Herbster. And so through the campaign, I got to work with Trump and his team. That's great. I see.

Yep. This was the winter conference, R&C. I was the Nebraska guest. And so I got to go all to the meetings. And this actually took place the week of the inauguration. And so I was already going to be there for the inauguration. I went, I went as a, look at you go. You're on it.

I went as a guest. guest to Senator Fisher, but I also got invited to the inaugural ball. So that is me and my husband. We were about three rows back from the stage. And we were right there at Donald Trump in that picture. It was absolutely amazing. So cool. Yeah, super jealous. You got to see Jason Aldeen and everything. So that's Barry DeK. That would be my senator for District 40. He's running again right now. He's unchallenged. He's doing a great job. And so that is my chair of my county next to him, Cammy and her and me are unstoppable. We're like a team and she's actually worked her way up to together. That's awesome. I'm just going to go through these and you can tell me. So this is me

when I first got in. I was super excited. So I'm a I'm a committee woman for district 315 here in Nebraska and those are my committee man and my chair rep. We're super excited there. That picture was actually taken right at one of our first, it's called State Central meetings, we had actually overthrown the whole chair and the Nebraska Republican Party because it was strongholded by the establishment. So we actually overthrew them by voting from the floor and using Roberts Rules Order. So we were very excited to have our first state central meeting and get business started. That's, that's amazing. So did you guys have like election issues in your state? I got to imagine they're everywhere, but you were able to vote them out without, without these machines?

Yes. Well, so what happened? So we're talking like the, the mechanism inside the Republican party is so different than the voting mechanism of voting for like, let's say, your senator. When you get inside the Republican Party, I firmly believe now that I'm in politics that they've made it extremely complicated for a reason. They, you have to untangle it. And so as you move up, you have a state central committee, you have an executive committee. And these are the voting body of the Republican Party of that state. And when I first got into the politics, I started working for the working with her Charles Herbster. And I will just say that Senator Pete Ricketts is not a fan of Charles. And so I right away got in deep and noticed that the

establishment had a stronghold on the Republican Party of Nebraska. However, if you use the precinct strategy and you work from the bottom to the top and you change all of these people at the bottom, slowly the votes, you can move the people at the top. And so that's what we did in our state. Wow. So you guys have done this. I mean, this is what, do you think if you do that enough, like if enough states did that? Have you guys been able to actually affect change at the higher levels because of what you've done? Well, I think so yes and no. Right now in the state, there is a lot of tension because our, you know, our federal deliards. allegation isn't so friendly with the people running the state party right now.

And you know, you got to understand that a lot of these elected officials have groups behind them that run their campaigns and, you know, they don't get a say anymore and they want control of that party. And so it is a, it has been a very hard road to navigate, especially when it comes to funds and learning the rules and getting candidates in. However, I represent the third district. So we had an election last year and I represent the third district. I'm the vice chair.

So I sit over 80 counties. And the federal delegation is very friendly to us because we are very friendly to them. And so we don't necessarily have an issue out here. Senator Ricketts and even Don Bacon, Mike Flood, who is the congressman for District 1 is fantastic. to District 3. And so we don't necessarily have that problem. Is that him? No. That is Michael Wally. Okay. Yep. So that was a picture of Bacon. Oh yeah. I am. Yep. I am. Yep. That is me and Bacon. And I'm nice and pregnant in that picture with a little Portland. Awesome. We got more here. Is that Kellyan Conway? Yeah. Yeah. I've gotten to meet her several times. She actually was the advisor for Charles's campaign. So I've got to meet her several times. Yeah.

Yeah. That was in D.C. So yeah, we are we sell on my. store so oh gotcha yeah so we got to sit in like the little special section at the trump rallies and and whatever not and mike is a he's a great guy he's a good dude yeah so this is uh just good old county fair Nebraska and our team and it's crazy what one small county can do if you got good people behind it yeah and people that want to be involved for sure yeah Mike Flynn yep he was our guest he's a he's a great guy you know a lot of these people you don't get to like sit down and talk to. You see him online, but when you get to actually sit down and talk to them, it's,

it's awesome. Yeah. He's a good man. Yeah. That's Mike Flood, congressional district one. I've seen him at the inauguration. I've been in many events with them. He's a, he actually hosted some of our Republican Party during the inauguration because

it got so cold. They canceled it, if you recall. Yeah. Well, what do you think about like some of these people that are in actual Congress that you've met? Do you, do you see them as like a uniparty or do you, are they, actual like we're working for the people, you know? I'm just going to be straightforward.

I have nothing to hide here. I see people who for years were kind of skating along doing what they want. And I think they now feel enough pressure from Trump and the movement and grassroots people to start making decisions for people like us. I have seen a huge difference in Adrian Smith. When I first got in, he was hard to reach. It was a little bit, you know, he's, and there's quite some time.

And now he's come around and he's voting, his voting record is phenomenal. That's Adrian Smith. Is that the picture I just showed? Adrian's the one of me and my daughter. Oh, yeah, that's right. Okay. Obviously, he's my favorite. You can tell them.

Yeah. I see him the most. He's, his campaign manager is a good friend of mine. And I think that enough pressure on anybody, they will do the right thing. Yeah, you know, and that's one of those things. I go back and forth on that because I agree with you if there's a way to like put pressure on them and then if they don't do what they're supposed to you hold them accountable and I'm still of the mindset I don't know how elections are in Nebraska but you know that our elections are still very fraudulent you know we have we have a lot of issues with that that haven't been fixed yet and that's the one part of the accountability that we can't can't provide to these people that we have in office do you play any role in like the elections there in Nebraska? So we can observe the elections. My county is, it's rather small.

And actually, we're a Melin only county. We didn't have a say on that. Mell and only? Mel and only. And we have not, this was a big change that happened. This wasn't any, I would say, I think I was told it started around probably when Barack Obama was in office, you know, 12, 14 years ago. And unfortunately, we have went to our commissioners trying to change it, but it's going

to take a referendum on the ballot to do that. And in our state, mailed in ballot. To remove the melon ballots here. Yeah. I will say this, though, Bob Evanan, who is our secretary of state, he was just actually with me a day ago. You know, he's taking a lot of heat for our elections. We had some of them Zuckerberg drop boxes down in Sarpie and Douglas, down in Lincoln and

Omaha, you know, like the big old counties. And they were doing shady things. He's aware of that. And, you know, he took a lot of heat, but I will tell you that he is one of the Secretary of States that is working directly with Trump. And he gave our voter rolls right over to Hartmeet Dylan. No problem. He got sued for it, actually, and has nothing to hide. He's more of the mindset.

If there's something here, find it. If you believe that my ES&S machines are fraudulent and you believe that maybe crowd strike that's in them, as part of it, then take them and find it. He has nothing to hide. And I think that, you know, of course he's going to say my elections are safe. They're, you know, it's like his baby. He's going to take pride in it. But he's also okay with finding that there's vulnerabilities as long as they're being fixed.

And if Trump wants this, he's okay with doing it. And I find that it's okay that we all move forward and fix. We should not repeat what we did in 2020 ever. it should be fixed immediately. When did he get into office down there? So I believe, so he's rerunning again. I believe this will be his 16, 15, 16. Yeah, he's been there quite some time through the whole change.

In fact, when the machines got put into place, he was trained on them. But as you know, 15 years, the machines have changed a lot. Yeah, quite a bit. And I think I'll just hurt ENS was, don't quote me on this. I was told that ESNS was sold to Dominion. Yeah, there's some other stories because Dominion sold to that one guy that's supposedly a Trump ally. There's all sorts. They keep changing hands with the machines, right?

They're playing hot potato. Yeah. Trying to cover things up, what they're doing. It's gross. Who is, that's Herbster? That is Jack Brewer. So he actually is one of the speakers for America's first policy institute. Oh, that guy.

Yeah. He was a defensive end, I think, for. the Vikings. He's an inspirational speaker if you've never heard him. He preaches from the Bible. Oh, man, he is just amazing. So I just adore him. I was actually, so when I got to work for Herbster for, I didn't work for him, but I volunteered and did his campaign, me and as you can see, all the security guards behind me, and their secret service, we got to be, we got to work the VIP section. So we were, you know, sitting David Bossie and Jack Brewer and Mike Lindell and, and Kelly Ann and all these people.

So it was really nice. They're very nice people. Who's this guy? Yeah, we don't need to talk about it. I tried to find a picture with you, John, but you're always so busy. And I was like, I'm not going to stand in line to take a picture with John. Oh, there's no lines for pictures with me. I'm sure there's one of us out there somewhere.

I think this is, this is from Arizona. This is back years. This is where I had to pull. I had to go digging for this. This is like 20, 23. Was this the first guard? It was like the second guard in Arizona. I think her first one was Arizona.

The second one was, I want to say the second one was Cocoa Beach. I went to Cocoa Beach and I went to Arizona. Okay. Because I went to, let me see, I'm trying to think of how it went down. I didn't have a kid in this one. Yeah. I'm trying to calculate here, but yeah, I went to both. But the, this might have been, maybe this was Cocoa Beach.

This might have been. I think it is Coco Beach. It would be the second one. But I went to Arizona too, but I had a picture with CanCon, so I thought I would just throw it in there. We'll throw it. We'll allow it. And then I think this is the only other picture I haven't. Yes, I'm pretty proud of this little county here.

This is my county. This is Cedar County in Nebraska. We're up in the northeast corner. That is my chair and my treasure and, of course, me in the middle. But we actually out fundraise almost every county but one in the state, including Douglas and Lancaster. Right. Yeah. Wow. And so what do you guys do with the funds that you raise?

So those, so the funds that we raised for this particular auction was actually for the Republican Party itself. And those funds go to train counties and resources, political directors, palm cards, mailers, anything. So that particular fundraiser was for that. Awesome. Well, you know, for people, we always talk about getting involved locally. What would you say to people who are like on the fence about that? Like where do they go? What should people do just in their own, you know, cities that they live in to, to start getting involved? What did you do to start? So I went, I started asking questions. Do we have a county party here?

Who is on the county party? Are they having any events? Do they need central committee members? Can I contribute time? What can I do for my party here? And it's crazy because the more time that you invest in the people and your area and your county, it kind of magna, it moves up because they're like, hey, you know, you would be really good at the state. Have you thought about doing this? And so you can actually change things. It's like, it's like a plant, I say, like the roots of the plant. You know, you got the big state party up here, but you need the roots of the party to make the plant grow. And so you want to get in that county party and you want to see who's there. And obviously, if you don't like them or you don't like how they're doing it.

things or you want to maybe make it more grassroots, maybe they're not America's first, you can definitely get in there by volunteering, by helping, by being in the front of your community, and then you hopefully will get voted in as leadership. And that is how you fundamentally change. It's definitely a ground up approach to get that change. Change is hard, though. Yeah, that's great. Do you have any, you know, aspirations to run for office in your, in your state? I do. I do. I'm told by many campaign guys, some young campaign guys that I would be a fantastic senator. And I do hope one day, I just, right now, obviously, my kids are my priority and my health. But yes, I would love to run for office. And like I just said, for the county party thing, I would start here probably. And I would probably run for county commissioner. And then possibly, you know, we have a unicameral in the breath. So it's a little different. I would run for a senator and unicameral, possibly.

I don't know if I would ever seek federal delegation, but that comes with time and institutional knowledge. So possibly. You're saying like a state senator? Yeah, so we have a unicameral. So everybody is a senator. We don't have a bicameral. Gotcha.

Interesting. Yeah, it is interesting. Are you guys one of the only states that does that? I believe it's us and don't quote me, New Hampshire, New Hampshire or Maryland, one of them. We were talked into it. back when and we're also one of the only states that has the votes divided by and so we don't have sorry I have an alarm over oh that's good no we're getting close to ending the show anyway but I want

to give you like you know closing thoughts anything you wanted to discuss that that we haven't yet but you know it's it's been really interesting talking to you and and we're so appreciative of everything you've done for Badlands and being one of our you know longest running sponsors you've been there with us from the beginning. And I just wanted to say thank you for that. And where can people, you know, find your product and support you? And, yeah, anything else? Floor is yours.

Yeah. No, I love being a part of Badlands. You guys have been really great to me. We've been around a long time. I have my little Badlands thing here. Yes, yeah. But, of course, you can find us at Bensonhoneyfarms.com. Our customers might have noticed that we recently started TikTok and YouTubeing.

And some of my recipes have went viral on Facebook, which is pretty cool. You know, when you have a video, that's hit like 60, 70,000 views. That's viral for me. Yeah, that's awesome. And so if you follow us and you get our subscribe to our emails, we send out recipes. And my recipes are amazing. So it teaches you basically how to put honey in everything you make. So go to our website.

We have honey up right now. We have soap up. Like I said, BensonHoneyFarms.com. We ship all over the United States and Guam, Puerto Rico, and we have it in the bottle. We also just added hot honey, which has been very popular and it's very delicious. So, yeah, I really appreciate everything. I just want to add this. When I was sick and in the hospital and the Badlands viewers found out, I had hundreds of emails pop up in my email.

And my head was just taken back by it. But I don't think that people understand the Badlands community is the best community. Full of big hearts and they care. And going to Gart twice was such a good experience. It was like talking to your neighbors or your friends. And so I personally just want to say thank you to you, but also to the Badlands viewers for just supporting my family. I mean, I've been with Badlands through three pregnancies, almost dying twice. I'm still alive, still fighting, and I still have a team of Badlanders behind me.

So just thank you. Big thank you. And awesome. Well, we love you, Mo, and appreciate you and glad that you have been recovering and prayers to you and your family. And keep plugging away. Keep working there to affect change and make some awesome honey. And with that, we'll let you go. Thanks for tuning in, everybody.

Yeah, we'll see you next weekend for another episode of America First Stories. Thank you.