The 2nd quarterly SRMGA Board meeting was called to order by Board President, Koben Shigeta at Vice President Patsy Walrath’s home 24617 Cemetery Road, Middleton, Idaho at 7:00 p.m. mountain time July 9th, 2018.

In attendance were board members – Koben Shigeta, Patsy Walrath, Terry Watts, Samantha Davis, Autumn Davis and Donna Newman – via facetime, Lisa Baldwin was unable to attend.

Meeting minutes from the January were read and approved.

The Board Immediately went into discussion about the article 900 received from Julie Carreiro from complaints of June 22nd, 2018. The complaint reads as follows:
The Snake River Meat Goat Association board of directors have conspired over the years threatening, bullying, degrading, lying and falsifying show documents to ABGA members and their staff at their ABGA sanctioned shows. Specifically on May 5th, 2018 George Newman called Gabe Aguayo a F-ing faggot and called Bruce Lott an ‘Asshole’. President Koben Shigeta banned ABGA member Gabe Aguayo from its shows but allowed it’s own members to violate ABGA Rules.

The 900 paperwork received by the SRMGA board was filled with letters, most of them irrelevant to the Boers De Mayo show in 2018, that both Gabe Aguayo and Ben Thomas were notified of their banning from SRMGA indefinitely until an apology was written. We discussed extensively what happened at that show from everyone’s perspective.

During the ABGA show Boers De Mayo between Friday and Saturday the SRMGA board received multiple verbal complaints. Friday night the board received a phone call that Gabe and Ben were climbing into Dust Devil Ranch and Capriole Boer pens getting goats up without permission. Dust Devil Ranch and Capriole Goat Ranch were no longer on the fairground premises when this was going on.

Saturday during the show there was a complaint that Gabe had cut in the line and physically touched shoulders with another exhibitor. Koben Shigeta (show secretary) asked his helper Randy Corn to please just make a line rather than just letting everyone jump in to eliminate any issues. After Mr. Corn started lines Gabe Aguayo started to announce his presence and ask where the line was and yell out if this was the line. He then in the back said with curse words about his feelings about the line. Gabe continued to yell his presence at the gate to the point Mr. Corn warned him. Gabe had asked if he was in trouble and Mr. Corn told him that he was going to be if he continued to do what he was doing. It wasn’t much later Kahla Shigeta came to the gate and made the SRMGA show committee aware that she had confronted Gabe about his outbursts in line and that she regretted confronting him but had had enough. She was verbally warned by the show committee and asked to no longer speak to him or his associates for the duration of the weekend. After that, Koben said they no longer heard Gabe announce his presence at the gate again. Later during that show a mother of a youth exhibitor who was showing in the open show complained to the SRMGA show committee that the Boers De Mayo is supposed to be considered a family show and that she didn’t appreciate the language and behavior of the agents of Red Crown LLC (Gabe and Ben). She said that they were pulling their goats out of line to shadow their daughter so the judge didn’t get a good view and that Gabe was trash talking exhibitors blatantly in the ring. She also said she was disgusted by him calling the ring stewardess a ‘F-ing idiot’ in front of youth who were participating in the open show. Koben and Patsy both said they payed attention to the ring after that and realized that they felt that Gabe was pulling animals out of line but were unsure if there were any consequences for that. Later that same day other exhibitors complained that Gabe and Ben were trash talking the association and it’s exhibitors as well as the show. They also made it aware to the SRMGA show committee that they didn’t feel their animals were safe there, nor their equipment and installed cameras specifically for those individuals. A closed meeting Saturday night was called to order by President Koben Shigeta by the SRMGA Board. It was voted on after the closed meeting to ban Gabe and Ben from SRMGA events after the Sunday show so Red Crown LLC animals could still be shown for Sundays show. Koben Shigeta went home and wrote up the letter after the show and returned Sunday morning for the board to all read the letter and approve or disapprove. It was approved by Terry Watts, Autumn Davis, Patsy Walrath, Samantha Davis and Donna Newman. Lisa Baldwin was not in attendance.

After Sundays show Terry Watts and Autumn Davis said the letter was delivered to Gabe and Ben by hand. Gabe opened the letter up in front of them and wanted to argue the decision. Autumn said Gabe wanted to know why we did it and what he could do right to make it better, Terry Watts was on the phone with Red Crown LLC discussing with them that their handlers would no longer be allowed to come to SRMGA events. Samantha Davis and Koben Shigeta said they saw there were issues going on with the letter from afar so they joined Autumn Davis and Terry Watts. During that time Koben said Gabe was told by him that he would not be allowed to come back unless they wrote an apology for what happened that weekend. Gabe then asked if he could write the apology and come back for the Boers of Summer show. Koben then replied that he would not be allowed to come back until October show at the earliest because the June show had another youth show attached and because of the youth family complaints we would need to see as a board and show committee that they were going to be better before subjecting them to youth again. If a written apology was provided and the October show went well then they could come back in 2019 to another show with a youth show attached. Samantha Davis said it wasn’t until after he realized that we were not going to allow him back until the October show that he started walking away claiming the SRMGA was against the LGBT community. Terry, Koben, Autumn and Sam all said they told him that was not the case at all. And at that point as Gabe was walking back to his truck he yelled back that George Newman had called him a faggot. Autumn Davis and Koben Shigeta asked him when it had happened because they had not gotten a complaint or heard anything at the show ring. Gabe would not tell them when it had happened but continued to accuse the board of being against the LGBT community. Koben said he would get to the bottom of it and assured Gabe those kind of actions would not be tolerated.

Immediately after that discussion with Gabe and Ben, Autumn said she, Koben, and Terry approached George Newman and asked him if he had called Gabe a faggot at the show. George Newman said that during a show not hosted by the SRMGA but at Big Top years ago, he and Gabe did have an altercation. After that altercation Heads A Buttin’ Farm hired Gabe personally as their fitter and shower as they had worked it out several years back. He promised that he had avoided Gabe and Ben all weekend long and said other exhibitors could vouch for him that he stayed in his barn and by his goats. Autumn said that Koben Shigeta warned George anyways and told him that type of language wouldn’t be tolerated so don’t ever do it and to continue to avoid Gabe and Ben in the future. Autumn Davis said George was frustrated because he felt like he was being accused of something and warned for something he did not do. Terry Watts said George was very sincere in his answers and without more proof other than what Gabe had said they didn’t have much to work with but George was warned anyways.

Koben said he spoke with Karen Keller (non member but participant in the show) not much later after the event. She was concerned for the Association and the claims that the association was against the LGBT community. She recommended the association always have a paper trail. We agreed that in the future a paper trail would be nice to have. Patsy Walrath said she would work on putting something together that way the board and the SRMGA would always be covered by more than just words.

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It was decided again at this meeting that we did everything we could with the information we had. As we read into the Article 900 and letters Julie Carrairo provided from other exhibitors there were complaints to the ABGA about George Newman calling Gabe names across the show ring loud enough for everyone to hear, as well as calling the judge derogatory names. Koben and Patsy said that they never heard anything from the show committee helpers of any of this, nor did they hear it themselves. Autumn Davis said she was in the ring and never heard George yell anything to anyone. Koben said he’d send an email to the judge and ask the judge if George had given him trouble. If we find that it happened from the judge the Board would also have to ban George Newman from shows. If the judge said he didn’t hear it we don’t have enough evidence to ban George Newman as the show committee and board never received any complaints that weekend other than those against Gabe and Ben.

Patsy Walrath was concerned about the people in the letters being accused of doing things that were criminal. Samantha Davis agreed that without proof it would put the SRMGA into liability of a lawsuit of defamation of character to post the details of the 900 to the membership. Koben and Terry were concerned that even if we gave the information to the membership as confidential it would likely get leaked to the public also putting the association in the crossfire of the ABGA. Rumors had already been started about people involved and not involved, so it was decided that we would release names of the people who were part of the 900 so that the membership could ask them about their involvement directly and also give them an opportunity to share if they felt comfortable. Privacy of the membership is the most important at this point.

Autumn Davis said it was weird that there were no supporting letters from Gabe in the 900 Julie filed and Donna Newman said that she and George received a 900 against them personally from Gabe.

Koben said he would post a post on the facebook page as well as send out an email to the membership and ask members for their input and support for the 900. He also said hopefully if members had issues with George they would come forward and make official complaints to the SRGMA because as of right now we have not a single complaint about George Newman and the first complaints we received are not directed to us but to the ABGA in support of this 900.

We then discussed board insurance. Patsy Walrath and Autumn Davis said they received a phone call telling them to retract their vote so they wouldn’t lose their jobs or lives for hate crime. With all of the rumors and the threats of hate crime by the SRMGA, it would be ideal to have board insurance to protect us. Koben said it’s unfortunate that we have to spend money on this but with times changing and things like this happening for board members to consider running in the future we would absolutely need to have this. We will contact Tammy Parks and ask about board member insurance.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:13 p.m.

Respectfully Submitted,
Donna Newman