The southeast is home to many beef cattle stocker and backgrounding enterprises.  There are few educational programs developed for this segment of the beef industry and the Mid-South Stocker Conference has established itself as a great program for more than a decade.  The program is a multi-state effort involving Kentucky and Tennessee Extension, Cattlemen’s Associations and industry representatives.   This year’s conference was hosted by the Warren County Extension agent, Joanna Coles.  Speakers from Iowa, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee delivered educational presentations on internal and external parasites, economic risk management, on-farm field necropsy and feedlot perspective on procuring feeder cattle.  Additionally, virtual tours of cattle operations demonstrating how individuals are being successful in managing their enterprises were shared.  Two local Warren county operations were showcased.   The program had a near record attendance with close to 150 participants.  Post-program surveys (65 collected) indicated the potential economic impact of the program to average $5,372/operation and when extrapolated to the number of participants the impact is near $779,000 due to improved knowledge gained.  Knowledge assessed before and after the program on a 5-point likert scale revealed 1.2-2.6 points increase on average.  The average number of cattle managed in backgrounding/stocker operations was 388 head while cattle finished averaged 60 head in the state and 245 head outside of Kentucky.  The average number of beef cows managed was 78 head.  This suggests that the average producers attending this Stocker conference are larger in size than the state average beef farm.  We will continue to provide this program as long as the interest and participation remains strong.