CALIFORNIA - News from Dec. 9, 1985

Henry J. Voss, a rancher from Ceres, has been reelected to a third two-year term as president of the California Farm Bureau Federation, a 98,000-member organization of farmers and ranchers.

In voting at the conclusion of its 67th annual meeting last week in San Diego, Bob L. Vice, a nursery operator in San Diego County, was reelected first vice president. William C. Pauli, a Mendocino County grower, was reelected as second vice president.

After the vote by the 157-member House of Delegates, Voss announced that the group will explore the hiring of a chief administrative officer to run federation headquarters in Sacramento. Delegates of three major California agricultural counties--Kings, Stanislaus and Yolo--had urged hiring an administrator after the state Department of Insurance took over operation of the bureau-affiliated CalFarm Insurance Co.

The company had, through an agent, issued a series of disastrous mortgage-guarantee bonds that threatened to bankrupt it. While responsibility for the losses of CalFarm, whose assets were bought by Los Angeles-based Zenith National Insurance Co., was not attributed to Voss, some delegates have been unhappy with his handling of the matter.