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The agreement allows Holly to continue to operate the mill and market the sugar while its parent company, Imperial Sugar, pursues Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Its a meaningful day for me, Holly President Roger Hill said after the lease was signed Wednesday. I started here 38 years ago and returned in 1970 for two years as the plant agricultural manager.

An agreement in principle was announced March 22. The final agreement came after more than a month of negotiations between beet growers and Imperial Sugar and was completed just as farmers were preparing to sow their 2001 crop.

Imperial announced in January it filed for bankruptcy protection. The 157-year-old Sugar Land, Texas-based company struggled throughout 2000 with depressed commodity prices and a glut of sugar. It also blamed high energy prices for inflating costs.

The company had indicated it would close the Worland factory unless growers leased it.

Its a real tribute to the growers group that they could get together in such a rapid time frame, Hill said. Theyve done a fantastic job.

Beet growers association President Dick McKamey agreed.

The growers needed to take this risk not only for themselves but for the community and the (factory) employees, he said.

Both leader said the move toward cooperative ownership of sugar beet factories is becoming the industry norm.

Once Imperial sells Michigan Sugar and Western Sugar sells its factories, 90 percent of the beets planted this year will be processed at co-op factories, McKamey said.

Its the nature of the business, Hill said.

The first sugar beets were grown in the Worland area in 1905. The Wyoming Sugar Co., of Ogden, Utah, built a sugar factory in Worland in time to process the 1917 crop.

Holly Sugar Corp. acquired the factory in 1925, and by 1939 the beet receiving station was equipped to handle more than 70,000 tons of beets, making the Worland station the largest in the world at the time.

Holly was acquired by Imperial Sugar in 1988.