/-O',
■i) \ '
[ X " Jerry Webb
There’s nothing like a
warm spring day to make a
high school vocational
agriculture student want to
get out of class and onto a
farm somewhere.
With that as our primary
motivation, four of us farm
boy types convinced old John
Kirby, our ag teacher, that
we wanted to be a livestock
judging team. That would
mean days of practicing out
on the farm and a trip to
district competition and,
hopefully, even to state. And
it also meant we could miss
New tow price!!!
*12,633'
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To take advantage of this
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cooperation with the follow
Provide a level building
(our salesman will assist with .
preparation guidelines), Furni
unloading help, Participate
our 3 payment plan (1 Down
payment, 2 Delivery paymen
3 Completion payment), a r
accept delivery and erect!
before June 30, 1980. Also nv
travel expenses wjl.
added if your building
For further information mail coupon to the nearest Morton Sales Office listed below
ffiaaa
Serving Central Pa
and Maryland
RD4, Box 34A
Gettysburg. PA 17325
Ph 717-334-2168
Serving North Central Pa Area
P 0 Box 937
State College. PA 16801
Ph 814-383-4355
Farm
Talk
some school - boring classes
in physics, chemistry,
English and other un
necessary stuff.
All of us had strong in
terests in hvestock, although
it was quite diverse. But
somehow we felt we could
put together a team.
There was Ronnie White,
who was raised on a 50-acre
dairy farm. He was short
and stocky and had the most
tremendous grip from years
of hand-milking a herd of
Jersey cows. Ward Gilmore
stood 6 feet 5 inches and
*4B' x 72' BUILDING ... • 24' x 14’ double end door
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Serving Eastern Pa
and New Jersey
Box 126,
Phillipsburg, NJ 08865
Ph 201-454-7900
played on the school
basketball team. His real
love was Angus cattle, and
although his house was in
town and his father ran a
grocery store, he spent all of
his spare time on a farm.
Leonard Alexander moved
in from Kansas m his junior
year with his widowed
mother to start farming an
old rundown place that he
hoped to turn mto an out
standing Angus breeding
farm.
And then there was me.
My only experience with
hogs had been with a Spotted
Polland China sow named
Evelyn. She had been pur
chased as a baby pig for
eight dollars from a lady
with the same name. Why
the hog became her
namesake I really can’t
remember.
. Evelyn the pig was carried
home in the trunk of
Grandpa’s car and was to be
the start of my swine en
terprise. But that’s another
story - back to the judging
team. Besides beef cattle
and hogs, we had to judge
site is more than 40 miles from
the sales office No sales
\eed be added Offer
'ect to change after May
1980 Similar savings are
'ailable on other styles
)f buildings although
the amount of rebate
may vary on building size
'ebate checks will be mailed
»m Morton, II , provided the
dmg is completed by June 30,
Rebates do not apply to
previously ordered buildings
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sheep - those wooly, little
critters that hide their true
looks under huge wool coats
and to the untrained eye all
look alike.
It goes without saymg that
I knew less about sheep than
I did about hogs, and since
horses weren’t part of the
program I was not a very
likely prospect for the team.
But it was my idea so I had to
see it through.
Mr. Kirby would take us on
endless field trips where we
polished the finer points of
livestock judging, learning
how to appraise those
animals for their meat
yielding qualities, how to
score them and how to give
verbal reasons for our
placmgs. It was all good fun
and nobody thought it would
amount to much and it did
get us out of a lot of classes
And so on a warm day m
April we wfent off to the
district competition. I’m not
sure if it was Mr. Kirby’s
good training or Leonard’s
sharp eye that carried us
through with top rating.
Ronnie and I tied for last
Lancaster Farming, Saturday, May 10,1980—D15
place on the team, so we about it finally
drew straws to see who decided to on farm .
would be the third team Re was by lightning
mel ?}^ r and killed a few years later,
wouldbe the alternate. Ward, Ronnie and I, along
I l°st. with John Martin, another
That meant I went along Wgh school FFA budd y (
for the nde. I judged the headed off to the University
hvestock, but my score that fall to T in
didn’t count. I was there m agncuUure . With the
case one of the team necessities of life packed in
members wasn t able to o j d su jtcases and this time
make the tnp or turned up dotmg a 1938 we
iH, or was otherwise £ gaul e asce nded on that
disqualified. college 'town destined to be
State judgmg was all fun scholars and successful
and games except for a ®
couple of difficult hours at Ward Ronnle sta d a
the hvestock pavihon. The low academic
rest of the time we roamed ' chievernent and other m .
the University of Missouri terests lured home
campus decked out in blue Ward Jomed the Force>
jev l s a £ d where he played basketball
cowboy hats, hoping to make for four ye £ rs He fmaUy m
our mark on a community re tum to the ag college, then
that saw thousands of our ve t eri nary school and a
kind every spring. successful career as a large
We visited all of the amrna i ve t.
student hangouts - the pool Ronnie chose Me
hails the gardens-The to the ngors of a college
Shack, The Stables, Duty campU s and took up em-
Mac’s. We cruised the as a cow tester in
streets until the wee hours £ h< f Dairy H erd Im
every night m a 1948 Hudson proveme nt program,
returning to our “reserved John lt out
parkmg space near the th gh f vears f
Daniel Boone Hotel, saved Jf vest g k pavings and
for us by ano parkmg s g co u e ge classrooms and the
we had borrowed from a d that
nearb y construction site. our tickete to em-
Much to our dismay, our l nt as extension
only success was in the age nts
hvestock arena where the B Qut of aU the fann b
team won first place mid a d would . be farmers m that
trip to the American Roya twar class not
m Kansas City for national ore than 0 5 ne of
competition. stayed on the farm. Maybe it
Again, as alternate I went was tbe bmg perhaps more
along Sf ? d u and T' the location, that caused our
sequently didn’t share m the {araung deimse Smce we
gdd medafc our team picked bved m 6 or around a growing
up. What started as alaxk cdy d was ordy i o g ica l that
wound up like some kmd of a farms were gobbled up for
fairy tele at a big breakfast bousmg developments and
at he National FFA con- sh * cent ers that
yention with the Missouri to get mto
team winmng top honors. were scarce. Or
All of us wanted to be mavbe i t was the economics
farmers when it came tune mayne it was me economics
to head for college that fall. ° f * hat . tune that made jt
Leonard thought long and*, a tme when
farming wasn’t very
profitable and prospects
weren’t very bnght. So we
found jobs close to farming
that offered some financial
security.
Our old ag teacher John
Kirby - he went right on
teaching agriculture and
coaching livestock teams,
telling all of them about the
back m 1951 that went
all the way to the American
Royal and brought back the
prize.
7^
25* 1
vyeah 'A
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