AIB-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, Fabmary 10, 1991
At 71, Bishop
Keeps On Hauling
(Continued from Pago A 1)
then, they were moving mostly
their own stock.
“But people got to saying,
‘Would you take a calf along for
me?’”
And so a business was bom and
with it a family tradition.
Today, the Super Duty Ford
with the 12-foot bed and aluminum
sides —“Robert G. Bishop &
Son” emblazoned proudly on the
cab—is a familiar sight to farmers
in the five-county area that strad
dles the Maryland-Pennsylvania
border.
Bishop and his son Benn bought
the truck last April with 54,000
miles on it. The gauge now stands
at 66,800. Their first truck, a simi
lar Super Duty which they con
tinue to use, has logged more than
250,000 miles.
At Robert G. Bishop & Son
“Livestock Dealing and Trucking”
in Gettysburg, the work day
usually starts at 8 a.m. or shortly
after.
The company headquarters is a telephone
and a Rolodex of customer phone numbers,
both precariously balanced on top of a clothes
dryer in the farm kitchen.
Company meetings are held at lunchtime
when Benn comes in from his full-tune job at
a local sawmill and Bob takes a break from the
day’s pickups.
The firm’s executive secretary is a white
haired woman with a friendly smile who’s
been the queen of Bishop’s heart since they
met 45 years ago when he was making the hay
at her daddy’s place.
The former Betty Wenschhof was home
from college that summer. On the last day
Bishop toiled in her family’s fields—the hot
July sun sweltering above—the pretty co-ed
took pity on the lanky farm boy and invited
him in for dinner.
As he left, he thought he should return the
hospitality. So he asked her out, tossing the
offer across the front porch, wondering how
she’d answer. He knew, he recalls now, that
she wouldn’t take him seriously.
“But I said, ‘l’ll see you at seven.’ She
wasn’t ready when I came at seven,” Bob said
with a chuckle. “But she got ready,” he said,
remembering blue eyes twinkling. On
Thanksgiving Day of that same year. Bishop
bought the farm they still own. In the mean
time, Betty finished her courses at Shippens
burg College and earned her teaching degree.
OnJuly 19,1952, they married and then left
on their honeymoon an 8,000 mile trip
cross country in a 1950 Chevy.
That trip, and a two-week tour of New Eng
land to celebrate their 25th anniversary, are
the only vacations they’ve ever taken. Those
brief adventures and eight weeks spent recov
ering from a hernia mark about the only time
Bishop has missed the area’s weekly lives
tock sales.
Along the way they had three daughters
Bobbi Jo, Bonn! and Beth in addition to
son, Benn. Now there are in-laws and six
grandchildren to complete the family. -
And still Bishop hauls, his days planned
around the animals that must be delivered and
many a night spent standing ‘round a sale
ring.
His devotion to the auctions might have
driven a lesser woman mad.
But Betty is made of stronger stuff than
that. She works around his calendar, arrang
ing family get-togethers and holiday dinners
at a time and sometimes even a day
more convenient for him.
A “behind-the-scenes” partner in the busi
ness that Bishop has built, she is the appoint
ment taker, the receptionist, and even an
assistant livestock handler when the need
arises.
homemade jelly, so sweet and
good he almost eats it straight off
the spoon.
Bishop’s birthday—as typical a
day as any began with a trip to
Don Mason’s farm in New Free
dom Township where he picked up
a few fat steers and took them for
butchering at Norman J. Shriver,
Jr.’s in Emmitsbuig, Md.
Conscientious to a fault. Bishop
said he likes to get animals sche
duled for slaughtering to the butch
er’s as soon as possible “so if
something kicks up, they’re
already in.” Rumbling down the
road in the morning cold. Bishop
steers like the former schoolbus
driver he is.
Thirty-five years hauling other
people’s children and his own
in addition to his livestock dealing
have taught him to be gentle
with his cargo.
Bishop’s trucked hogs, sheep,
and goats in his time. He even
“took a flittin’” back in 1948 and
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Benn Bishop, left, and Bob Bishop, right, most dally for lunch at the family farm to
discuss the day’s chores. Together they run Robert G. Bishop & Son, a longtime lives
tock dealing and trucking firm In Adams County.
hired out to move a man’s belong
ings to Palm Beach, Fla. Ocassion
ally, he’s still asked to take a load
of horses to New Holland, Pa.
But it's the cattle dairy and
beef that are the lifeblood of
Bishop & Son. Bishop attends auc
tions in Greencastle on Monday
and Thursday. Westminster, Md.
on Tuesday and Hagerstown, Md.
over 100 different species, eliminating
tough weeds like johnsongrass,
marestail, barnyardgrass and
on Wednesday.
While there aren’t near as many
haulers in business as when Bishop
began, trucking livestock is still a
much-needed agricultural service.
that herbicides
! Gramoxone* can
Roundup Ultra also
keeps perennials in ch»
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