Farm Byline

When I heard of former Gov. Allen Olson’s passing last December, one of the first things that came to mind was the sight of him jogging in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. It was in the summer of 1982. Gov. Olson had led a dozen North Dakota businessmen and political leaders on a trade mission to China. I was one of the journalists covering the mission. President Richard Nixon had been to China just 10 years earlier, essentially opening that country to the rest of the world after three decades of isolation.

The U.S. administration has announced what it calls its Farmer Bridge Assistance Program. The goal is to provide financial support to producers of certain crops negatively affected by tariffs. Farmers will have to certify how many acres of each of the eligible crops were planted in 2025. For farmers, certifying planted acres is nothing new.

In the summer of 1968, I was working in the farm department of KXJB-TV in Fargo. One Saturday, I took the station’s film camera and my fiancée, Peggy, for a drive in the country. We stopped in Hawley, Minn., and I shot footage of a rodeo.

Later that day, I processed the film, wrote a story and left it on the news producer’s desk. I wondered if it would make the evening news. A small-town rodeo wasn’t really news. Back then, rodeo wasn’t considered a sport either. But they did run my story. Later, someone said, “That’s the first time I’ve seen rodeo on television.”

When this country observes the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence next year, many people will look back at all the changes that have occurred. And some will try to predict the changes that lie ahead.

Thinking about his years growing up on the farm, the old-timer said, “And everything had a damned handle on it.” The comment brought back lots of memories of my early years of farm and ranch work. Much of it was done “by hand,” which implies there were lots of handles. This was before hydraulics became commonplace, before there were electric and pneumatic tools, before skidsteer loaders and before UTVs ferried feed buckets across the yard.

Some of you have heard this story. Sixty years ago, in the fall of 1965, I was a freshman at North Dakota State University (NDSU), living in Reed Hall on the north end of campus. With no career plan, I had majored in arts and sciences, and many of my classes were in Minard Hall on the south end of campus. At least twice a day, going from dorm to class and class to dorm, I passed Shepperd Arena.

My visit to the new Heritage Center in 2014 was full of surprises. I was surprised to see two of the large galleries were not about the history of North Dakota at all, but rather about the history of this expanse of land which would someday become North Dakota.

I was surprised a third post-statehood gallery had a relatively small area devoted to farming and ranching. I had expected more. It was also surprising to me to see a significant percentage of this agricultural display had exhibits about modern agriculture, not about our agricultural heritage.

We had a really good juneberry crop this year, at least on the trees in our yard. As I was picking, I recalled the time several years ago when I was cutting hay on a field far off the beaten path. Just a trail separated the hayfield from some wooded hills. I knew Tim, the man who owned those hills. As I began cutting, I saw a pickup truck parked on the trail. It wasn’t Tim’s.

When the radio announcer mentioned the sponsors for a special ag broadcast, his list included the Minnesota Farmers Union, the South Dakota Farmers Union and the NDFB. There was a time when the announcer would have said North Dakota Farm Bureau, instead of NDFB. But that was before a rebranding of sorts.

There’s a group of retired ag guys who get together every morning for breakfast. I join them occasionally. It’s a good group with good conversation. Once a month, they meet in the afternoon and spouses are invited. When I got the notification about the April afternoon get-together, I replied to the text saying we wouldn’t be able to join them, because I was going to fix fence. My reply drew several responses. One said the only thing worse than fixing fence was picking rocks.