For Release January 15, 2006

My Agricultural Hero

AGRI-VIEWS
by Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent

Everybody has heroes and everyone needs heroes. We all need that person that we can look up to and admire and say, "I want to be like that!" To be a hero for me, this person has to have lived a life that I can strive to follow. Obviously, someone who was involved in trying to help his fellow man make their life better and generally improve the world around us all. My hero needs to be someone who, whether they had formal education or not, was known for thoughtful sayings that could direct my life and work.

But face it, in agriculture we don't have a lot of heroes. Sure, there's Squanto, that native American that taught the Pilgrims how to grow new world crops and probably saved them from dying in the first few months. There's Deere and McCormick and their innovations in ag machinery. We've even got Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Prize winning geneticist and all that he did in the 1970's to breed crops for third world countries. But none of them really have what it takes for me to consider them a hero.

However, for the past 20 years or so I have taken a great interest in some one with Kansas roots who I can comfortably say has become my agricultural hero. This fellow was born around 1864 in southwest Missouri, not far from either Kansas or Oklahoma. As a young man he lost both his mother and father and ultimately moved to Minneapolis, Kansas when he was 12 and graduated from high school in Minneapolis. He worked for a while, then was accepted into Stimpson College, in Iowa, majoring in piano and art. But his real interest was science so he transferred to what is now Iowa State University in 1891. There he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1894 and a Master of Science in bacterial botany and agriculture in 1897. He taught briefly at Iowa State before seeing great opportunities in the southern United States.

Years of growing cotton had depleted many of the southern soils of their nutrients and fertility, so he started researching legume crops that could provide income for southern farmers while rebuilding the soil. In fact he dedicated his life to discovering over 300 uses for the peanut. It was during this period of research and teaching at a well known southern institute that he started writing and speaking. I could fill a month worth of columns with quotes from this man, but here are just a few of my favorites.

"It is not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobile one drives, nor the amount of money one has in the bank, that counts. These mean nothing. It is simply service that measures success."

"There is no short cut to achievement. Life requires thorough preparation -- veneer isn't worth anything."

"When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."

"Where there is no vision, there is no hope."

"Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater."

The institute that my hero went to work at in Alabama is now known as Tuskegee University. My hero's name is George Washington Carver. Dr. Carver passed away January 5, 1943 leaving behind a legacy as an educator, scientist and humanitarian. A legacy we should all strive to follow.

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