2011 Annual Report for Arkansas Farm Bureau

legac y annual report

2011 速

president’s report

by Randy Veach

Legacy, especially in the context of Arkansas Farm Bureau’s work, is a powerful and emotional word.

Its meaning is broad and to each of you sas Farm Bureau’s structure, when you think reading this it could well denote different about it. things; A legacy of leadership and integrity, I cannot discuss legacy without feeling an agricultural legacy, a legacy of grassroots the pains of a heavy heart. In the past year, involvement. Each of you can likely provide we lost a pair of former presidents, Nicky a legacy illustration that is intertwined with Hargrove and Stanley Reed, former vice this organization’s DNA, something that is president Jack Jones, and a former executive critical to form Farm Bureau’s lasting legacy. vice president, Jack Justus. Their legacies As I considered the meaning of legacy, are secure, of that I am certain. All four left I read somewhere that legacies are “about with us much more than they ever took. And learning from the their efforts on behalf past, living in the of Arkansas Farm present, and building Bureau will last well for the future.” That into the future. sounds like a theme The way I see for a Farm Bureau it, legacy has both a convention, doesn’t it? backward-looking Later, I read and forward-facing where ecologists tell meaning. Certainly, us that a young tree legacy references the grows better when things that have been it’s planted in an area passed to us, from our with older trees. The predecessors within reason, it seems, is this organization. But that the roots of the the legacy this orgaJustin, Randy and Brandon Veach (2004) young tree are able to nization will leave on follow the pathways created by other trees future generations has not yet been defined. and implant themselves more deeply. Over Our course, while steered wisely by those time, the roots of many trees may actually leaders of the past, has not yet been charted. graft themselves to one another, creating an It is up to each of us to define the legacy of intricate, interdependent foundation hidden the Arkansas Farm Bureau. under the ground. In this way, stronger trees That, friends, is our challenge. share resources with others, so the whole Learning from the past, living in the forest becomes healthier. present, and building for the future …

That’s a pretty clear definition of ArkanLEGACY.

That which one does for themselves dies with them, but that which one does for others lives on and becomes immortal.

- unknown

the carpenters

A family affair I

n 1971, the San Francisco funk-rock band Sly and the Family Stone released the soon to be hit single “Family Affair,” a song about the good and the bad of family life. It shot straight to the top of the charts in the popular music field. At about the same time, a Grady (Lincoln County) couple, Abraham Carpenter, Sr. and his wife Katie Carpenter, were in the early years of laying down the foundation of their own Family Affair legacy; one built by hard work and a slow but steady ascent to the top of a different kind of field — that of the vegetable variety.

Katie got the family started in the produce business by selling vegetables out of a oneacre garden she planted in 1969. The result was she was making more money in a week selling her produce than Abraham, Sr. was working at the local lumber mill. Abraham, Sr. quickly decided he was in the wrong line of work, quit his mill job, bought some more land and started growing produce fulltime.

“Dad didn’t have an opportunity for a whole lot of education, but he’s got a PhD in common sense,” says Carpenter’s Produce farm manager Abraham Carpenter, Jr., 49.

“Mom and dad always found a way to keep the family together.”

That was all part of that common sense approach Abraham, Sr. and Katie Carpenter took in raising a large family (five sons: Abraham, Jr., Albert, Danny, Terry and James; and three daughters: Rebbie, Bettie and Bobbie). Abraham, Sr., now 81, used incentives to keep his children around — a car for graduating high school, a house nearby to help work the farm. There was a job on the farm for all family members. Nobody had to find work elsewhere.

“Three generations of Carpenters work some 1,200 acres providing produce for farmers’ markets in Pine Bluff and Little Rock, the Carpenter store in Pine Bluff, as well as Wal-Mart, Kroger and other national food chains.”

“Makes you feel good to keep the family together,” Abraham, Sr. says. “I’m thankful for my family and glad they’re still around.”

Now, three generations of Carpenters work some 1,200 acres providing produce for farmers’ markets in Pine Bluff and Little Rock, the Carpenter store in Pine Bluff, as well as WalMart, Kroger and other national food chains.

About 35 family members work on the farm.

“Everybody seems to enjoy it. We work 12 to 16 hours a day, six days a week,” Abraham, Jr. says. “We make a decent living and share a little profit. Money is not the most important thing in our lives.”

Abraham, Sr. still has some ideas about Carpenter’s Produce going out into the future. “I’d like to see them improve this business and make it better with some of this new equipment,” he says.

Abraham, Jr. smiles and nods his head as his father speaks. “And his ultimate wish is for the family to stay together and move forward,” he adds when his dad is finished.

“Having the love of God and your family together, that means more than anything. I guess that’s about all you can ask for in this world.”

the

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Relationships matter I

f you don’t know Grant Pace of Monticello (Drew County), you’ll be on your way to being friends soon after you meet him. He’s just that kind of person. Relationships matter to Grant Pace. It’s the family legacy. His business is managing timber, yet it’s his skills in relating to people that makes his business successful. This includes visiting with landowners and other perspective clients, managing logging crews, talking to international buyers, mill operators, equipment dealers, his banker and many, many more.

He comes by his good-natured personality naturally. Just sit on a log with his 92-yearold father Homer for part of an afternoon, and it’s easy to see that the pine cone didn’t fall far from the tree. A card-carrying member of Arkansas Farm Bureau since 1957, Homer has served on the Drew County Farm Bureau board since 1960. (He’s missed only three state conventions since he joined.)

Homer was a vo-ag and shop teacher before becoming a rural mail carrier. Grant says his dad, a University of Arkansas graduate, always had a small herd of cattle and hauled hay. But his passion was as a “truck patch” gardener growing vegetables and fruits.

“Dad believed in keeping us busy. We would plant three to five acres of tomatoes each year, raise corn, several kinds of peppers, watermelons and cantaloupes,” he says.

“Once we got done with tomato season, we’d haul hay.”

As a 9-year-old, Grant found his calling in forestry when he planted loblolly pine on his dad’s land as part of a 4-H project. “And from then on, I’ve always enjoyed the woods and nature. I’ve always liked to see what I can do with pine.”

Much like a row-crop farmer, Grant says the satisfaction comes from putting something in the ground and watching it grow.

He majored in agriculture at the University

“As a 9-year-old, Grant found his calling in forestry when he planted loblolly pine on his dad’s land as part of a 4-H project. ‘And from then on, I’ve always enjoyed the woods and nature. I’ve always liked to see what I can do with pine.’”

of Arkansas at Monticello (UAM) and then went to work for a consulting firm and did some hardwoods research at UAM before going to work for Georgia-Pacific. All of that experience eventually led to him going into the timber consulting/management business. He now chairs Arkansas Farm Bureau’s Forestry Division.

That knack for building relationships may have found its way to a third generation.

Son, Bricen, 19, is majoring in public relations at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Grant says Bricen’s interest is mostly in politics, but the younger Pace has inherited the truck patch affinity for tomatoes.

“Every summer, he and my mother plant tomatoes and let me work them, so they can make the money,” Grant says with a chuckle.

“Still today we do this — not a big patch, just 400 to 500 plants.”

The last three years, Homer and Bricen have planted a truck patch garden and sold peppers, eggplant, cabbage and onions along with the tomatoes at the farmer’s market in Monticello.

“He enjoys it, but I think Bricen enjoys more the interaction with the people at the market than he does the farming side of it.”

It sounds like another one of the Pace family working on what they do best — cultivating relationships with people.

t h e s u l l i va n s

Service to others M

ike Sullivan of Burdette (Mississippi County) has a relaxed air about him even though it’s the height of the harvest season. Sullivan, 50, a fourth-generation Mississippi County row-crop farmer casually mentions that “we’re done” harvesting on the 7,200 acres he farms. His crews are now helping neighbors get their crops in.

Service to others has always seemed to be a part of the Sullivan family legacy in Mississippi County. It began with one of the first of their family to settle in Mississippi County, J.F. Thompkins, Mike’s great-grandfather. He was instrumental in helping clear the land that makes this county one of the best places in the nation to grow cotton, and he was hired to recruit families to farm it. He was a leader in the development of the Arkansas Seed Grower Association (now the present-day Arkansas State Plant Board) and championed expanding the number of branch agriculture experiment stations to advance agricultural research. After the great flood of 1927, J.F. Thompkins led the effort to establish drainage districts in the area. He then helped organize farmers into what is now Arkansas Farm Bureau and was its first president; all this in a life that was cut short at age 57. The generations following him have farmed and been similarly proactive in agricultural issues and served as officers in Arkansas Farm Bureau.

Mike Sullivan is no different. He presently serves on the ARFB board of directors. His agricultural heritage and its legacy of service are important to him.

“It’s important to look after what’s good for agriculture in both Little Rock and in Washington D.C.,” Sullivan says. When the opportunity came to run for a board position, Sullivan knew it was time for him to step forward.

“I’ve grown up working on the farm.

Dad started taking me out to do things with him when I was 6 years old. There’d be no reason for me to do anything else now that this has all been set up for me. I love being outside, and I feel it’s a natural thing that comes to me. I get everything about farming.”

“I felt like that was something my dad (Pat) would want me to do, and I think back to my grandfather (Hays) and great-grandfather and what they accomplished.” All three became president of Mississippi County Farm Bureau, a position Mike also reached in 1995. His father also served on the state Farm Bureau board of directors.

Brothers Tim and Scott Sullivan farm Sullivan Farms. Wife Cynthia is a selfproclaimed “city girl” from Nashville, Tenn.

Daughter, Cristin, is in college in Tennessee.

Son Ryan is off to college next year, then he plans to come back to farm and be the fifth generation of the family to work the land. It’s something he’s always wanted to do.

“I’ve grown up working on the farm. Dad started taking me out to do things with him when I was 6 years old,” says Ryan Sullivan, now 17. “There’d be no reason for me to do anything else now that this has all been set up for me. I love being outside, and I feel it’s a natural thing that comes to me. I get everything about farming.”

Farming is certainly a natural thing in the Sullivan family; as natural as service to the farm community through Arkansas Farm Bureau.

t h e p u rt l e s

Blood traders N

ed Ray Purtle, 75, of Hope (Hempstead County) has spent a lifetime in the cattle business. Being a livestock “trader” seems to be a family legacy, part of the family bloodline. His grandfather and his father traded mules and cattle, providing mules for farmers and people in the logging business. In 1927, brothers Ned (Ned Ray’s father) and Homer Purtle started raising cattle in Nevada County. Later, after moving to Clark County, his dad added cotton farming to the family business.

In discussing a lifetime devoted to the ranching business, Ned Ray seems surprised when asked what the family legacy is. “I guess I’ve never thought about it in that way.

I’ve always lived on a farm and always had cattle,” he replies. “I never had an option. It’s always what I wanted to do.”

The “no option” was self-imposed. Young Ned Ray started showing steers at the Arkansas State Fair when he was 10 years old. He lived and breathed raising cattle. By age 13, he had a champion steer. When it came time to go to college, he went to nearby Southern Arkansas University for a year and a half, all the while still raising steers to show at the fair. He then decided to transfer to Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University) because the school had an excellent livestock judging team. So he headed to Stillwater, Okla. to pursue a degree in animal science.

That led to another lifetime love — judging livestock competitions at county and state fairs. He eventually became the livestock superintendent for the Arkansas State Fair and has spent the last 52 years on the state fair’s board of governors.

As health concerns have recently slowed Ned Ray down just a bit in trying to manage

“Being a livestock ‘trader’ seems to be a family legacy, part of the family bloodline. His grandfather and his father traded mules and cattle, providing mules for farmers and people in the logging business.”

his 1,000-acre ranch near Hope, he turned to his 40-year-old son Mike to see if he wanted to carry on the Purtle livestock legacy. (Ned’s other son, Steve, works as a Honda ATV and motorcycle dealer in Russellville.)

“The hardest thing to do is to step back when you know you can’t do it anymore,” Ned Ray says.

Mike had always enjoyed working on his dad’s farm and had even farmed fulltime for a couple of years before leaving to establish his own business as an excavating contractor.

Mike says the “time was right” to come back to the cattle-raising business.

“It’s something I wanted to do,” he says.

“Now I can do it the way I want to.” Mike also has 320 acres of his own where he runs cattle and still maintains his dirt-moving business.

The way he wanted to do it included managing some of the farm for wildlife in the Wetlands Reserve Program. Mike loves to hunt ducks and deer. He also decided to grow wheat haylage. The sweet-smelling feed has really come in handy during this year’s drought-caused hay shortage.

Looks like the multi-generational cattle business will continue.

“I’m really proud of him,” says Ned Ray, a satisfied smile settling across his face.

2011

board of directors

legacy Front row (l to r): Sue Billiot, chair, women’s committee, Smithville (Sharp Co.); Randy Veach, president, Manila (Mississippi Co.); Rich Hillman, vice president, Carlisle (Lonoke Co.); Tom Jones, secretary/treasurer, Pottsville (Pope Co.); Ewell Welch, executive vice president, North Little Rock (Pulaski Co.); and Janice Marsh, vice chair, women’s committee, McCrory (Woodruff Co.). Second row: Todd Dutton, chair, YF&R committee, Star City (Lincoln Co.); Troy Buck, Alpine (Clark Co.); Jon Carroll, Moro, (Monroe Co.); Gene Pharr, Lincoln (Washington Co.); Bruce Jackson, Lockesburg (Sevier Co.); Leo Sutterfield, Mountain View (Stone Co.); Johnny Loftin, El Dorado (Union Co.); and Mike Freeze, Keo (Lonoke Co.). Back row: Richard Armstrong, Ozark (Franklin Co.); Terry Dabbs, Stuttgart (Arkansas Co.); Rusty Smith, Des Arc (Prairie Co.); Mike Sullivan, Burdette (Mississippi Co.); Brent Talley, vice chair, YF&R committee, McCaskill (Howard Co.); Allen Stewart, Mena (Polk Co.); and Joe Christian, Jonesboro (Craighead Co.).

WORDS Gregg Patterson Steve Eddington PHOTOS Keith Sutton Jim Kester Pat Patterson Tes Randle Jolly shutterstock.com DESIGN Chris Wilson

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