Meet the Staab family of Remsen

by Bob Fitch

Jim Staab works wherever he’s needed – in the field, in the feedlot or in the seed warehouse. “We’ve got a lot of different jobs. I like it all … the smell of the dirt in the spring, the new calves coming in in the fall, and when the seed is going out … it’s all nice when it works. You put a lot of hours in. But when you get everybody taken care of and everybody’s satisfied, that’s the name of the game.”

Jim and his wife Rosie farm with their son Nick and grandson RJ east of Remsen in Plymouth County. The Staabs raise corn and soybeans, have a cattle feedlot, and sell seed corn.

“It takes everybody. It’s a family deal,” Jim said. “All the grandkids get involved every so often, picking up rocks or whatever we’ve got to do.” He finds it particularly satisfying to be farming side-by-side with his grandson, RJ, who is a junior majoring in agriculture at South Dakota State University. “Boy, he didn’t want to go to college. But his mother said he was going. Ever since he was very young, he’s always been farm, farm, farm.”

RJ said, “I hated college for the first couple months, but then I got over it. I come home every weekend anyway. I pretty much know what I want to do with my life. I wanted to be a farmer ever since I was a little kid. Farming is a lot better than sitting in the classroom.”

Nick said RJ started out early. “I had him run the grain cart when he was probably 7. I was combining and needed the cart at the other end of the field. It was a power shift, so you didn’t need to push the clutch in. I told him to put it in gear and drive alongside real slow. Even though he wasn’t big enough to push the clutch in, he could pull the lever back into neutral.

“When he was 4 or 5, he used to ride with me when I’d plant. I used to have to fill with beans after five rounds. RJ knew exactly when it was time to fill – he counted all the rounds when he was little. He’d say ‘one more round and we’ve got to fill.’ That was fun,” Nick said.

Deb, Miranda, RJ and Nick Staab.

The Staab family in 2008: Wyatt, Mark, Morgan, Kim and Paige; Taylor, Lucas and Blake and Riley in the blue shirts, John holding Madeline, and Erin; Nick, Deb, Miranda and RJ (in front); and Jim and Rosie.

RJ’s moniker stands for Roman James, which comes from his two great-grandfathers who were both named Roman and his two grandfathers who are both named James. He comes by his passion for farming naturally. Not only is he following in the footsteps of his dad and grandfather, but his grandmother Rosie is hands-on as well. Jim said, “Rosie has been part of this deal from the start. She’s run every piece of equipment we’ve had except the planter. Without her, things would get pretty messed up. She’s a pretty main cog in our situation.” Rosie remembers running a 12-row cultivator with their three kids sleeping in the tractor cab with her. Their oldest son John is now a teacher in Champaign, Ill., and their youngest son Mark is the transportation director for the Le Mars School District.

The farm where their home is now was passed down from Rosie’s parents, Clarence and Rosie Keffeler. “Dad bought the land in 1951. At the time, it was the highest-priced land in the state of Iowa – $450 per acre. He had people tell him he was never going to make it,” she said.

Jim said, “The IRS came in here and audited him – they thought nobody could be making enough money to pay that much for a farm, milking cows.” Rosie said her parents had the top Jersey herd in the state of Iowa for a couple years, plus they raised 1,000 chickens every year for the DeKalb Corp. in what was then a state-of-the-art facility. They also had some hogs. “And they made everything work on 160 acres,” she said. “We all helped, we all milked.”

Her family is one of the nation’s longest continually operating dealers of DeKalb seed. DeKalb started selling seed corn in 1935 and Rosie’s maternal uncle, Albert Schmitz Sr., started with DeKalb in 1938. Albert passed the business on to Rosie’s parents in 1940.

Jim and Nick also now farm the original Staab farm north of Remsen since the death of Jim’s brother Joe. The Staab family comes from stern German stock. Jim’s great grandfather originally came to the United States to straighten out his two brothers who had gotten into trouble.

Nick worked for his grandfather, Roman Staab, after high school before joining his parents. Jim said, “If you worked for my dad, YOU WORKED. There was no mercy there. Dad ran the operation until he was 90, really until they put him in the ground. My brother Joe was probably the only one who could work with him because he was so tough.”

Nick said, “Oh yeah, he was tough. He fed the cattle until he was 85 and ran the silage chopper when he was 80. He was active and aggressive. If he was going to do something and he put his mind to it, he got it done. That’s just the way he was.”

Rosie remembered that her father-in-law got out of debt when he was 85 years old. Jim laughed, saying: “He went to town, took care of his last note when he was 85. When he came home from the bank, he said ‘I cleaned up!’”

Jim worked with his brothers and his dad right after he and Rosie married in 1967. Jim’s farming career was interrupted by a stint of service in the Army National Guard in Vietnam. After he returned, they farmed on his brother’s farm south of Marcus for five or six years before joining Rosie’s parents. After Rosie’s dad died fairly young, her mom continued to run the seed business for several years before transitioning it to them. “She could deal with men better than women. She knew as much about the seed as anyone around,” Jim said.

When he was farming with his dad and brothers, their land was scattered over 28 miles. “We were going 28 miles down the road with an M, a WD45 and we finally had a 560,” Jim said. Rosie said, “One of the neighbors was just a character. He told us, ‘When you guys come down the road, it’s like a circus coming to town. Get over!’” Jim continued, “We’re devout Catholic, but that guy was REALLY a devout Catholic. He told us: ‘It took me 35 years to convince these guys around here not to work on Sunday; and then you guys pull in here and you do more work on Sunday than any other day of the week!’”

Nick said their farm has changed a lot since he started with his parents in the late 1980s. At the time, they had a farrow-to-finish hog operation with older facilities and had moved out of beef cattle. Rather than modernize their hog outfit, they chose to get back into feeding cattle and grew substantially. They also farm a lot more crop ground now.

Today, the Staabs are also updating their technology, adding iPads to track their cattle feed, rate of gain, cost of gain and other statistics. “The banker is sure going to like it,” Nick said.

One of the keys to continue as an independent cattle feeder is “being able to be profitable year-after-year,” he said. “We try to source cattle from the same places every year through video auctions, but you’re at the mercy of the market. To try to lock into a profit, we contract 90 percent of them.”

RJ said farmers have to be proactive public ambassadors. “Everybody wants to know where their food comes from. Farmers have to get involved to get the word out there that we’re not as bad as everybody thinks we are.” He said using social media is very effective (on YouTube, search “Staab family farm” to see an example).

Off the farm, Nick is on the board of directors of German Farmers Mutual Insurance, a position Jim previously held. Nick used to do lot of sports coaching at Remsen St. Mary’s School where he was head softball coach for two years, head girls basketball coach for two years, and assistant baseball coach for four years. His wife Deb is director of brand event sourcing for Staples in Orange City. Their daughter Miranda will finish her degree in pharmacy at the University of Iowa in the spring.

Nick said their values as a family and as a farm business are driven by their faith. Their children went to Remsen St. Mary’s School as did he, his wife, Jim and Rosie. Their faith is complemented by their commitment to honesty. Jim said, “My dad said if your word is not any good, you’re not any good. If you give your word or a handshake, that better mean that’s the way it is.”

The Staab farm north of Remsen in 1952. Jim, Nick and RJ Staab farm this ground plus operate the former Keffeler farm which once belonged to Rosie's parents.