Thank You Farmers
Saturday, August 23, 2025
Langlois farm prospers across many generations Langlois farmer
By PHIL ANGELO
The love of the land runs deep in the Langlois family.
Tony Langlois, along with his wife, Julaine, and son, Justin, farms 3,000 acres in the Grant Park area. It is basically corn and beans, but there is a wildflower garden, too, attracting bees and butterflies in a touch that is both practical and beautiful.
Tucked in the northern part of Kankakee County, the farm has rows of corn that look strong, green and tall.
Langlois says it has been a very good year so far for the crops.
“The weather has been generally cooperative,” Langlois says. “I have been a little impressed that things look as well as they do with as little rain as we have had.”
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stands in front of this year’s corn. His farm goes back five generations on his side and six on wife, Julaine’s side.
Photo
Phil Angelo
Tony Langlois
But, he adds, the timing of the rain has been good.
The Langlois family has farmed for five generations, using part of this land. Juliane’s family goes back even further when it comes to bonding with the soil. Her family has been farming for six generations.
“We both grew up here,” Tony says.
He adds that there will be a next generation of Langlois raising crops in Kankakee County. Son Justin is that generation. Right now Tony and Justin work together on the farm.
“Some day this will be his farm,” Tony says. Justin and his wife Carrie are the parents of Langlois grandchildren Austin, Carli and Hailey.
The Langlois are also parents of daughter Jacki. She is linked to farming as a professional agronomist. She holds a Masters degree, but currently works in Europe. She’s done work for Pioneer Seed, DeKalb Seed and Monsanto, which is now part of Bayer. She’s married to Phil, an airline pilot stationed in the United Kingdom.
While the Langlois do not define traveling as one of their hobbies or pastimes, they do head to Europe to visit their daughter.
Tony is quick to acknowledge the farming contributions of the rest of his family, especially his wife. “She’s the real farmer,” he says.
The couple, now married for 46 years, initially met in St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Manteno. He was a graduate of Grant Park High. She was a graduate of Manteno High. The second time they met was passing each other, along a country road. He was driving a fertilizer truck. She was in her nurse’s uniform. Tony remembers calling her for a first date.
Julaine worked as a nurse at Riverside and at the Illinois Veterans Home at Manteno before retiring. But Tony says she has always been active on the farm.
She drives a combine and a tractor, he says. “Wherever there is a need, she meets it.”
“I didn’t do anything alone,” he adds. “We did it together.”
While they both came from long-time farming
KANKAKEE COUNTY FARM BUREAU
backgrounds, she was the one with the brothers who showed animals at local fairs. Her father had been of the first farmers in Kankakee County with angus cattle.
When the Langlois’ children were growing up, they were in 4-H and showed dairy goats. Julaine was also a member of the school board in the years when St. Patrick’s of Momence had an elementary school.
Tony Langlois says the Lord has blessed his life.
He likes every aspect of farming. “Really all of it,” he says. Tony, now 69, says life on the farm has been satisfying and he enjoys what he does.
The harvest time is great because that is the payday, “when you see the results.” The planting is good, he adds, because that is the season when you work the ground. And the day when the sprouts come up through the ground is “the greatest feeling,” he says.
Still, he adds, farming can be a humbling experience.
“There’s a lot to learn,” he says.
He chose farming as a rewarding career
By PHIL ANGELO
Jared Sikes is descended from a long line of farmers — four generations.
Sikes grows corn and soybeans in the Herscher area.
And yet his own path to tending to the land was not without its twists and turns. The graduate of Herscher High School actually started out as a union electrician. It was his “fallback” position, even though he was from a farming family. At Herscher he had been the type of student who was friends with all, enemy of none.
But Sikes, now 42, came to a crossroads in 2009. If he was going to become a fulltime farmer, that was the time. He chose farming.
The electrical background still comes in handy. Repair and preparation of equipment is part of the life of any farmer. To farm successfully, you have to have all your equipment ready when it is time to go. Your window for certain tasks can be small.
Sikes also chips in, helping neighbor farmers with repairs when needed. Neighbors call for electrical assistance and Jared shares his expertise and experience. Farmers are a helpful group, pitching in when there is a need.
“I’m happy about it,” Sikes says of his decision to take up farming. Still, though, he adds, there are days when he wishes he was done at 3:30 in the afternoon.
Sikes is a member of the Kankakee County Farm Bureau and he was active in the Farm Bureau’s Young Leaders program until he aged out of it.
His farming roots go back to his youth. “I was walking beans as far back as I can remember,” he says. At age 10, he was running the auger cart in back of the combine. That’s the device that gathers up the ears of corn. Jared would then be driving them out to the semi for transport.
Photo Provided
Jared and Becky Sike with their chidren, Cru and Merra.
“It’s the entry-level job in farming,” he says.
These days Sikes works what was historically the Pfeiffer family farm. He and his wife Becky have been married for 10 years. They are the parents of two, a 9-yearold son, Cru; and a 7-year-old daughter, Meera. The children are fourth and second graders, respectively, in Herscher schools, respectively.
When it comes to parents, Sikes has two full families: a mom and a stepdad; and a dad and a stepmom. He gets along with both wings of the family.
Wife Becky is a Foreign Visit Specialist at Argonne National Labs. That job involves vetting scientists from other countries who want to perform experiments at the facility.
Jared explains that Argonne is her career while farming is his.
This year’s crops, he says, were hurt a little bit from the heat. He’s not too optimistic about the fall. “The markets are ugly,” he says. That’s farming. You take the good and have
to be prepared for the bad, he explains.
He quipped about the acreage he farms. “It’s too much in a bad year and not enough in a good year,” he says.
He supplements his farm income in a related field. He sells federal crop insurance, which is a way for farmers to stabilize their income in the face of wildly fluctuating prices. It helps guarantee that farmers can stay on their land. It’s also an enjoyable way, he says, to meet and to serve other farmers.
The Sikes enjoy being parents, watching on
as Cru plays baseball and Meera cheers. They also spend free time, when it occurs, camping. They own a Cherokee camper that travels to a cabin for a 4th of July weekend and down to Key West in the dead of winter. Those trips are also grandparent outings.
On his acreage, Sikes says that the late spring is always a great time to be a farmer. The crop is lush and green and growing.
“You have done all you can do,” he says.
“You have done your job.”
Harvest is a different type of enjoyment. All hands are on deck and “the long days are kind of fun.” Cru is now big enough to help. Sikes says both children learn on the farm.
Every day on the farm, he says, there is always something to do. Every day, you make a little difference.
“It’s a good life,” he says. “Stressful at times,
Hard work, but a rewarding life for young farm couple
By PHIL ANGELO
Brian and Lauren Janssen are a farm couple that link with many other area and Illinois residents when it comes to sharing the goodness of their land and expertise.
The Janssens farm about 1,000 acres in the Herscher area. Like many other local farmers, they bring in corn and soybeans. Brian is 34. Lauren is 31.
They also bring in some delicious sweet corn, which sells both locally and wholesale, too.
They note that while farming is rewarding, it is also hard work with lots of odd hours. Watching the crops grow is cool, with harvest being a favorite time.
“There’s always something to do,” Brian says. It is never-ending.
But the challenge has a reward when you can see the corn and beans grow. The end of the
year, he says, when you harvest, is really your report card.
The Janssens note that while the crops are good this year, the prices are not. That seems to go hand-in-hand, part of supply and demand. More bushels overall can mean a lower price per bushel.
Farms and farmers are also subject to the whims of mother nature.
“The weather is everything,” Brian says. “It can
Submitted Photo
Brian and Lauren Janssen with son Billy
be too hot, too dry, too cold — all negative.”
This year has not been bad, he says, though it did get dry.
No matter the weather, Lauren travels Illinois and Indiana, stopping at about 20 fairs and festivals, including the Indiana State Fair. She brings sweet corn to sell, along with apple dumplings and strawberry shortcake. She hires some local high schoolers to man the booth and shrewdly gauges the appropriate price by sizing up the food competition and prices along the midway.
She’s in her 13th year of selling at fairs. It is a trade she learned from her dad, who sold corn dogs at fairs. That corn dog business is now in the hands of her brother Eric.
In general, Lauren says, the sales on the midway have been pretty good. She explains that when the economy seems to struggle, people may cut out their longer vacations, but they still go to their county fair as a local getaway or holiday.
Brian, though, was one of those persons who always seemed to be destined to be a farmer. He notes that as a child, he always liked tractors. A Herscher grad, he was in FFA and Lauren proudly notes that he never missed a day of school. Lauren is a graduate of Brad-
ley-Bourbonnais Community High School.
The Janssens were originally introduced by friends. They are the proud parents of eightmonth-old son Billy.
“I wouldn’t be here (on the farm) if it were not for my dad,” Brian says. His parents are the late Phillip and mom Mary Jean. Lauren’s parents are Dan and Pam Conway.
The Janssens pay forward now as working farmers, donating to 4-H and FFA auctions
Their farm also includes a friendly dog, Lucy. Lucy, an 11-year-old golden retriever, will wander from her doghouse into the yard and pick an ear or corn for dessert or a snack. She can shuck it herself. There is also a farmcat, Fluffy.
There is a kitchen plus to being a farmer, Lauren says. When you are making dinner, you never have to go out to buy a side dish in the summertime. You just walk outside.
When asked about hobbies, they respond that sweet corn is a hobby. The challenge of raising an infant makes free time precious, but when they can, they like to get away to the beach.
They both like what they are doing, but, as Lauren says, if you are a farm couple, you have to like to work, “a lot.”
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