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Georges among six Kansas farm couples to be honored
| UNIONTOWN -- Darrel and Laura George haven't made it very far since marrying in 1977. |
They're living on the exact same 40 acres where Darrel grew up, just north of Uniontown. Laura, born a Koester, reached adulthood no more than 18 miles away in Fort Scott. The couple got to know each other when both were teens, active in school, church and Bourbon County youth groups.
"I met the love of my life in 4-H," Darrel said with a smile.
While staying in place, however, the two have achieved far-reaching accomplishments. And that fact has earned the Georges a 2007 Kansas Master Farmer-Master Farm Homemaker Award.
| The award honors those who have made a lifetime commitment to community service, environmental stewardship and agricultural leadership. It comes from Kansas State University Research and Extension and Kansas Farmer Magazine, which each year select six couples from across Kansas. |
The 2007 winners will receive their award during a March 21 banquet in Junction City. Decades of earlier Masters will be there to welcome the Georges into the ranks of rural Kansas' best.
| Darrel had just graduated from K-State and Laura from Fort Scott Community College when they ran into each other again in 1976 -- this time as adults. Both had gone to see the county fair rodeo. When the rodeo was over, though, they left together to go on their first date |
| They were talking about marriage within months, but had more optimism than anything else. |
Laura was working at Wal-Mart, making just enough to live in an apartment of her own. She had a horse, too, but it was at her parents' house. The Koesters had gotten permission to build a horse pen within the Fort Scott city limits when Laura was five and yearning for a birthday pony. The selling point that earned the zoning exception was the Koesters' back yard, which adjoined the county fairgrounds.
After earning a degree in animal science, Darrel looked for jobs in a feedlot or a county Extension office. But, when his dad, Bill, and his brother, Gale, invited him to join their partnership on the family farm, Darrel realized "hands-on" agriculture was really what he wanted to do. His only external asset for farm or married life, however, was also on the hoof -- leftover 4-H and FFA projects.
| During their engagement, the couple finished their jobs each day and then met to work at the abandoned farmhouse that Darrel's dad had offered them as a place to live. Its most noticeable features at first were skunk and raccoon leavings, faulty wiring, and lack of a bathroom. |
Darrel started in the G-Three farm partnership, signed up with the Kansas Farm Management Association and got involved in farm and livestock associations. He rented land to enlarge the farm's capabilities. He helped with the family's crop production and livestock operations.
Soon he also started building what would become a 140-sow farrow-to-finish operation he would manage until 2001, when returns fell lower than he liked. He experimented with best ways to grow and market crops -- finding, for example, that by producing more silage than G- Three's livestock could use, he could sell each ton of extra silage for at least seven times the per-bushel price of corn.
| Plus, Darrel played a major role in installing miles of waterways and terraces (still plowed biannually), as well as a system of two watershed lakes and numerous ponds to help control soil erosion. By 1985, that brought him a Kansas Association of Conservation Districts Tillage Award. |
Laura started her part of their shared life by continuing at Wal-Mart to help buy groceries and pay bills. As time went on, though, her love of the outdoors eased a transition into helping on the farm, mowing or disking fields and working with livestock. Before long, she had her own babies to care for, too -- sometimes along with newborn piglets that also were in the house for special care.
| The couple's interests didn't change any more than their location did over the next 30-plus years -- unless you count their four children, who clearly make them proud. They still strongly believe in the Golden Rule, family, hard work, education and prudently progressive agriculture ... oh, and horses. |
| Darrel said, "There's nothing like waking up in the morning to go to a job that you love to do. When you're out on your horse -- checking the cattle and doing any doctoring that`s needed -- and it's one of those beautiful Kansas days, you realize people would pay money to have such an amazing job." |
| As a result of the Georges' deep-rooted interests, however, their circumstances and activities can and did change -- almost constantly. |
G-Three now owns well over 1,500 acres and rents thousands more. It maintains a 300-head cow herd, produces high-quality heifers, feeds close to 3,000 stocker calves yearly and finishes about 500 feeders.
| It leases out land for hunting and provides recipient cows for embryo implants. |
| "Gale is in charge of the livestock and pasture. I couldn't have hoped to be as successful without having him as a partner the last 31 years," Darrel said. |
| Darrel is in charge of processing all incoming cattle and getting them started on feed. He also manages all of the crop production, which includes soil testing every three to four years and recycling bunk pad manure as fertilizer. Plus, he continues to experiment with ways to conserve soil and water, such as creating buffer strips in tilled areas and switching to no-till at feeding sites. |
| This brought him a 1997 Key Banker for Soil Conservation and a 2001 Grassland Award. |
"Our crop production is centered around our livestock," Darrel said. "We might no-till wheat into corn ground, providing both wheat and stubble grazing for the yearlings. Then we might plant those same acres to forage. Or, we can spread the stubble with clover and nitrogen for clover hay. Of course, we also grow alfalfa for hay and grazing. Beans are a soil-enriching rotation and a cash crop."
| Big changes on the home front began during the 1980s when baby Lindsey arrived. She's now teaching agriculture education and advising FFA for the Wilson and Quivira Heights high schools. |
| Lacey joined the family next -- she's currently a K-State sophomore in agricultural education. Then sons Drew and Cole arrived at the same time and have since grown into active teenagers. |
"I've been busy the last 25 years, transporting kids to 4-H, ball games, FFA, dance lessons, History Day trips, and many other school and community activities," Laura said. "We've strived to teach our children many of the same characteristics we learned from our parents -- to be friendly, helpful, honest, and good citizens of our community and country."
Undoubtedly that's part of why the Georges were named the American Royal's 1994 Kansas Farm Family of the Year.
Laura had all four kids on horseback when they were just days old. In turn, each one did chores on the farm. They belonged to the same church, 4-H club, horse groups and school system their dad had attended as a boy. Their competing at the state fair became the family's annual vacation. But when the girls got old enough, their success in local and state FFA actually brought their parents honorary chapter and state FFA Farmer degrees.
Each child has been an honor student, athlete, frequent leader and prize-winning competitor. Yet, all four remain very different, including the twins.
| Darrel and Laura have had a hand in other youngsters' success, as well. Back in 1987, he began an ongoing job of chairing the Warren McKinnis Memorial Cutting Horse event to fund scholarships. |
| The Georges also have quietly donated bred gilts to help FFA members get a start in business. They've financed youngsters' purchase of show pigs and steers to raise and provided livestock for contests ranging from the Little Britches Rodeo to Fort Scott Community College livestock judging. |
| In addition, Laura has helped with youth activities at the Uniontown Baptist Church. She's served as a 4-H club horse project leader for 16 years and as Bourbon County's 4-H horse leader, as well as the fair's horse show superintendent, for the last 13. Laura also has been a longtime supporter of the school system's National History Day activities, which have included her transporting Uniontown youngsters six times to the national contest. She now works part-time at the school. |
| Darrel is president of the Bourbon County Fair Board, and Laura is a board member. |
In addition to their Extension 4-H activities, both have been elected for terms and offices on the Bourbon County Extension Council. Their farm has been the site for county, area and state field trials, demonstrations and research for an array of K-State Research and Extension faculty. In 2000, the couple received a Bourbon County Extension Appreciation Award
| Also, both are active in the Uniontown Saddle Club and belong to the American Quarter Horse Association. As longtime members of the Mid-Eastern Kansas Western Horsemanship Association, Darrel has been vice president or president for 10 years. Laura's been points secretary the past 10 years. |
None of that includes the couple's low-key help in donating supplies and labor for everything from a new fire station, park shelter house, church roof and fairground improvements to summertime baseball, local fund raisers, benefits for the needy and Red Cross blood drives.
| "If I can fit my two feet into just one of my dad's footsteps, I'm doing pretty well," Darrel said. |
The farm partnership retains its name, but Darrel lost both of his folks within six months of each other in 2001. He and Laura bought and now live in the house his parents built in 1985.