By Jennifer Kiel, AAEA Board Member

As an eight-year-old, Gil Gullickson –  like about two million other mid-western boys his age – wanted to play center field for the Minnesota Twins. But, instead of tracking down fly balls, he’s spent a career chasing story leads on everything from new formulations of dicamba to developing a corn rootworm management plan.

For the last 13 years, Gullickson has covered crops technology for Successful Farming magazine, a Meredith Agrimedia brand. He covers the latest developments in seeds, agricultural chemicals and other agricultural technologies.

It’s likely his interest in agriculture was rooted in the “hobby farm” he grew up on in northeast South Dakota, but his fascination with writing was developed on a whim. While an agronomy major at South Dakota State University, he indifferently signed up for a newswriting class. “I found out I had a knack for it,” he says, while crediting his teacher for fortifying his love of storytelling. “Bill McCorkle was an excellent journalism teacher and veteran newspaper man,” Gullickson says.

Recognizing his talent, McCorkle would sometimes use Gullickson’s writing as an example for the class, while pointing out that he wasn’t even a journalism major. “At that time, I could feel 30 pairs of angry journalism eyes aimed at me,” he recalls. “Writing just came naturally for me, and besides, I really can’t do anything else,” he jokes.

He began covering agriculture for the university’s newspaper and by the time he graduated in 1983, he had collected a minor in journalism. “At that time, we were in the depths of the farm crisis, and with an agronomy degree, there were no jobs to be had,” Gullickson says.  “Others went on to grad school, and I thought about it. But, as I graduated, there was an opening for an associate editor for The Farmer/ Dakota Farmer.”

Gullickson landed that job and signed onto AAEA that same year. He is quick to point out how the organization has changed. “Back then it was more of a good ol’ boys club,” he explains. “Mike Wilson (former AAEA president and long-time member) and I joke about the first time we met – we were like two scared church mice in a hospitality room. Everyone else ignored us. We were the only ones in the room under the age of 40.”  

The two youngsters started talking and found common ground on several subjects and have been friends ever since.

It’s that networking that Gullickson still finds incredibly valuable, as well as the many professional development opportunities offered through the workshops at Ag Media Summit. Sometimes, the two combine.  “You can pick up a lot from other members,” he says. “At the last ag media summit, I asked Steve Werblow about a problem I was having focusing my camera. He gave me my answer to what I was doing wrong in two minutes.”

And, Gullickson says, the good ol’ boys club has been transformed into an organization that actively seeks to activate, engage and encourage young members.

Gullickson served on the AAEA Board of Directors from 1998-2002. He’s now back on the board and is the current president-elect of AAEA. Through the years, he’s also served as the chairman of the writing contest, AAEA Byline, InfoExpo trade show and chaired the Professional Improvement Foundation for six years.

Career advancements

In 1987, Gullickson went on to work for Farm Progress Companies’ newly launched Dakota and Minnesota edition of Wallaces Farmer. He filled various positions at Farm Progress until 2000. He spent a few years freelancing, while also taking a job outside of ag for a financial services group – all while maintaining his AAEA membership. He eventually returned as a fulltime ag journalist at Successful Farming.

At the last Ag Media Summit, he garnered the prestigious Story of the Year for a piece he wrote on the then 101-year-old, south central Kansas farmer Loyd Ratts.

He went in thinking he was doing a story on an elderly farmer who was scheduling his irrigation via smart phone and how he used that technology to grow better crops. He got so much more. Gullickson says Ratts’ first-hand account of what it was like to farm through the Great Depression was astounding. “People our age really don’t know how bad things were in ’30s. To save the home farm, Loyd had to go out to western Kansas to farm and fought dust storms on the way,” says Gullickson, who also noted that Ratts lost his first wife and was left to tend to four children under age nine.

“He eventually found love again with a widow who became his second wife, but what I got out of that story was, even at age 101, he was still learning, and through a lot of grit and determination, he managed to make things work,” Gullickson explains.

Talking with farmers, sharing what they know and supplying new knowledge to help others, is the base of Gullickson’s writing philosophy. “It’s about continuous learning,” he says.

He often learns something in the process, as well. While visiting Ratts, who had just bought a big screen TV and asked the installer to put “that popular” Facebook on there, he saw an older man embracing new ideas. “It’s often tempting to say. ‘well, in my day and age, we did this,’” Gullickson says. “But, in reality, today is your day. No matter if you are 99 or 19, or 29 or 39. Today is your day. And, as journalists, we’re learning new ways of storytelling, whether it be through the web, videos, slide shows or tweeting. It’s important to embrace new ways of storytelling.”

Gullickson has been married to Lisa for 27 years, and they have two children, Grant, 21, who is a senior at St. Johns University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and Bridget, 17, a senior at Valley High School in West Des Moines, Iowa.

He likes biking so much that he bikes to work whenever he can. And, after a hiatus from triathlons, his son got him back into it last April. He plans to do it again.

“Other than that, I probably have the best walked dog in Iowa,” Gullickson says of his free time. “My wife and I have date night walking the dog to go over things that happened during the day.”

AAEA Awards

• Writer of Merit 2006
• Master Writer 1992
• Writer of the Year: 2001 and 2006
• Story of the Year: 2010 and 2018
• Writer of the Year, Honorable Mention 2018
• Master Photographer 2002
• IFAJ/FAO Award for Food Security Reporting Winner 2017