By Del Deterling, 1978 AAEA President
I grew up on a small cotton and grain farm in central Texas. I picked many a pound of cotton by hand, giving me all the incentive, I needed to seek a higher education. At Schulenburg High School, I enrolled in vo-ag and became deeply involved with FFA, showing pigs and dairy animals, serving as chapter and district president, and receiving both the Lone Star and American Farmer degrees. My senior year, I was elected a state FFA Vice-president.
At Texas A&M, I enrolled in agricultural economics. During my junior year, I took an agricultural journalism writing course and was blown away. Obviously, I had some writing talent and I was excited to use it. My career plans were changed. During my senior year, I loaded all my electives with freshmen, sophomore, junior and senior journalism courses—18 hours the first semester, 21 the second—several which were prerequisites for each other. In addition, I was in the ROTC and editor of the College of Agriculture magazine. It nearly killed me, but I survived with a double B.S. in agricultural economics and journalism.
Upon graduation, I was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force and was pleased to be assigned to Information Services duty. In my three years at Travis AFB, California, I served as Assistant Base Information Officer and editor of the weekly base newspaper. It was like a government-paid internship that put me a step ahead after my tour was over.
Back in Texas, I worked three years for the Texas A&M Agricultural Extension Service. I was assigned as Information Officer for the Southwest Screwworm Eradication Program, which pioneered the sterile male fly technique, that later was used to eradicate several species of fruit flies and the cotton boll weevil.
In 1966, I was recruited to join The Progressive Farmer as an associate editor by its Southwest editor and former AAEA president, Charlie Scruggs. Charlie was a terrific mentor. By choice, I would remain in the Dallas office for next 37 years and had many memorable and enjoyable experiences. I retired as executive editor in 2001. I continued as a free-lance contributor for many years, and for three years, served as managing editor of Equipment Dealer magazine.
With PF, I was blessed to work with many of the top agricultural writers in the industry—too many to mention by name. Charlie Scruggs, Joe Elliott, Ed Wilborn, Earl Manning, Tom Curl, Jack Odle and Gregg Hillyer were all past AAEA presidents; Jim Patrico and Joe Link were Master Photographers. We, along with our families, were all personal friends. There was no jealousy. We thoroughly enjoyed being together in work and in play. Incidentally, I hired both Tom and Jack to be my associate editors, and both ended up as my bosses.
I was amazed how much agriculture had evolved since my college days. Large-scale mechanization and the introduction of preplant herbicides and new types of pesticides were new concepts. Crossbreeding of beef animals was a dirty word in animal science classes but was beginning to catch on in the early years of my career. Herbicide-resistant crop varieties, use of lasers for land-leveling, adoption of sprinkler and subsurface irrigation were soon adopted. By the time of my retirement, the use of drones, field mapping, precision planting and fertilizer and chemical application and blogging were becoming commonplace. I was blessed to have a front-row seat to witness the introduction of all of those exciting developments.
Equally amazing was the evolution of tools available to editors. Initially, we were restricted to twin-lens reflex cameras, but eventually graduated to SLR cameras with built-in light meters. Digital photography was just coming into its own by the time of my retirement. Also, I started out banging copy on a manual Royal typewriter. Over the years I worked up to a simple electric, then the IBM Selectric with its revolutionary golf-ball type element and correcting ribbon and finally to desk-top and laptop computers. Our initial computer was a bulky Decmate with 32K memory, 8-inch floppy discs and dial-up internet service. One of the handiest technological advances was the cell phone. No longer did I have to stop off at the local 7-11 payphone to alert the producer that I was on the way.
I attended my first AAEA annual meeting in Chicago in 1973 and was shocked to be asked to serve on the Board of Directors. I assumed they needed a warm body. Four years later, I was elected 1978 AAEA President. Over the years, I served on and/or chaired several key committees. I earned several team Oscars in Agriculture and was named AAEA Agricultural Writer of the Year in 1992, as well as achieving Master Writer status.
During my presidency, there were early rumblings of discontent among many of our younger editors about what they perceived to be a too-cozy relationship between AAEA and commercial sponsors for AAEA events. It was especially awkward that when having breakfast with key Congressional leaders and lunch with the Secretary of Agriculture, the first order of business was to introduce the CEO of the commercial company who was picking up the tab.
As a test, the Board decided that AAEA would pay the total bill for the Spring Washington Workshop. Registration was raised to $75 per person (a princely sum in those days) for the first 50 active AAEA members who registered. We feared this would hurt attendance, but it did not. This possibly ignited the first spark to the famous “Flame” meeting a few years later that scaled back on commercial sponsorships and initiated the idea of establishing the AAEA Foundation.
One of the highlights of my presidency was the opportunity to travel to Australia to represent AAEA at the conference of the Asian Agricultural Journalists and Writers Association . While there, I was invited by the Australian Information Service to initiate a program through which two AAEA editors each year could spend two weeks in Australia at AIS expense to study that country’s agriculture. The program lasted several years, but, unfortunately, was canceled due to budgetary problems.
One of the most popular AAEA events was the annual Summer Workshop, where with families in tow, we visited different regions of the country to view its agriculture. During my presidency, we went to Coeur d’Alene, Oregon, and the following year to Finger Lakes region of New York. One of its biggest benefits was giving our families an opportunity to get to know the other people that we were privileged to work with.
I will always treasure my association with AAEA—the professional improvement workshops; the opportunities to travel and share ideas with fellow editors; the people that I met (three U.S. presidents, several Secretaries of Agriculture, Congressmen and Senators, and executives of major agribusiness corporations), and the many friends that I made. I was especially honored and humbled to receive the AAEA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.
I recognize that changes must come over time, but in doing so, I hope the AAEA will never depart from the basic principles with which it was established 100 years ago—to bring agricultural communicators together to exchange ideas and to become better equipped to provide important information to the agricultural producers that we serve.