Friends, Coworkers and Peers: It’s All Your Fault
By JoAnn Alumbaugh, 1999 AAEA President
More experienced AAEA members like me (i.e., “old codgers”) have been sharing their experiences in articles in the ByLine this year. I’ve enjoyed reading every one from beginning to end, but now that it’s my turn, it’s hard to know how much readers really want to know. Where do I begin in this journey? Here’s a snapshot of how I got here, and why so many people are to blame for how I turned out.
I was born a small white child on a farm just outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan – not what anyone would consider the center of the farming universe. We had a diversified operation with 200 purebred Chester White and Yorkshire sows and boars; 40 Jersey cows; a handful of goats, ducks and geese; and about 1,000 acres of corn, soybeans and hay. We spent every summer baling 400 acres of hay and delivering it to horse farms in the affluent Detroit suburbs and surrounding areas.
We also participated in agro-tourism before the term existed. Living close enough to the University of Michigan to hear the crowds at The Big House on football Saturdays meant we had an enthusiastic clientele for hayrides, bonfires and a party barn. My older sister and I started driving hayrides when we were about 13, off-road and very slowly. Our leadership skills were honed early-on: “Get back in the wagon,” “Don’t throw those bottles off the wagon,” “I’m stopping this ride unless everyone sits down,” etc..
I loved being in 4-H and, like a lot of farm kids, the highlights of every summer were the county and state fairs. It was especially fun interacting with the city folk from downtown Detroit who had no knowledge of farm life. They would crowd around the pen when we farrowed the first litter of pigs at the fair, nudging their way in to get a closer look. There were stressful times at the fair, though, too. My sister and I stayed in a dorm on the state fairgrounds and I’ll never forget hearing the mounted police late at night during the riots of 1967.
When I was 13, I entered the hog calling contest at the Michigan State Fair on a whim (and for the $25 first prize). My parents didn’t know about it until they saw me on the Detroit news that night – they were more than a little surprised! An unfortunate outcome was that a large picture of me appeared on the front page of the Ann Arbor News, so when junior high started a few days after the fair, that was a hot topic. Not the kind of thing a shy 7th grader necessarily wants to be remembered for.
In high school, I was in the Michigan Pork Queen contest, because that’s what my older sister had done the year before and I wanted my dad to be proud of me. I did the typical things a commodity queen does, which included going to the state capital and handing out bags of Michigan products to the state legislators. All the queens were positioned in a long line and I happened to be standing next to the Michigan Navy Bean Queen. So, wait for it: We were the Michigan pork-and-bean queens. It made a good story for a later column. The pork queen gig led to a trip to the first-ever Chester White Spotlight national show, where I would meet my future husband, a new fieldman for the association. It also took me to the American Pork Congress, where I met Earl Butz and Jimmy Dean – pretty heady stuff for an 18-year-old.
I had planned to go to Michigan State University and study music therapy – a brand-new discipline at the time. I had played the cello since 5th grade and thought the field sounded intriguing. But money on the farm was tight, and it didn’t look like a feasible option. I attended Eastern Michigan University instead, where I earned a degree to teach kindergarten through eighth grade and English in ninth grade. I wasn’t thinking about being involved in agriculture at all, but I married that fieldman two weeks after graduating from college and we moved to Rochester, Indiana. He had just been selected as the new executive secretary for the Chester White Association and I went to work on the Chester White Journal. My salary was $10,000, which seemed like a lot at the time.
Writing was fun! I loved meeting the breeders and their wives and visiting their farms. I loved everything about it. After three years, we bought a farm in Good Hope, Illinois and went into partnership on a Duroc operation. I got a job at the United Duroc Registry in Peoria, where I worked for three years. It was 60 miles each way, and I was in the office every day. The speedometer on my Monte Carlo didn’t work, so when I would occasionally (frequently) get stopped for speeding, I would tell the officer about my speedometer. After the ninth warning, I did finally get it fixed, knowing my luck would eventually run out.
The National Association of Swine Records, represented by the eight purebred breed secretaries, decided to hire a full-time director to promote US purebreds. I was selected and continued to write marketing material and articles about the history of the breed associations. It was fascinating to look back and see how much the industry had changed.
When the funding was eliminated, that meant my job was also eliminated, so I interviewed for the position of editor of The Hog Producer, an insert that went in all the Farm Progress magazines. Tom Budd, the editorial vice-president at the time, was hesitant to hire a woman because of a bad experience previously. But Al Johnson, who was head of sales at the time, knew one of the company’s highly respected fieldmen, who had given me a positive recommendation. Al told Tom, “Go ahead – it’ll be all right.” I have Al and Tom to thank for taking a chance on me.
The job required us to move to Iowa, because the support folks were located in the Wallaces Farmer office. We bought an acreage about 30 miles from Des Moines so we moved our kids, the pigs, the equipment and everything else to our new location. A neighbor saw our truck loaded to the gills and said, “Hey, if you’re going to the dump I have some things you can take!”
We were living on a shoestring at the time. Thankfully, the seller allowed us to buy on contract without a down payment. Why? Because when he found out I was going to work at the Wallaces Farmer office, he took a chance on us – the magazine’s reputation was that trusted. We’ve lived here for more than 30 years and have loved raising our three kids – now grown – in Iowa.
I worked with many excellent editors at Farm Progress. They were highly respected, both with farmers as well as among their peers. Gary Reynolds taught me to be more precise in my writing. Mike Wilson helped me become a more interesting writer. Monte Sesker, Frank Holdmeyer and John Otte helped me learn how to “talk” to farmers. Carole Flanders helped me learn how to become a manager. I had the honor of working with, meeting, and learning from so many others who were the best of the best.
Sara Wyant, though significantly younger than I, was a great mentor. As eventual vice-president of editorial at Farm Progress, she led the way for female editors, and pushed for job parity. She promoted professional development, and her involvement in AAEA made me want to become more involved. I wanted to be a “mover and shaker” like she was.
I continued my work with AAEA through great jobs at Farms.com, Morgan & Myers, Vance Publishing, and finally Farm Journal, before “retiring” in 2018. I freelance for some wonderful companies and plan to keep working as long as I can make relevant contributions.
I’ve served on or chaired many committees and it has been a labor of love, no question. As AAEA president, I worked to create a more organized committee structure, and get more people involved in committee leadership. I helped rewrite the bylines for the Professional Improvement Foundation and started a mentorship program to encourage and assist younger members. Encouraged by what AAEA was able to accomplish in assisting young professionals, my capstone for a master’s degree in business leadership four years ago focused on developing a mentorship program at Vance Publishing.
AAEA opened many doors for me, but more importantly, it led to countless friendships and work relationships. The adage, “You’ll only get out of something what you put into it,” isn’t true. In reality, you’ll get much more out of your AAEA involvement than you put in. At least that’s how it has been for me.
Receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award last summer was unbelievable and humbling. Really, the honor – and any credit for my impact or contribution – goes to all the people along the way who have influenced me and generously shared their knowledge. They are the reason I am who I am, so they can either take the credit or blame! I can’t thank them enough.
I never could have imagined the career I’ve had, and I owe so much of that career to AAEA. To everyone reading this: Put your time, energy and effort into this organization. The rewards will be beyond your wildest dreams.