Keepin’ ’em down on the farm — or not
Staff writer
For high school juniors and seniors, the last two years of school are a time of great, and complicated, decisions. For farm kids and ranch kids, the choices can be even more burdensome.
If they grew up in a farm family, the weight of generations of tradition may loom from the shadows. Maybe grandpa farmed. Maybe great-grandpa raised cattle. Maybe mom and dad did. Do I? This rural area has been my home. Do I stay?
Marion County Fair drew—as it always does—a crowd of self-described “farm kids,” many who have spent years in 4-H and Future Farmers of America.
They brought their “projects:” 1,200-pound cows, immaculately groomed sheep, hogs and goats and rabbits and calves and homemade clothes.
For some, this could be their last big community celebration of farm life as they turn in another direction. For others, it represents a lifestyle they will hold even tighter. Each has a different vision of their future. Here, all in Marion High School, are four:
Rylee Thomas, 16, said she moght try to straddle both worlds.
“I’m going to go to college,” said Rylee, who will be a junior this year. “I would like to go to someplace with a big ag program, and I want to go to a place that’s not too far… but not too near.”
Her family ranches with a variety of livestock. She showed a horse, goat, sheep, and steer at the county fair. Her mother teaches business at the high school, and Rylee said, “I’d like to do something in ag communication or ag education.
“I really want to do something with kids,” she said. “4-H changed my life for the better, and Bret Toews, the extension agent here, showed me what it would be like to do that. I really liked FFA and 4-H.”
Rylee said she felt no parental pressure to stay on the farm. “Honestly, I have never really thought about it. I think my parents very much want me to figure out what I want to do,” she said.
Her grandfather and her father, who also owns a heating and air-conditioning company, do most of the farming.
“Maybe,” she said, before tugging her 1,400-pound steer toward the show area, “I would come back and help a little bit.”
Noah Schmidt, 17, a senior, knows exactly where he wants to be soon after graduation.
“I will be right here, taking over the family ranch,” he said. “Ranching is what my grandpa did before he passed away a few years ago. I worked with him, and I just feel it’s what I want to do.”
Neither of Noah’s parents carried on the ranch. They sold most of his grandfather’s cows on their property between Marion and Peabody. But Noah kept eight cows, and his plan is to build up the herd again.
“My mom wants me to do it. My dad wants me to do what I want,” Noah said.
He might allow himself a short time away, he conceded. He has heard of a community college in Nebraska that teaches ranch management.
“It’s got a ranch and pasture and the kids get to ranch there, toom” he said. “That sounds good. I’d rather go to a two-year community college and get a little more knowledge, but without that whole four years.”
Shelby Summervill wants college. Lots of it.
“I want to be a physical therapist,” the 16-year-old junior said. “I found out I will have to do four years for a bachelor’s degree and maybe three more years for a doctorate in physical therapy.”
That’s fine with her. “Maybe K-State for my bachelor’s, and I’m not sure where it would be for my doctorate,” she said.
Shelby has been a 4-H member for most of her school life, and her folks ranch and farm near Marion. But she said she saw how physical therapists treated her own occasional injuries.
“I never saw myself in the medical field,” she said, “but I looked into it and I think I’d like it. I like working with people and helping people of all ages.”
She does see herself possibly returning to Marion.
“I like shopping in the big city but I could never live there. I like the small town feeling and I like knowing everyone,” she said.
Shelby worked a food counter at the fair with her mother, who said she supports Shelby’s choice even if it means her daughter might not stay on the farm.
“Farm life is very hard,” mother Amy Summervill said. “I want her to make the decision.”
Her daughter chirped up, glancing toward her younger brother, who was backing away from the conversation.
“Hopefully,” she said, “he will do it.”
Colt Smith, 17, a senior, said raising cattle would be fine, and maybe he would do it. But he hears the call of the open road.
“I’m going into trucking,” he said outside the livestock show arena. “It seems like it would be fun to be out on the road and traveling the country. That’s what I want to do.”
His family has a farm at Cedar Point with cattle and sheep. But “sometimes the cattle are a little much,” he said. “You have to get away.”
His parents, he said, “are open to me doing whatever.” He is not ruling out a taking over the farm. After all, “that’s what my grandpa did and what my parents did.”
But first, Colt insisted, “there’s life on the road.”