| Alumni Profile:
Terry Priebe, BS '72, MS '73 |
|
|
'79 farm show host still running
strong
|
|
The Priebe family no longer farms, but as district
sales manager for Specilaty Hybrids, Terry is still deeply immersed
in Indiana agriculture. (photo by Tom Campbell)
|
Ag careers take Priebes on diverse paths
By TOM CAMPBELL
For three September days, 22 years ago, the 3,500-acre Priebe farm
was the agricultural version of Woodstock, minus, of course, the music,
the mud and the madness. More than 400,000 people toured the Indiana
farm to see the latest and greatest the agriculture industry had to
offer as part of Prairie Farmer Magazine's 1979 Farm Progress Show.
It seemed all roads led to the farm 40 miles south of the Purdue University
campus, and many of those roads ran over, around and through crops planted
for the show.
"They had to build a network of streets throughout the exhibition area
on our farm," Terry Priebe, BS '72, MS '73, remembers. "Thank God it
didn't rain, because the mud would have made an unbelievable mess."
The Priebe farm made sense as a site for the show, which rotates annually
between Indiana, Illinois and Iowa.
"The farm was close to two interstate highways, so lots of people could
get there. We had large fields that could host the vendors' area, an
airstrip, as well as plots for demonstrations and parking. Plus, we
were close enough to hotels in Crawfordsville and Indianapolis, so people
had a place to stay," Terry explains.
The Priebe Farm also had name recognition. Terry's grandfather, Fred,
started buying Montgomery County farmland during the Depression. With
the exception of the five years Terry was earning his degrees and running
track and cross country at Purdue, he worked the family farm with his
younger brother, Tim, and his father, Lincoln.
Indeed, hosting the Farm Progress Show was a true family affair. But
the focal point of the show was the working exhibits sprinkled across
the massive Indiana farmstead.
"It was a real working show," says Terry. "We harvested 1,500 acres
of corn and soybeans in just three days. We ran field equipment from
8 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day of the show. We used six grain dryers nonstop
and dried about 50,000 bushels of corn each day. It was a very good
working show. Companies were thrilled they could run their equipment,
kind of show it off, and the farmers could see it happen. Not everything
falls into place that often."
Next Page -->
