Alumni Profile: Terry Priebe, BS '72, MS '73

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Terry's List: Favorite Running Events Chicago Marathon Indy Mini-Marathon Hoosier State Games Strawberry Festival, Crawfordsville, Ind. Tuxedo Brothers Du-athlon (1 runner, 1 bicyclist per team) Blueberry Stomp, Plymouth, Ind. Hog Jog, Flora, Ind.

"We viewed hosting the Farm Progress Show as something that would be good for the community. It brought a lot of money into the community. For all of the headaches and traffic, it turned out to be a good deal for everybody," Terry says. "It really brought the community together. And that was nice to see."

Priebe Farms continued to grow through the '80s into the early '90s. Terry served a stint as president of the Indiana Young Farmers, managing to put his love of running to good use in 1983-84 by rallying his constituency into completing a pair of 250-mile runs spanning the entire length of Indiana.

Farmer-members collected pledges, then traded their work boots for running shoes during a four-day period to run one-mile stretches along Ind. 31, which bisects the state from South Bend to New Albany. In between runs Ñ or in some cases, fast walks Ñ they rested on a specially made bleacher assembled on a flatbed trailer towed by a support vehicle, making it easy to cheer on fellow runners.

Priebe, himself, ran 100 miles in 1983 and nearly that many the following year. The organization raised $25,000 for the Ronald McDonald House in Indianapolis.

The Priebe family got out of farming in 1996. Commodity prices were high, but morale on the farm was low. Sapped by the death of Terry's mom, Margaret, it seemed a good time for Lincoln to retire and for Terry and Tim to try something else.

"Mom (Margaret) kept all the books on the farm. She was the one who kept everybody going, she was the hub of the operation," says Terry. "When she died in 1991, it was like a big part of the farm was gone. Nobody had the desire to go at it like we wanted to, or needed to, to continue to be successful. The interest just wasn't there like it was before."

The Priebes farmed for a few more years, then made a joint decision to get out of farming in 1996. Lincoln retired, and, depending on the weather, can be found in Florida or Canada. Tim got into agrichemical sales, and Terry cemented a bond that began while he was farming, joining Specialty Hybrids as a district sales manager for a 10-county market in southeast-central Indiana.

"The farm bill had just come out, and it looked like things might not get too much better over the next few years," Terry remembers, "so dad just decided to retire. The last corn I hauled when we emptied out the bins paid $5 a bushel. I never thought in my wildest dreams that we would ever see $5 corn. I felt so happy for dad that he could retire at that time."

Using a lesson he learned in distance running, Priebe never looked back.

"I haven't regretted a single minute of it," he says.

And who knows. Without the springtime restraints of planting cutting into his running time, he may even find time to train for the Boston Marathon.

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