John Willoughby
reporter2@greenepublishing.com
Optimism – it's what farmers need or else they wouldn't still be farmers. They owe their life to top soil and the fact that it rains while their spouse and children support them 24 hours a day, on the weekends and yes, even on the holidays, sometimes, as they measure their work in acres, not in hours.
For the last 70 years, the Madison County Farm Bureau family of sowers, reapers and ranchers has honored the men, women and their families, in the profession of hope through the Outstanding Farm Family of the Year award. Because the 75th annual Madison County Farm Bureau Annual Meeting is canceled for 2020, Greene Publishing, Inc. looks back on the history of the awards and those who have carried Madison County's booming and wide-spread legacy of agriculture.
The award was first presented in 1955, to Bob Searcy, who later became very involved in the leadership of Madison County Farm Bureau as president, vice president, treasurer and secretary. One of the earliest families to receive the award was the Kelley R. Bailey Family, who was named the Outstanding Farm Family of the Year in the Fall of 1960. Kelley; his wife, Mary; and their daughter, Norma Jean, lived on a 110-acre farm two miles from the community of Sirmans. Mary kept a vegetable garden for their table needs, and the family kept cows for their milk supply, chickens for their eggs and beef cattle and hogs for their meat.
Fifty acres of the farm was tillable, with just over two acres dedicated to tobacco, a major cash crop not only for the Baileys, but others in Madison County and North Florida. Another 30 acres of corn was grown on the Bailey farm and an additional 54 acres were reserved for timber growing and harvesting.
In 2019, the Kevin Leslie family was awarded the Outstanding Farm Family of the Year award during the Madison County Farm Bureau annual meeting. The Leslie family has a long tradition of farming in the area of Pinetta and Hanson since 1850. Kevin had every reason to believe this award was important to him, simply due to the fact that he was the third Leslie to win the prestigious honor. His father, Dewayne Leslie, was the 2002 winner of the award. His grandfather, Clifford Leslie, received the honor in 1980.
The Leslie family is only one of many who have a had the honor bestowed upon a name along multiple generations. The Willie P. Agner Jr. (2018) family, the Abb Townsend and Barbara Greiner families (2017), the Greg Ragans family (2015) and the Henry Terry family (2006), just to name a few, have all followed in the footsteps of their parents.
If you're able to sit at a dinner table and enjoy delicious food, thank a farmer. If you enjoy those cotton jeans you recently bought, thank a farmer. But, don't just thank a farmer – thank the family. Greene Publishing, Inc. salutes the farmers and ranchers of Madison County.