Emerald Greene Parsons
Publisher
My husband and I attended the annual Madison County Farm Bureau banquet last week, and what a delight it was. For those who missed the event, you really missed a special treat.
Congratulations go out to the Rachel Penny and Lester Thomas families for being named the Farm Family of the Year: what an honor. The prestigious award of Service to Agriculture went to Beth Moore. The George Townsend Good Neighbor Award was presented to John C. Webb, Jr., and Dewayne Leslie. The Soil & Water Conservation Award was presented to Travis Page and the 2016 Outstanding Young Farmer of the Year was awarded to Joshua Churchwell. Congratulations to all this year’s winners.
Dinner was absolutely delicious, as usual. All attendees enjoyed delicious pulled pork, which was cooked by Steven Williams. The MCHS Family Careers, Community Leaders of America and the FFA were on hand to help serve the dinners and drinks and to help clean up.
Readers will find in today’s Madison County Carrier a special “B Section” covering the annual Farm Bureau Banquet. I hope it can be a special keep-sake for many, and a good read for the rest of you.
Through my many years in the newspaper business I have found myself attending and covering a lot of events. I have covered the Madison County Farm Bureau Banquet, dinner events and early morning breakfasts for many, many years and have always been greeted with open arms and enjoyed the company tremendously. I remember taking Cheltsie and Brooke with me to the 7 a.m. Farm City Breakfast before taking them on to school, when they were in elementary school. During the annual banquets, my girls always enjoyed being a part of drawing the winning raffle tickets and whatever else Dan Buchanan gave them to do; they thought the sun and moon rose on Dan.
I truly feel that the farmers of America (and farmers of our individual counties) do not get enough credit. Working a farm takes a lot of long hard hours and a lot of long hard labor; more than many of us put in each and every day in our own jobs, that we do.
We need to all try to remember that our food does NOT come from Winn Dixie, Food Giant, or Clover Farm. The food, on our table each night, comes from a farm, and some farmer, somewhere, is way under-paid for what he does.
So I ask you, “Have you thanked a farmer lately?”
Make sure you do!!!