St. John Couple to Be Named Master Farmer, Homemaker 3/1/04

MANHATTAN, Kan. – Loyd Ratts of rural St. John, Kan., had already been farming for eight years when Kansas State University selected its first Master Farmer Award winners 77 years ago. Betty Ratts started out as an active city dweller, living in Wichita until the 1960s.

As a couple, however, the Ratts will be recognized March 19 at 6 p.m. as a 2003 Kansas Master Farmer and Master Farm Homemaker during banquet ceremonies at the Manhattan Holiday Inn.

When Loyd Ratts and Betty Austin met on a blind date 43 years ago, both were widowed with children ages 15 and under. Together, they reared eight youngsters – four of his, three of hers and one of theirs. Now they also have 14 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Today, the Ratt’s 480-acre home farm is mostly devoted to growing corn, soybeans and wheat. Their often-renovated home is the turn-of-the-century house where Loyd grew up.

What is the Master Farmer and Master Farm Homemaker Program?

MANHATTAN, Kan. – It’s a growing, but select group – more than 350 Kansans who have been recognized for successes in their agricultural operations and service to their communities.

Who are they? They’re members of the Kansas Master Farmer Association and the Master Farm Homemakers Guild. The two groups were formed in the late 1920s to publicly recognize excellence in farming, homemaking, farm living, and rural citizenship.

Initially, the two organizations were sponsored by Kansas Farmer magazine, and recognition was given to individuals rather than couples.

In 1953, Kansas State University, through the Cooperative Extension Service, assumed responsibility for the selection process and setting up the annual banquet. From 1957 to 2003, the program was sponsored by the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and K-State Research and Extension. In 2004, however, Kansas Farmer magazine joined with Extension to co-sponsor the program.

Farm couples are nominated by county Extension councils and Extension districts. The associate director of Extension appoints a committee to choose one couple from each of the four Extension areas in the state, plus two additional couples at large.

Both groups – the Master Farmers and the Master Farm Homemakers hold an annual meeting and a joint recognition banquet in the spring, where members have the opportunity to discuss agricultural and rural issues and share individual experiences with other members. This year, the meetings and banquet will be held March 19 in Manhattan at the Manhattan Holidome. The groups also meet every year at the Kansas State Fair.

Master Farmer/Master Farm Homemaker couples are chosen for their past contributions to agriculture and their communities, but the giving doesn’t stop there. The group awards a $500 Master Farmer-Farm Homemaker 4-H scholarship every year to a high school senior or college undergraduate.

Numerous donations to the Rock Springs 4-H Center by Master Farmer individuals and the organization as a whole, are reflected in various facilities and improvements made at the sprawling center’s campus near Junction City, Kan.

This year, the Kansas organizations will also host their national meeting in Hays Aug. 18-20, 2004.

For more information on the Kansas Master Farmer/Master Farm Homemaker organizations, contact the K-State Research and Extension administrative office at 785-532-5820.

But they’re not necessarily there every day, milking and gathering eggs. In 1991, they started taking annual trips to Mexico, to help build or add on to churches for the poor. Besides, their children are spread from Florida to Colorado, and Betty has never tired of visiting family and making new friends. Loyd has never tired of learning more about any kind of agriculture. He was equally fascinated with the “mini” farms in Germany, where a son-in-law was stationed, and the koi fish a daughter raised in Florida.

Loyd started his farming career in 1919 at age 4, when he drove a team of mules pulling a wheat-laden wagon to St. John. His father, Edmund, planned to catch up with him before they got to town. But, Loyd became known as that little boy who drove the mules around the town square all by himself.

Loyd was harrowing with a four-horse team by age 6, doing field work with the family’s first tractor by age 10 and operating a pull-type combine at 12. He finished high school during the Depression, so worked at the family farm and supplemented his income earning $12.50 per 60-hour work week at the Radium (Kan.) Garage. When rubber tires were introduced, Loyd refitted tractors that had steel-lug wheels. When hydraulics came on the scene, he converted all kinds of farm machinery.

The Dust Bowl added more than that to his work load, however. Edmund Ratts had homesteaded Kearney County land in 1911. His renters were losing yields because neighboring land was blowing onto their wheat crop. The neighbors were asking for help, too. So, by the 1935-36 growing season, Edmund and Loyd were farming 16 quarter sections in western Kansas, in addition to the Stafford County farm. They had to pull the family tractor from place to place and then run it 24 hours a day.

Loyd kept his job at the garage, but started farming the home place on his own in 1942. He started Loyd’s Repair Shop on the farm in 1954 and operated it through 2000. He had everything from steers and hogs to milk cows and chickens until the 1960s. He also found time to become a church elder and serve on the Kansas Soybean Commission during the initial promotions for soy milk and soy “ethanol.”

The Ratts farm now has two irrigation systems, modern storage systems, minimum- or no-till management, and annual variety test plots that help Loyd keep up with the advances in seed genetics.

The Stafford County Extension Council nominated the Ratts for their “masters” awards, but their children decided to “second” the nomination. One countered their father’s modesty with:

“...the many, many times he’s helped neighbors in need – including putting out a wheat field fire for a neighbor during one harvest season when he (Dad) was suffering from a back injury and was NOT supposed to be on a tractor. Dad has designed and built many implements ... and made modifications to existing implements. ... To our dismay, he’s never patented his ideas and freely shares them. ... He designed a tool that allows a single man to get a circle irrigation system unstuck from the mud by hand.”

And, about their mother, one wrote: “She helped herd cattle and kids, drove tractors, drove trucks, drove cars full of kids wherever they needed to go, and did it all with grace. She made our clothes, cooked our meals, cleaned our messes and ... was an incredible example of servanthood and wisdom.”

Betty Ratts jokes that learning to be a farm wife “almost killed me.” But her children remember her teaching them simple joys such as picking fruit from their own plants early in the morning and turning it into delicious pies by noon. She taught them the importance of getting things right the first time, of reading and learning, of living healthfully, creating a home that’s a haven, and treating each other with respect.

“We didn’t know until we were older that we didn’t have things other kids had,” one of her children said. That “poverty” included a lack of snacks and sodas, which were a treat reserved for harvesttime.

At the same time, Betty was helping to care for the elderly and disabled in the community, cooking funeral dinners and teaching Bible classes. Plus, for almost a quarter century she worked in the Democratic Party – as a county chair, First District chair, state committee member, and campaign chair for state and national candidates. She served as an elected delegate to four Democratic National Conventions.

Loyd frequently says Betty is “the prettiest tractor driver in Kansas” – which still makes her blush.

Their children think she was “way ahead of her time.” They include army wife Lorraine (Ratts) Brock, certified librarian Lana (Ratts) Farmer, Florida “farmer” Brenda (Austin) Guilinger, performer and record producer Jim Ratts, homemaker Denise (Austin) Guinn, computer wizard Doug Austin, Oklahoma University’s Vicki (Ratts) Livingston, and St. John farmer/head bank teller Terri (Ratts) Koelsch.

The Master Farmer, Master Farm Homemaker program recognizes six Kansas families every year and is co-sponsored by K-State Research and Extension and the Kansas Farmer magazine. Friends can make reservations for the March 19 banquet ($20 per person) by calling 785-532-5820 by March 5.

K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and regional research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus, Manhattan.