Released: March 09, 2006

Jackson County Couple Honored

HOYT, Kan. – The real entrance to the Albright family’s 106-year-old farm home near Hoyt, Kan., is the back door. It leads through a practical mud room and into a bright, expanded modern kitchen.

In ways, that kitchen is like the 40 years Jeri and Gerald “Corky” Albright have been married – always working to preserve the best of their heritage and add the most promising of the new. It’s also a small symbol of why the couple are a 2005 Kansas Master Farmer and Master Farm Homemaker.

The award honors agricultural leadership, environmental stewardship and community service. It comes from Kansas State University Research and Extension and the Kansas Farmer magazine. The Albrights and five other Kansas couples receiving 2005 awards will join decades of statewide “masters” this year during a March 24 banquet at the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel in Junction City.

The Albrights will only admit to having believed in family and maintained a fairly practical approach to day-to-day living. For example, nowadays their kitchen provides easy access – without tracking through the house – to an old-fashioned phone and a computer hookup to Data Transmission Network or DTN, an agricultural news service.

Just a few steps away, they can view hundreds of acres of hard work, including an array of constantly improving cattle facilities and contoured, reduced-till cropland. The home’s landscape ends at driveways modified to handle semi trucks. The 60-year-old windbreak sheltering the house and original barn also protects small pens for heifers, calves and cow-calf pairs that need watching – night and day.

“We wanted to use the wasteland space around the house, rather than fields in crop production,” Corky said. “Years ago, of course, we just brought the sick calves into the house.”

Yet, the Albrights’ kitchen also has been the hub for rearing four children, welcoming foreign-exchange farmers, and hosting countless local committees and 4-H project meetings. Today, five grandchildren can be part of the mix, too. Cookies, laughter, and the welcome-home warmth of a new wood stove lure visitors to linger.

Jeri and Corky first met while helping build a K-State homecoming float in 1964. She was a college freshman – a Manhattan, Kan., girl whose optometrist father let her keep horses. He was a farm boy who already owned cattle. He was in his final semester of earning a degree in animal science.

“It kind of snowballed from there,” Corky remembered. “When I moved back to Hoyt to farm with my dad, I’d drive back and forth to Manhattan every Saturday night. I couldn’t always get away from the farm very early, though. Sometimes I could hardly stay awake.”

A extra reason for his exhaustion was that he’d already rented land to farm on his own, too.

The couple married after Jeri’s sophomore year. She joined St. Francis Xavier church in Mayetta and got to know the in-laws. Soon, however, she also was getting a crash course in agriculture.

Jeri learned to drive a tractor and plowed through her first birthday as a wife. She helped pull calves and was able to take over when Corky had to go to Ft. Bliss, Tex., with the Army National Guard.

The Albrights bought a first 82 acres in ‘68. The first of two sons and two daughters came in ‘69

Through the years that followed, they bought and rented land, built facilities, and made many friends in agricultural circles. Ever practical, their definition of “farming” kept changing, too.

In 1968, for example, they built a finishing floor and bought 1,500 pigs to start a swine operation. Corky and Jeri both became members of Jackson County Pork Producers. Corky soon became an officer. Jeri was a representative to the Kansas Pork Producers Council and became the first woman to serve on its executive board. Both got involved in local, state and national pork promotions, plus Corky cooked “countless porkburgers” at Jackson County public events

Besides that, the Albrights grew and sold certified seed wheat for years and enjoyed meeting producers in the Kansas Crop Improvement Association – until farmers in northeast Kansas cut back on wheat acres.

The Albright Cattle Company was a constant. But, at one point it bought and bred heifers.

“The market was good, but that muddy winter we calved 400 heifers!” Jeri said.

The couple became long-time members of Kansas Farm Bureau, the Kansas Livestock Association and the local Soil Conservation Board. Corky seemed to always end up in leadership positions. Jeri did “spouse duties,” which ranged from judging contests to representing the county at national conventions.

Gov. Mike Hayden named Corky to a four-year term on the state Animal Health Board. Jeri spent years in Kansas Agri-Women and still is a member of the Foundation for Ag in the Classroom. One or both won the Goodyear Conservation Award, the Bankers’ Award, the Lions Club Farmer of the Year.

Along the way, however, their hog business had to close, too.

“People everywhere were raising hogs then, but most of us couldn’t become as efficient as the big commercial outfits. I can count on one hand the hog producers in the county now,” Corky said.

At the same time, the couple remained committed to St. Francis Xavier and volunteered for the local school system, Jackson County Extension and the Hoyt Livewires 4-H Club – the latter of which led to county fair jobs, judging team trips, and lots of kids to lead and teach.

As Corky and Jeri think back now, they look past their early years and see one event as turning them into active members of such various communities. Their oldest child, Martin (“Marty”), was in a devastating farm accident in 1979.

“We were overwhelmed by the support – help with farm work, care for the other children, and more prayers than anyone could count. Our church, neighbors, school and 4-H club were there for us when we were in real need,” Jeri said. “We’ve wanted to give back and have taken our responsibility as a member of the community to heart. We’ve gratefully participated in all of the ways that we can.”

Only one of their children, Kay, is still at home. She’s a senior, honor student, basketball manager and cheerleader at Royal Valley High School. She’s an active Livewire 4-H member and the education coordinator for the Jackson County Soil Conservation District. In 2003, Kay and her mom also went on a medical mission to Honduras. The team in which they worked saw more than 700 eye patients in five days, plus helped start up a new exam and surgical facility. They both hope to return.

After earning an master’s degree in agricultural economics at K-State, Marty Albright worked on the university’s Department of Agricultural Economics Land-Use Appraisal project, became director of the Kansas Farm Management Association, and found himself reporting to the state legislature and U.S. Congressional Agriculture Committee. Marty’s now a marketing analyst for Koch Industries and living in Andover, Kan. He and his wife, Stephanie, have a 3-year-old son, Brett.

Scott Albright is Corky’s partner in Dutch Creek Farms – named for the creek that runs through both of their properties. Like his dad, Scott has a bachelor’s degree in animal science from K-State and has taken on leadership roles in St. Francis Xavier, county Extension, livestock associations, beef promotional activities and the county fair. He’s been a prime mover in entering 100 Albright cows in a specialized breeding program. He and his wife, Barb, are getting the operations’ farm management records on computer and, most importantly, are the proud parents of Emily, age 4, and Karlie, 1.

Dutch Creek Farms has 400 cows. To spread the livestock risk and income through the year, it also pastures about 800 calves every year and finishes about 1,200 steers in partnership with a feedlot. It raises most of its own feed, plus grows other row crops to sell.

Corky and Jeri’s third child, Amy, is married to Chris Pruyser. They have the oldest Albright grandchildren: Erica, age 7, and Garrett, 4. Amy was an award-winning scholar while earning a bachelor’s degree at K-State and a Master’s in Education at Washburn University. She lives in rural Delia, Kan., and has been the Royal Valley school system’s early childhood special education teacher for eight years.

“We still feel the farm is the best place to raise a family. No other place can instill the same work ethic and responsibility. There’s no better reward than the celebration when a job’s done,” Jeri said. “We think that doing everything together not only made the kids stronger, but also gave them the character to pursue an education and their own goals. To us, this is apparent in their jobs and their families today.”

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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.

Story by:
Kathleen Ward
kward@oznet.ksu.edu
K-State Research& Extension News