SALEM, Ohio — A superstar in both the Ohio agriculture industry and at Farm and Dairy newspaper, former editor Susan Crowell was recently inducted into the Farm Science Review Hall of Fame.
Crowell served as editor of Farm and Dairy from 1989 to 2019. Throughout her time at the newspaper, she reported on a wide range of topics in agriculture from conservation work to livestock farming and Ohio State University’s annual Farm Science Review week.
One of Crowell’s first stories as a reporter was covering the Farm Science Review. As her career at Farm and Dairy grew, Crowell watched the annual event evolve into the massive hit it is today.
“Farm Science Review has been a big part of Farm and Dairy life,” Crowell said. “Just about anything that’s related to any part of agriculture, the latest and the greatest can be found there, so to be in the Hall of Fame for the Farm Science Review really is very humbling.”
The start
Crowell was raised on a dairy farm in Holmes County, Ohio. Her dad, eventually, sold off the dairy cattle but the family continued to raise steers, pigs and crops.
Despite growing up on a farm, Crowell had her sights set on the “bright lights in the big cities” at first. “I didn’t know careers in agriculture existed other than being a farmer,” she said.
After graduating with a degree in journalism from Kent State University, she took a job with a group of shopper newspapers in Holmes County. But she wouldn’t stay there for long. While working at the newspaper’s booth at the Holmes County Fair, she met a former editor of Farm and Dairy newspaper, Tim Reeves.
Crowell and her husband, Keith, wanted to move to Columbiana County, and Farm and Dairy was the perfect fit. At the time, no jobs were available at the company, but two weeks later, fate intervened. A reporter quit and Crowell was offered the position in 1985.
Crowell was named editor a few years later after several years of reporting. As an editor, she worked on many projects with reporters including an award-winning three-part series focusing on the opioid crisis in 2018. Three reporters worked on the series for nine months and Farm and Dairy Publisher Scot Darling made certain the story had plenty of space in the paper.
“I have an obvious bias to agriculture, as Farm and Dairy does, but I didn’t want to be just a cheerleader. I just didn’t want to print fluff because that doesn’t help. You need information, good, bad, ugly that will either entertain you, educate you or inform you,” Crowell said. “You can’t lead in agriculture with blinders on.”
Crowell served as editor at Farm and Dairy for almost three decades before retiring in 2019. Despite how much she loved managing the newsroom, being a reporter and talking to the farmers was her favorite part of working at the company.
“The best part was always being able to tell the stories of people within agriculture,” Crowell said. “When people would invite me into their homes and I’d sit around a kitchen table or barn office and ask them questions. But it was always when I would see their eyes light up when I asked a certain question and I knew I had gotten hold of their passion; that was my favorite part of interviewing people.”
Post-retirement
Crowell continued to serve the agriculture industry after leaving Farm and Dairy. She started working as a freelancer at New Holland Agriculture’s dealer magazine, a farm equipment company, and published several farm feature stories.
She also started working as an editorial consultant at Phoenix Media, and as an editor and writer in 2021 for Produce Business magazine, the parent company of Phoenix Media. That same year, Crowell also received the 2021 Meritorious Service Award from the Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Alumni Society.
She received the award not only for her contributions to the Ohio agriculture industry at Farm and Dairy, but through her work at a host of other organizations, including the state OSU Extension Advisory Council (1993-2019), the National Extension Foundation National Leadership Council, the advisory council to the dean and OSU’s CFAES and National Council on Agricultural Research, Extension and Teaching.
Most recently, Crowell was inducted into the Farm Science Review Hall of Fame in July. The first year Crowell covered Farm Science Review was just a month or two after being hired at Farm and Dairy.
From the start to the end of her career at Farm and Dairy, Crowell was passionate about covering the annual event and attended every year. She worked at Farm and Dairy’s booth, covered numerous events and interviewed public figures at Farm Science Review like former Ohio State President Gordon Gee.
Today
Today, Crowell still works as an editor and writer at Produce Business magazine. Crowell and Keith have two adult children, Annette White and Jon Crowell, and three grandchildren.
Crowell and her husband’s 36-acre property in Columbiana County was also named a certified tree farm this year. The couple has been managing timber stand improvement and controlling multiflora rose, an invasive species in Ohio.
“We’ve very proud of the work that we’ve done here on our little corner of the world in our property,” Crowell said. “So many years of writing about woodland management and talking to experts for stories, it’s kinda of fun to put it into practice and reap the rewards here on our own property.”
(Liz Partsch can be reached at epartsch@farmanddairy.com or 330-337-3419.)
