A big thank you to all who visited the Firestone Test Center in Columbiana, Ohio, last week with Farm and Dairy. Many of you traveled quite a distance to attend the open house, but I know you weren’t disappointed. I found the test center history and tour to be extremely interesting.
Our thanks also go out to Pearle Burlingame, Mahoning County Farm Bureau organizational director, and her team of youth group members for their help in registration, parking and serving lunch. The bunch was quick to volunteer its help, which was greatly appreciated.
And, of course, we thank Ken Medvec, facilities manager, and the whole Firestone crew who shared their operation with Farm and Dairy and its readers.
If you missed the open house, we’re hoping another opportunity will be offered next summer. Stay tuned! Until then, turn to page A12 for some photographs of this year’s open house.
Hall of Fame. To me, the latest class of inductees in the Columbiana County Agricultural Hall of Fame (see profiles on the front page of this week’s Auction Guide) are as important as the 2001 class of Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees about to be enshrined.
We’re a little prejudiced this year, you see, because the late Elden R. Groves, who was Farm and Dairy for more than 40 years, will be honored. Also in the 2001 class are Clifford Israel, Curtis Shreve, Joshua Brantingham and Edmond Lippincott.
These men’s lives are great stories of ordinary people who developed great leadership and made great contributions in very quiet ways in their own communities. Sometimes even family members don’t realize the impact their relatives had, as Neil Lippincott of Minerva discovered while researching his application for his grandfather, Ed.
“As we researched for information, I became very impressed with his business and personal achievements,” Neil wrote to the selection committee. “Thank you very much for this opportunity.”
We owe a great debt to Don Rupert and others in the Columbiana County Historical Society for spearheading the Hall of Fame effort. Every county should follow Columbiana County’s lead.
The Hall of Fame honorees will have photographs and brief bios placed on the wall in the new Commercial Building on the Columbiana County Fairgrounds. If you’re at the fair, it’s worth a stroll into that building just to honor these individuals’ legacies.
Maudine Ormsby’s legacy. Speaking of legacies, probably one of my favorite stories from Mr. Groves is the story of Maudine Ormsby. And so here it is again, for a new generation of readers, reprinted from Mr. Groves’ “Seems to Me” column in Farm and Dairy:
RECALLING THE STORY
OF MAUDINE ORMSBY
By E.R.G.
It happened around 1926, before I started to college, but it was still being talked about – the time the College of Agriculture students got a Holstein cow named as homecoming queen.
(Editor’s note: The other leading contestant, Rosiland Morrison Strapp, had died shortly before Mr. Groves wrote this column, which is what triggered the story this time around.)
It would be interesting to know if any of the individuals who engineered that feat are still around. The only details I know is that Miss Morrison got 12,000 votes for queen – and that was more votes than there were voters.
The committee decided that they couldn’t crown a queen who was apparently crooked, so they voted to give it to a girl whose name had been written in several hundred times – Maudine Ormsby.
Unfortunately, nobody checked to see if Maudine Ormsby was a registered student. She was registered all right – but in the books of the Holstein Friesian Association of America, and stabled in the college dairy barn!
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