Jim Myers plants 63rd wheat crop
Jim Myers is a farmer. He just sowed his sixty-third consecutive wheat crop. He is 84 years of age. Jim rode on the tractor with his grandfather, Joe Barton, when he was a young child. He liked the smell of plowed earth. After graduating from Olney High School, Jim attended Baylor University for three semesters. He then moved back to Olney, ready to get on with his chosen profession, which was farming.
Jim rented 70 acres from his dad, John Myers, and bought his first tractor, a used Minneapolis Moline tractor. The tractor needed repair work and Jim needed to borrow the money for for the repair.
First National Bank of Olney required one-third of the amount to secure the loan.
Jim was dating LeAnn Kirkland, from Archer City, who had a job in Wichita Falls with White’s Auto and she also had money in her bank account. He asked if she would loan him the amount he needed and she agreed. Jim says he has never managed to repay that loan and she says that the tractor should have been named “Minne-helpless Moline” because it was always in need of repair.
The loan was approved and Jim planted his first crop in the fall of 1960 and thus began his life as a farmer. He was 21 years old.
Jim was serving in the Texas National Guard and he received orders that his unit, the 49th Armored Division, had been called to active duty at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was sent to Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri for basic training, arriving there in April of 1961.
When he had finished basic training in October of 1961, he came home to Olney. Jim and LeAnn married at the United Methodist Church in Archer City while he was on leave. They packed their belongings and drove to Ft. Polk, Louisiana. The wheat crop lay in the field.
Jim and LeAnn rented two rooms from an elderly couple on a farm close to Leesville. They shared one bath with the couple. LeAnn got a job and Jim worked for Uncle Sam.
Back in Archer County, Texas, when the wheat crop was ready to cut, LeAnn came home, hired harvesters, saw that the wheat was sold and deposited the proceeds in the bank.
LeAnn also procured her dad, Luke Kirkland, who was Jim’s father-in-law, to plow the land readying it for the planting. Jim was able to come home to plant his second wheat crop.
President Kennedy issued orders in July of 1962 that the 49th Armored Division would be returned to inactive duty and in August, Jim and LeAnn packed and headed to Archer County.
They rented a farmhouse outside of Archer City and both got jobs, looking forward to harvesting their wheat crop. LeAnn got a job at Shepard Air Force Base and drove to Wichita Falls every day; thus began Jim’s life as a farmer.
That fall, Jim planted wheat on the 70 acres he was renting from his Dad and as the years passed, Jim rented other land to farm.
When the first child, Will, was expected, LeAnn did not go back to work but was called upon frequently to help with the farming.
There was a year when LeAnn plowed and Jim planted along behind her.
Jim bought the farm, which was in the Swastika area, from his dad after renting it for 10 years.
Jim spent much of his childhood in this area and he was well-acquainted with the families that lived close. As years went by, Jim was able to buy more land in and around that area where his Grandfather Barton had farmed.
He says the crops were mostly good in the sixties.
Farming was a challenge at times. There was the year that LeAnn contracted dust pneumonia after scooping seed from the bin into the auger. Then, of course, there were the three years in a row that hail destroyed their crop. LeAnn said in those years that someone could have dropped $1,000 onto their table and it would not have helped.
There was the year when Jim brought the tractor battery into town every night to charge it so he could start plowing early the next day.
Jim has bought several pre-owned tractors but there was a time that he bought a new one. It was a John Deere.
Jim and LeAnn’s son, Will, remembers helping his dad load the grain drills every afternoon after school during planting season.
There was a time when LeAnn went back to work but it was a short time as there were now three daughters added to the family.
There were the years when a very young Will would transport the cut wheat to the elevators in Megargel, Texas.
Jim would stay in the field until dark. Will would come home when he knew his dad had gone to the house.
Jim’s girls helped LeAnn bring food to the field and would sometimes ride the tractor with their dad.
Jim says the 2000s have been good years for farming. He says he had more good years than bad and had only one crop failure in the 63 continual years of planting. That was during the drought of the 1980s. Jim has a classmate, Edward Furr, who also farmed during all these years. Jim has other businesses but farming has his heart.
Jim now farms 1,700 acres of his own land. He has help now and not just from his family. He says he knows about every foot of his land and is very interested in improving and nurturing it. He recently bought another used tractor. It is a Versatile. It can be programmed to plow on its own and should be within four inches of perfect. It would be more than Jim’s Grandfather Barton could imagine, in that he started farming by plowing the land with a pair of red mules.
There are many farmers who experienced similar circumstances. This is a short story of a long life of farming. There is a bright future for this family to continue to farm.
Jim still loves the smell of upturned earth. Jim is thankful. He is a farmer.