Jul 14, 2020 | 2020, Farmer of the Year, News
Charles Edwin (“CJ”) Isbell Jr. is carrying on a seventy-year family tradition at Keenbell Farm in western Hanover County. His grandparents, Joe and Kathleen Isbell, purchased the original 175 acres in 1951. Today, at 340 owned and leased acres, the farm specializes...
Jul 14, 2020 | 2020, Farmer of the Year, News
After graduating from high school, Jay Yeargin purchased a 60–acre farm with a USDA loan for beginning farmers, which allowed him to finance 100 percent of the land. He recalled, “Over the ensuing years, I bought more farm land by working with the USDA and began to...
Jul 14, 2020 | 2020, Farmer of the Year, News
York, a small town nestled in the hilly Piedmont region of South Carolina, is home to Bush-N-Vine Farm, a fruit and vegetable-growing enterprise owned and operated by Robert “Bob” Martin Hall. His career began forty-one years ago on land that’s been in his family for...
Jul 14, 2020 | 2020, Farmer of the Year, News
As a boy growing up in Sampson County, North Carolina, James L. “Cookie” Lamb was curious about everything pertaining to farm life. He yearned to drive a tractor or a truck, take care of animals, and understand how farm tools and equipment worked. It was the beginning...
Jul 14, 2020 | 2020, Farmer of the Year, News
From both sides of his family Joe Edmondson inherited a passion for farming the land around Vardaman, Mississippi. Fueled by the untimely death of his father when Joe was only ten, he began in earnest to assume the responsibility of making the family farm as...
Jul 14, 2020 | 2020, Farmer of the Year, News
Stephen J. Kelley was raised on a sixty-acre farm, although his parents worked off the farm. Some of his earliest memories include raising hogs, cattle, and corn with his family. By middle school he was helping his older brother raise about an acre and a half of...
