2016 John "Frank" Franklin Johanssen

Dedicated. Knowledgeable. Innovator. Mentor. Respected. “Mr. Wheat.” These are some of the words his peers use when they speak of retired wheat producer, Frank Johannsen. (I call him Dad. And Survivor, but more on that later) Born of humble beginnings, he is a native of the Bayard area in western Nebraska and still lives on the dryland wheat farm his father started in an area known as “Goodstreak.” His formal education was cut short when he contracted polio when he was 18 in 1944 but he never let that hold him back. (Well, now that he’s almost 90, it is slowing him down “a little”.) After several months in the hospital he gradually recovered and rejoined his father in a custom wheat harvesting operation that would take them from Texas to Montana every summer. (This was even before self-propelled combines! Although he and his dad did get two of International Harvester’s first models when they did come out.) Many years later he would travel the world to market U.S. grown wheat to other countries, successfully finding new customers for American farmers to sell their product to, especially in Southeast Asia.

After marrying his wife “Tootie” in 1947 the two moved to the family farm full time in 1949 to take over day-to-day operations while his dad and brother Charles continued the custom harvesting trips. Frank has said a casual conversation with a County Extension Agent after World War II about how farmers would need to increase production in order to feed the world, really stuck with him and started him on his path of improving and promoting his industry. Frank was one of the founding members of the Nebraska Wheat Growers Association in the 1950’s and the group was instrumental in getting the wheat checkoff program established in 1955. This was the first commodity checkoff program in Nebraska and only the second wheat checkoff in the nation. The funds collected from each bushel of wheat sold in Nebraska were used to promote wheat products by investing in research, international and domestic marketing, policy development, publicity, and education. It started out as a quarter cent, 1/4th of a penny, per bushel and the program continues today where the Nebraska Wheat Board presides over a (X-amount) million dollar budget. Frank would go on to be the Nebraska Wheat Growers’ Man of the Year in 1969, state president in 1975 and National Wheat Growers President in 1988.

Locally, he served as President of the Morrill County Extension Board and as a Director of the North Platte Natural Resources District. At the State level he has been involved with, and held leadership positions for, the Gasohol (now Ethanol) Board, the Nebraska Cooperative Extension Advisory Council, the Nebraska Ag Council and. He also served several years on the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) Committee and six years as State Director of the Nebraska Association of Farmer Elected Committeemen.

When it became apparent that American farmers need a bigger market in which to sell their wheat he helped to organize and lead the market-developing organizations of Great Plains Wheat and Western Wheat Associates, which later merged to form U.S. Wheat Associates. Frank made a number of overseas trips to visit the groups’ marketing offices and meet with customers in places like Thailand, China, the Philippines and New Zealand. (I can remember because he brought me back t-shirts from most of them!) Frank has said that he found it helped both buyers and sellers to get out in the country and talk with people. (He recalled one trip to Hong Kong in which he had to advise a baker how to keep sesame seeds on hamburger buns in a newly-established McDonald’s restaurant there.)

And when cost and labor problems emerged in the early 1970’s with railroads and grain elevators in the big shipping ports that prevented farmers from exporting their wheat to these new customers, Frank got involved to find a solution. As Transportation Chair for the National Wheat Growers he worked to literally get the opposing sides to sit down together to discuss their issues. Nothing like talking face-to-face over a good meal in a relaxed atmosphere, he’d say.

International visitors were always welcome to visit the Johannsen family farm and many got their first perspective on the American wheat fallow system. He also worked closely with the Panhandle Research and Extension Center in Scottsbluff, providing land and support for research and demonstrations. In recognition of his efforts to help the University research staff to identify a wheat adapted to his part of the state, the variety “Goodstreak” was released by UNL in 2002.

It was during his time as the State Director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Consolidated Farm Service Agency from 1993 to 1996 that Frank faced one of his biggest personal challenges. He hadn’t been in the position long, after the President’s first appointed Director passed away after only 3 months on the job. After coming home one weekend from Lincoln to farm, Frank was injured when the tractor he was standing next to jumped into gear and ran over him, the length of his left side from foot to shoulder. He saved himself by wiggling just enough to get his head out of the way of the big wheel of the tractor. After regaining consciousness, and bleeding from misc. cuts, he managed to walk the quarter of a mile back to the house where a very shocked Tootie then drove him the 27 miles to the nearest hospital. Taking his job responsibilities very seriously, and conscious of the fact that the previous director had died not that long ago, Frank asked Tootie to return to Lincoln alone to personally assure the staff that he would be OK and back on the job as soon as possible. He thought if they saw her in person, they would figure he wasn’t in that bad of shape. (although he was!) That was a long drive for her to make, worried as she was about her husband, but she did it. And with the same will he used to recover from polio 50 years earlier, Frank indeed resumed his duties.

Tootie was a life-long partner with Frank in promoting wheat and the ag industry and were honored not only separately by various organizations but also together, as the Scottsbluff Kiwanis Club‘s first Farm Family Award in 1984, the Outstanding Contributions to Agriculture award from the Panhandle Research Center in 1988, the Nebraska Agribusiness Club’s Service to Agriculture Award in 1990 and by the Nebraska AgRelations Council in 2003.

Frank lost Tootie in 2009 and he has since sold his 800 acres to his older son Dallas of Scottsbluff. The land is now in the Conservation Reserve Program, but Frank continues to live on the Farm that’s been his home for nearly 60 years. Frank’s other son Bruce lives in Ft. Collins, Colorado, and his daughter Peggy, near Ft. Lauderdale, FL.