Ralph Raikes was born on a Saunders County farm. Although starting in the depth of the depression just prior to the drought years of the thirties, Ralph developed a successful farm business. Through livestock and certified seed production, he developed an outstanding diversified Nebraska farm. Throughout his farm credit field experiences, he worked for sound credit policies and for increased service to farmers.
I suppose everyone of us knows Ralph Raikes personally, or at least knows a good deal about him. Ralph and his family have been a great asset to Nebraska and particularly to its agriculture.
We are fortunate that he chose to operate a farm here. There was a time when he didn’t intend to farm -- or even to live -- in Nebraska. But today, and for many years past, Nebraska agriculture has had no more enthusiastic supporter or capable leader than Ralph Raikes.
The Nebraska Hall of Agricultural Achievement is certainly not the first to recognize Ralph Raikes. On the wall in his home hang plaques that represent a variety of honors -- including, among others, an award for his work on the Nebraska Pasture Forage Livestock Program, the Skelly Award for Superior Achievement, and the Ak-Sar-Ben Agricultural Achievement Award. He has been named Nebraska Premier Seed Producer and holds the Nebraska Agri-Business Club Award for Public Service to Agriculture.
Important agricultural news media have recognized Ralph and his family. The World Herald’s Magazine of the Midlands featured him on the cover in 1967 when the Federal Land Banks celebrated their 50th Anniversary. Successful Farming did a Christmas setting story featuring the Raikes new farm home shortly after it was built in 1958. On the cover are daughters Mary Jo and Susan. A little later we will describe an honor given the Raikes family by the Lincoln Journal and Star.
But let’s go back for a few moments to his growing-up years. He was born on the farm where he now lives -- between Ashland and Memphis.
He took an early interest in livestock and learned to put on a harness at an early age. The Raikes were a pioneer Midwest family. His father was born at Union, Nebraska, and his mother in Iowa.
He went to school in nearby District 3 -- a one-room schoolhouse.
I am sure he spent much time in the field at hard work. Harvest practices were a little different in those days... and horsepower actually came from horses and mules.
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Tribute by Dr. E.F. Frolik, Dean University of Nebraska College of Agriculture, at Nebraska Center for Continuing Education, November 15, 1971.
The Raikes family like to fish and travel and made several trips to California. The Raikes family lived in California for one year when Ralph was in seventh grade.
The California experience may have enticed him to work in that state as a young man -- the only time he has worked outside Nebraska.
Then, as now, Ralph had varied interests. He played the cornet as a youngster and on through college. Ralph claims he was not a very good musician, but the record shows that he played trumpet in the University of Nebraska band for four years.
He like sports, including baseball and he especially liked fishing.
Ralph went to high school in Ashland, and attended the University of Nebraska for five years, graduating not in agriculture but in chemical engineering. He received his diploma in 1930, in the depths of the depression.
Then came a further break from agriculture -- and his departure from the state. Shortly after graduation, he went to California to work as an apprentice engineer for Standard Oil Company. And at that time, he had visions of getting further engineering training at M.I.T.
But in 1932 he came back to the family farm. It was a difficult time for farmers. “We thought 30 bushels of corn an acre was good, and 40 bushels was downright excellent,” he says. But there were some opportunities for profit. For example, in 1934 the Raikes bought some cattle for $2.86 a hundred, fed them out, and sold them for about $7 a hundred.
Ralph’s accomplishments from that time on reflect the evolution of agriculture during the past four decades. He educated himself in the art of farming by reading a great deal and be getting all the information possible from the staff of the College of Agriculture.
Improvement of both land and buildings were a part of Ralph’s progress.
His enterprises were diversified, as they are today, but Ralph is a specialist in every phase of the operation. At one time, the Raikes had a flock of 1,200 hens, and produced from 500 to 800 eggs per day.
Over the years cattle feeding has been an important Raikes enterprise.
In 1953 Ralph and his family were recognized by the Lincoln Journal and Star as the Honor Farm Family of the year.
Also, in 1953, Ralph was appointed a Director of the Farm Credit Banks of Omaha. He is still a Director, and at one time served as Chairman of the Board. Actually, his public service in the farm credit area had started much earlier. He was director of his local Federal Land Bank Association for more the 30 years and was president for 10 years. Wen he was just 31, the National Farm Loan Association publication described him as the youngest man representing an association at the NFLA Eighth District Conference.
Ralph has had two opportunities to take a close look at European agriculture. The first was a WOW Farm Tour in 1948, when he visited Denmark, Holland, France, and England. Ralph made his second European tour in 1962 with son Ronald.
Perhaps this would be a good time to bring you up to date on the whole family. Ralph and Mrs. Raikes -- the former Alice Kuske of Mound, Minnesota -- have five children.
They are Dr. Ronald Raikes, now teaching Agricultural Economics at Iowa State University.
Ann (now Mrs. Robert Miller) of New York City. Ann is working in the Research and Development Division of Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. Her husband Robert is an architect.
Susan (now Mrs. Mark Sugar), presently living in Tai Chung, Taiwan, where her husband is an M.D. in the U.S. Air Force.
Mary Jo, a senior at Grinnell College. She is a language major and has spent several months in Russia. In 1970 she attended the University of Stockholm.
Jeffery is in the eighth grade in the school at Ashland.
And there is one grandchild, Heather, 16-month-old daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Ronald Raikes.
The Raikes Foundation Farms -- as Ralph has named them -- have grown from 240 acres in 1930 to 1,450 acres today. They comprise what once were parts or all of eight separate farm units. Ralph has followed a continuous program of land reclamation in the Wahoo Creek Valley. He is now irrigating 130 acres and is developing additional land for irrigation. He was one of the first in the area to adopt conservation practices, with the first terraces built in 1934. In 1936, Ralph planted 3,500 trees. The windbreaks have Russian Olive on the outside, and then in succession Chinese Elm, Hackberry and Green Ash.
Ralph still finds time to read and to broaden his horizons, if that is possible for a man with so much breadth already.
In addition to his work in farm credit, he was a director of the Nebraska Crop Improvement Association for six years and served the Association as president. He has been a member of the College of Agriculture Advisory Council, and a director of the Nebraska Alumni Association. He was recently elected a member of the Agricultural Committee of the National Planning Association and is a trustee of the American Institute of Cooperation.
Ralph is a business-man farmer in every sense of the word. He is a painstaking record keeper and has made use of electronic data processing systems at both the University of Nebraska and Iowa State University.
From the modern business center in his home, he can communicate with people working on the farm over a wide area. He uses a combination “intercom” and P.A. system. He can also use a citizen’s band radio to reach his “pick-ups” and some other points.
The feed mixing center on the Raikes Farm is important to his large livestock enterprise. Ralph feeds an average of 400 cattle a year, and annual pig production is about 1,200. Until recently he operated a grade-A dairy business. The feed mill is completely automated.
Ralph buys light calves or yearlings in the fall to pick-up crop residues, and for fattening and sale in the spring and summer. Part of their feed comes from a horizontal silo, which has a capacity in excess of 1,000 tons.
One of Ralph’s major interests has been in breeding and producing seed corn, an enterprise he started in 1936 with helpful suggestions from Dr. T.A. Kiesselbach of the College of Agriculture. And I also had an opportunity to counsel with Ralph beginning about that time.
One of his specialties is the production of high-performing white hybrids. His white corn, yellow corn, grain sorghum, wheat and soybean seed are sold throughout the Midwest. He has been a continuous producer of Nebraska certified seed since 1932 when he produced certified Spartan barley seed.
Ralph is capable of doing his own repair work, but he admits that Jim Fidler does most of it. Jim uses a machine shop on the place that provides nearly all repair facilities needed. Jim and Tony Kazmark, have both been with Ralph for 20 years.
These have been some of the highlights of Ralph Raikes’ life as a boy and later as the operator of the modern farm. Ralph is obviously a man who takes an intense pride in farming. He is a part of the pioneer stock which has made Nebraska a great agricultural state. In addition to his own successful farming enterprise, he has given our agricultural industry important leadership -- and we know he will continue to do so.
Ralph loves the land and at the same time has a sincere interest in people. The Nebraska Hall of Agricultural Achievement is proud to have him as its 1971 Honoree.
