that in little southeast South Dakota, but we are big. We’re getting sheep from eight hours away any direction – north, south, east, west. You treat people well and you’re honest and you get the most for them you can. It’s a booming business,” Todd said. Sales of sheep and goats are driven by ethnic markets on the east coast. “I always say after 34 years I’ve never worked a day in my life because I love what I’m doing. Now I get to work with my son, so you can’t get any better than that.” When he increased his involvement in cattle sales at Regional a couple of years ago, he gave up driving tractor during the busy seasons for his neighbors, something he had enjoyed doing for more than 30 years. FAMILY VALUES Todd’s parents, Harley and Dianne Nordmann, own some farm ground and are partners with Todd, Coral and Denver in their sheep production.
“Most times, Dad’s a silent partner – he just says ‘You know what you’re doing, just do it.’ At the same time, if Dad put a dollar in a jar every time he drove up this driveway to help, we’d have that driveway paved with gold. Also, if anybody comes onto the yard, we know because Mom sends a text. Even after all these years, they’re watching out for us.” Growing up, his parents took them to church every Sunday and again on Wednesday. He and Coral have tried to instill those same values with their children. Their faith and prayer have helped them through the inevitable hard times in a livestock operation. The other important family values are to be fans of the University of North Carolina basketball team and the NFL’s Denver Broncos. “Besides church, the only other time we stop working is on Saturdays if the Tarheels are playing or on Sunday when the Broncos are on. There’s nothing else going on for those three hours,” he said.
Coral grew up on a farm west of Corsica. In January, she started working in the auditor’s office at the Turner County Courthouse. For the previous 16 years she worked in the business office at Good Samaritan in Lennox. Coral works off the farm to keep good health insurance since her husband has been pretty beat up over the years. He’s had a wire through his eye, his scapula broken in three spots, a rotator cuff injury and more. As outgoing as Todd is, she’s very quiet. Yet she was the one who asked him to marry her. Was he stringing her along? She said, “Yeah, I was going to have to wait forever. He said we’d get married when he was debt-free. Well, that was never going to happen.”
May 2022 | www.agemedia.pub | The Farming Families Magazine
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