Remsen Farmers Coop

Courtney, Jake, Tracy and Jerry Loutsch. but they also do a fair share of repair for others. “We work on a lot of (John Deere) 4020’s,” Jerry said. “We even restore the engines on some red ones. We fix engines, but we don’t do the paint work. In a lot of cases, we’re fixing tractors that belonged to their dad.” In the shop right now is a 1932 Farmall F20. “He was just going to have us do a patch-it job by putting a different engine in it. But from the serial numbers, we found out it was the thirty-seventh F20 ever built. So he said, ‘I’ll guess you’ll have to fix it then.’” Even since he was little, Jerry has been fixing farm equipment – although he didn’t get off to a very auspicious start. “One day when I was in second grade, there was a hole in the feed auger. To keep the feed from running out, I tried to patch it with a cow turd. The auger was running and it took the finger right off my glove.” Mark laughed at the memory: “I saw him going to do it, but I couldn’t holler fast enough to get him to stop. Then we ran through the deepest cow manure there was in the yard to get up to the house.” Jerry said, “I’ve still got a scar on my finger, but I’m lucky I’ve still got the finger.”

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Growing up, it was kind of a family ritual to tinker with the tractors on Sunday. Many years, later, the tinkering tradition led to bigger and better things. After their maternal grandparents died, their mom, Rosie, wanted to have all of her family out to the farm on the 4th of July. “We were putz’n away on the tractors, driving them around, and Dad said ‘Let’s take them to town.’ We’ve been doing it ever since,” Mark said. “When we were driving through town, people weren’t expecting a parade of tractors, but they would come out and wave.” His wife, Lori, added, “Now the streets are full of people.” In fact, it’s been 28 years since the first parade. “In Oyens’ little city hall, there’s kind of a collage on the wall which includes pictures of the church, the elevator, the post office, and a picture of my sister-in-law driving a tractor all decked out for the parade. Whoever made that collage felt that our parade was an important part of the town,” Mark said. The Loutsch collection includes more than 100 John Deere tractors. “Dad used to farm with a 50 John Deere and a 70. In the early 1980s, we thought it would be kind of neat to have the whole line of 40, 50, 60, 70, and 80 tractors, so we started looking for them. We had about 50 tractors in the collection before we even added the 60 model,” Mark said.

For the annual parade, “Whoever shows up and is capable of driving, we let them drive,” he said. “We don’t go very fast – there’s rules for everyone to follow. We used to have enough

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drivers for all the tractors, but now many people drive their own tractors in the parade.” They run through about 500 gallons of fuel on Independence Day. Ironically, their repair shop picks up some business when friends bring their antique tractors over for a tune-up prior to the parade. Jerry said, “Even the repair guy in Remsen said we have to keep up the parade because it’s good for business.” Jerry’s wife, Tracy, used to work as a paraprofessional at MMRCU schools. Their daughter, Courtney, is a trauma surgical registered nurse at Sanford in Fargo. Son Jake works at Hawke & Co. in Alton, farms on shares with a neighbor, and helps out on the Loutsch farm. Bill is married to Vonnie, who is retired, and they three children. Daughter Becky is a social studies teacher at Gayville-Volin Schools near Yankton. Daughter Megan teaches sophomore English at Lincoln High School in Sioux Falls. Megan’s three sons are Nik, Tony and Zach. Bill and Vonnie’s son James works at 3M in Brookings. He and his wife, Trish, have two daughters, Riley and Harper. Bill said his grandson Tony, 11, is planning to take over the farm some day. In fact, Bill said Tony is already trying to make things happen. “We bought a new feed wagon for the cattle, but it’s been sitting there in the shed unused for about four years now. Tony said ‘You better get that going before I take over.’”

Mark’s wife, Lori, is a hair stylist, operating out of their home for 38 years. She also runs for parts and helps on the farm where needed. They have five children. The oldest is Adam, who works at AgriVision in LeMars, does repair work in the shop at the farm, and also farms with his dad and uncles.

Mark and Lori’s oldest daughter, Melissa, is married to Justin Firme and they live in Alexandria, Minn. Justin works at the Douglas County Courthouse and Melissa is the dean of students and a counselor at Alexandria public schools. Melissa and Justin have a 3½-yearold daughter named Kennedy. Lori said: “Kennedy is a character, she’s a little spitfire.” Mark added, “Poppa and Grandma just need to find more time to go see her. But it’s hard to leave the farm – there’s always something to do.” Daughter Samantha got married last fall to Nick Eberly, who works at Wilson Trailer. Samantha teaches chemistry, biology and physics at Winnebago schools in northeast Nebraska. Lori said, “She loves working there, she never wants to leave.”

Son Jack is going into his fourth year at Iowa State University where he majors in both Spanish and biological systems engineering. Finally, daughter Brooke will be a sophomore at the University of South Dakota where she majors in psychology. Lori said their girls learned a lot life skills in 4-H. When they were showing lambs at the fair, “It was always a very hard lesson to accept and understand when they knew a dad was actually taking care of the sheep, yet the girl would walk into the ring with the sheep. Our girls really took care of their own lambs. They raised them from babies.” Years later, their daughters came home from college and said “I get it now. Those dads weren’t doing their kids any favors. We learned more.”

Mark believes another valuable lesson from 4-H competition is to learn from losing. “It makes a better person out of you; it makes you try harder. There’s always room for improvement no matter where you’re at or what you’re doing,” he said. Mark has lived by example in his civic endeavors. He served several years on the Plymouth County Farm Bureau board and then served for 12 years as a Plymouth County supervisor. He officially retired as a supervisor on Jan. 1, but they recruited him to serve in an ex officio capacity to help smooth the transition of a new multi-county mental health cooperative. In addition, he’s winding down his time on the Oyens Ambulance Squad and has been recruited to be on the St. Mary’s Parish Church Finance Council.

In the Loutsch family, Lori said life is a success when you have “happy, healthy kids, doing better than how we did at that age.” Mark said the bottom line in life is to be happy with the choices you’ve made. “Work always gets you somewhere. You can’t count on someone else to take care of you. All I ask for is another chance. Every time I harvest a crop, I just hope I have a chance to do it again.”

The Loutsch siblings: front – Maggie, Jeannette, Liz; back row – Mark, Matt, Bill, Mike, Jerry.

The Bill and Vonnie Loutsch family: front – Becky, Trish, Harper, James; middle – Megan, Toy, Rylie; on the hub is Zac; back – Nik, Bill and Vonnie.