Meet the Altena Family

Troy and Michelle Altena and their sons, Tyson, Jacob, Ethan and Levi.

Meet the Altena Family of Lyon County

by Bob Fitch

When Troy and Michelle Altena got married, they started with virtually nothing. “When I got out of college, I owed my brother a thousand bucks and all I had was just the clothes on my back,” Troy said. “When I moved in with my wife, she had a mobile home in Rock Valley and I just drove up with my Monte Carlo and a brown paper sack – that’s all we had.”

Twenty-one years later, Troy and Michelle run a successful seed business and are raising four sons on a farm between Rock Rapids and Lester in Lyon County. In between their spartan start and today, the couple has survived hail, fire and lean times through hard work, faith, guidance from mentors, community support, and a willingness to take risks.

“I’m the kind of guy if I’m walking along, I’ve got to have one foot kind of slipping off the edge. I could easily walk over there and be safe. But that’s no fun. I like risk. Sometimes I like to take too much risk and say ‘Well, that was fun. I learned something there.’ It’s got to be interesting, it’s got to be risky, and it’s got to be fun – or else I’m not in,” Troy said.

Michelle said, “We seem to do everything spur of the moment – from getting married to having kids to building a house after a trailer fire.”

They both grew up on farms and met while attending Iowa Lakes Community College, he for agribusiness and she for office management. “When we lived in Rock Valley, we had a $3,500 mobile home and we put that on a $100 a month payment and we could barely make that work. Our ceiling was almost coming down in it. We had to put new wood under the tub and the water heater because they were almost falling through the floor,” Troy said.

Eventually they bought a house in Rock Valley, but still owned the mobile home. A bad hail storm delivered a silver lining. “Both the house and trailer got peppered by a hail storm. We got a big enough settlement to pay off the mobile home and replace the roof and siding on the house which increased its value. It ended up being a big jump in life for us.”

At the time, Troy was working for Elmer Boone, a Pioneer Seed sales representative in the Rock Valley area. “He taught me what I know about selling seed. He was my mentor, a good guy. Elmer had a Bible right on his desk and he was in it all the time. He also had a Bible on the dash of his truck. Any time we went somewhere for a Pioneer event, he would read the Bible before bed. He taught me a lot about being a good Christian example.”

After five years working for Boone, Pioneer Seed asked Troy to take on the territory to the north. So, in 2004, they bought an acreage on Highway 9, bulldozed all the trees, planted a new grove, built a seed shed, and moved back into a mobile home with their two oldest boys, Jacob and Tyson. “In 2006, I poured concrete and put in cattle yards on the north end of the property,” he said.

They made it through their early days in the Lester area with help from neighbor Roger Baatz, who owns the 80 acres surrounding their acreage. “He really helped me start the place, let me use a lot of his machinery, came over here and helped us do a lot of different things. He was another one of those mentors – just one of the nicest people you’d ever meet.” However, they faced a setback in August 2007 when their trailer house was destroyed by fire. “This whole community came together for us. We got donations of blankets and clothing, you name it. Basically we lost everything. So many people from the Lester area helped us out. We were very grateful to the community and everyone who helped us get past that.”

Ethan and Levi with the calves they will show at the Lyon County Fair.

Hopefully the snow will be gone by the time Jacob, Tyson and Troy Altena are ready to head back to the figure-8 track.

In addition to the seed sales and feeding cattle, the Altena family raises corn and soybeans on land they own, rent and custom-farm. Troy shares some machinery with his parents, Howard and Lynette, who farm near Rock Valley. “My dad is one of the hardest working guys you’d ever meet. And hardcore work – he’d come in the house just bleeding. That’s all he knows.” Troy’s brother, Evan, finishes both hogs and cattle near Rock Valley. Besides the seed sales, their business, Altena Ag Services, sells ag chemicals, custom spraying (new in 2020), variable rate lime applications, soil sampling, soybean seed treatment, and fertilizer sales and application. On top of that, they do some custom chopping for silage and custom grinding of ear corn.

They rely heavily on their fulltime hired hand, Dave Klarenbeek of Alvord. Dave previously was the service manager at a local car dealership, but he had some heart trouble that temporarily forced him to stay at home. “But he came by one day and said he was bored out of his mind sitting around and wondered if I had anything for him to do,” Troy said. “He started doing a little bit here and there as he was recovering from surgery. He started in the seed shed and then started helping around the farm. He ended up quitting his service job because he enjoyed being out here on the farm so much versus being in town. He’s a total universal man who can pretty much do anything. There’s nobody like him.”

Troy and Michelle’s oldest son Jacob is 20 and will be graduating this spring from Minnesota West College with a degree in agribusiness. He’ll join the operation to help expand seed sales and do the custom spraying. Troy said, “This operation offers a lot of services and we haven’t had enough people to do it. A lot of times a new face can do a lot.” He said there’s enough room for growth in the operation if second son Tyson wants in too. Tyson is 17 and a junior at George-Little Rock High School.

Both Jacob and Tyson inherited an affinity for automobiles from their dad. When Troy was in his 20s, he took part in demolition derbies. “I wrecked a lot of ’76 Impalas. Jacob and Tyson grew up helping me with the cars,” Troy said. Jacob experimented with the demolition derby, but switched over to figure-8 racing. “Jacob got a figure-8 car ready to go. By the second race, he was right up front. Then Tyson said ‘If you can do it, I can do it too.’ And he didn’t do too bad. So I thought, ‘Well, you know what, I’m going to do that right there with you.’ They got me a car ready to go and I was out there with them – you got the old man and the boys out there.”

The “twin tornadoes” – Levi and Ethan – are 11 and students at Central Lyon school. “Life got crazy after the twins were born,” said Michelle, whose sister has a set of twins and whose brother has two sets of twins. “I gave up a lot of my outside enjoyment after the twins were born but, now that they are getting older and a lot more help, it is so rewarding.” Troy said Levi and Ethan “are just wide open all the time. They love the farm, their 4-H calves, helping drive tractors, the skid loader, the Ranger, 4-wheeler, mowing the lawn and playing sports. They have a lot of ambition.”

Michelle has put her upbringing on a Humboldt County farm to good use on the Altena farm. “I taught all of our boys to drive tractors. They sat on my lap hauling silage loads, but it didn’t take long before I was the one sitting in the buddy seat supervising.” She helped all four boys raise bucket calves for the Lyon County Fair. A former barrel racer herself, she’s proud that Delta, the Arabian Pinto mare she grew up riding, was eventually shown by Jacob at the Lyon County Fair.

Michelle also coached all her boys’ t-ball games. She was an active athlete in high school, playing all sports and, in college, playing a semester of fall softball and basketball. She was involved in 4-H, youth county council, worked as a CNA, and was an office assistant at a local elevator. “I guess life has prepared me for what I do today helping Troy and the kids on the farm and with our business. There is no better place to be than on the farm.”

Today, the farm includes three horses, a pet turkey, a pet calf, and a dog. Troy said Michelle is the “Old MacDonald” of the farm. Michelle said, “Back in 2004- 2007, we used to have 140 ewes and I lambed them out. We had lambs in every single building on the farm. We even had them in the house when we had one that was in rough shape. We’d put them in the bathtub.”

Troy loves every aspect of farming. “I love watching seeds come up in the row. Every year it’s a miracle to me. The last 21 years in agronomy sales has taught me a lot about the differences in land and all the variables in each field that affect each management decision. Watching plants thrive on fertile land free from weeds, insects, and disease is a truly rewarding occupation. I’m absolutely passionate about finding the perfect way to grow crops. It’s what keeps me up at night and makes my head spin. It’s fun. It’s not work to me.

“Pioneer has been a huge part of our success. We have many new exciting technologies that are helping our seed products be more reliable and yield far better than they ever have before,” he said.

Troy is just as passionate for learning about his faith. Several years ago, he was invited to a Bible study being held at Mulder Implement east of Rock Rapids. Led by Roger Lamfers and Jason Terhark, the “Timeline Ministries” Bible study intrigued and inspired Troy, who ended up hosting the study at his shop for almost three years before it moved back to Mulder Implement. “We got a lot of new people to come. I got some of my neighbors to come and some people who didn’t attend church regularly. The information at this Bible study is so groundbreaking. These guys have studied the Bible forward and backward.”

While taught from a nondenominational viewpoint, the home base of Timeline Ministries is Tabernacle Baptist Church in George. “So I followed these guys to Tabernacle, and the pastor there, Brian Anderson, is just a phenomenal speaker. There are many ministries and activities going on there. We could tell something great was happening so we started attending. There’s so much to learn and there are so many different levels to the Bible. These guys are way up here and I’m way down here, but I’m trying to climb that ladder to learn a little bit more all the time. The information they’ve shared has added a better understanding of what the Bible is trying to tell us and has lifted an enormous weight off my shoulders.”

®

Dave Klararenbeek, right, has proven to be a Troy’s right-hand-man in the success of Altena Ag Service.