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Tri States Grain Conditioning

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When Glenn was deployed overseas as a member of the Air National Guard in 1968, she and their six-month-old son Steve moved to the farm of Glenn’s parents near Carmel. Glenn was called up after the USS Pueblo incident between the U.S. and North Korea, but went to Vietnam rather than Korea. Betty said, “I lived with his parents for a year when Glenn was in Vietnam. His folks were wonderful people and they took good care of us.” She would send lots of baby photos of Steve to Glenn, and he wrote letters home every day. Several years later, the couple decided to return to Iowa even though Glenn was making a good living in Nebraska as a manager for National Disposal. “Steve was about four or five at that time. We had a neighbor up the block from us in Omaha who had a 12-year-old son. And this 12-year-old was on drugs. I said, ‘That’s it, it’s too close,’” said Glenn. “So I called my dad and asked him if I could start a dairy. He talked to a dairy dealer named Sam Wester and asked him ‘What do you think of this idea?’ And Sam kind of kicked the dirt and said, ‘Yeah, John, it’s a good idea and you’d be a damn fool if you don't go 25 more cows and go with him.’ That's where it all started, with a 50-cow dairy.” Betty utilized her childhood experience on her family’s dairy to help. About five years later, his father retired, and then he died in 1983 of complications from Lou Gehrig’s disease. Another five

Betty and Glenn Rozeboom have been married for almost 56 years.

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Dry Creek Farms is northwest of Carmel.

Steve and Amy Rozenboom with their daughters’ families. On the left: Dan and Brooke Faber hold sons, Tae and Hayes with Drake standing in front; Steve and Amy; and Morgan and Chad Hoekstra and their son, Briggs. years later, their two older sons, Steve and Scott, joined him in operating the dairy, then known as Rozeboom Dairy (now known as Dry Creek Farms). “We started out with a double four parlor; then went to a double 12 when the boys came in.” Dairy markets are notoriously volatile and there have been plenty of bad financial years. “You know, my dad would tell you, those bad years make you a better manager. And if you were smart enough to save up during the good years, a farmer can make it through the bad years. And I believe that,” Glenn said. According to Betty and Glenn’s youngest son, Brian: “Now, it's more pay-down-debt during your good years so you have the slush to fall back on in your bad years. You can't afford to save money right now because you'll end up paying for it in taxes, in my opinion.” He bought out the shares of his brother, Scott, in 2002.

Brian and his oldest brother, Steve, run the show today at Dry Creek Farms. In his mid-70s, Glenn was still going strong until last year when his semi-trailer caught the edge of the road on the night of Sept. 2nd. The trailer and cab rolled. Glenn broke his back and many other bones in the accident and recovery is taking a long time. “I go out every week or every-other-week to try to work, but I just can’t do it anymore.” Brian said, “He’s just lucky to be alive. It was bad enough at one point that I brought Mom up there and I called my brothers and said, ‘You better be ready. We might be planning a funeral this week.’” “It was pretty tough going there for a while,” Glenn agreed. For Steve and Brian today on the farm today, the biggest challenge is keeping a quality work force in place and wondering if and when the time will be right to employ robotic milking. Currently, they employ five full-time milkers and two full-time feed men.

Steve said, “We’re pretty self-sufficient in the fact that we raise our own calves, we raise our own heifers, we feed out all of our steers, so we have dairy beef. That's what our world is right now.” In addition to their own grain crop and forage acres, they do a little custom chopping and planting. On the crop side, their tractors are equipped with the latest technologies such as GPS, autosteer and row cutoffs. In the dairy, the activity tracker has improved the results in their breeding program. But robotic milking presents a conundrum. Steve said, “We've looked at new technologies quite

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