Volume CIV, No. 3 Huron, SD MAY/JUNE 2019
A PUBLICATION OF SOUTH DAKOTA FARMERS UNION
SERVING SOUTH DAKOTA’S FARM & RANCH FAMILIES SINCE 1915.
Advocate for Clean Air
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New FUE Couple
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Farm Safety Quiz Bowl
Scholarship Recipients
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PAGE 18
Mental Health: How to Help Those We Love Story on Page 4
SDFU Celebrates Freeman Farm Family
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tanding in their pasture, surrounded by cows with their new calves, Michelle Friesen points to a shelterbelt off to the southwest. “My mother grew up on a farm over there, about a year after my parents were married, my grandparents bought this place for my parents and they moved here,” explains the fourthgeneration Freeman farmer. Quick to point out that although she grew up on the farm and spends five days each week actively involved, farming is actually her husband, Mike Miller’s passion. Music is hers. “My mother says that from 2-years-old on, I begged for a piano,”
CAMP SEASON BEGINS! Find dates and camp locations on Page 12
South Dakota Farmers Union has served South Dakota farm and ranch families for more than a century. Throughout the year, we share their stories in order to highlight the families who make up our state’s No. 1 industry and help feed the world. This month we highlight Mike Miller and Michelle Friesen. The couple have farmed together near Freeman since they married in 1996. They raise corn, soybeans, a cow/calf herd and feeder operation.
says Friesen, who is a soprano in the Sioux Falls Symphony Chorus and owns a piano studio, teaching 20 students each week. “I love music. It’s all around us. It’s everywhere you go.” Before the couple married, she was living in Kansas teaching music and worked as the pianist for a junior college choir and Miller was farming fulltime. She knew marrying him meant she would return to farming, but she also knew he would support her in pursuing music and performing. “Farming is his passion and this farm is more than what he can do
Freeman Family Continued on Page 2