Volume XCVII, NO. 5
Huron, SD
May/June 2014
South Dakota
Union Farmer A PUBLICATION OF SOUTH DAKOTA FARMERS UNION Getting to Know Franklin Olson
PSA Contest Winners “Financial Fitness”
Farmers Union to Host Dr. Temple Grandin
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President Emeritus Ben Radcliffe passes at 98 years Benjamin H. “Ben” Radcliffe passed away quietly after a brief illness on May 13. Ben served as South Dakota Farmers Union president for a record 20 years (1961-1981) and for more than a generation; his name was synonymous with the organization that he led. Ben was born December 21, 1915, to Oliver N. and Emma (Olson) Radcliffe at “I’ve got the Farmers Union spirit Wolsey. He was a member Up in my head, up in my head, up in my head. of what Tom Brokaw coined I’ve got the Farmers Union spirit, as “the Greatest Generation” Up in my head, Up in my head to stay. and he played many roles I’ve got the Farmers Union spirit, Deep in my heart. during his long life. I’ve got the Farmers Union spirit, Down in my toes. He was a witness to history. I’ve got the Farmers Union spirit, All over me. One of his earliest memories I’ve got the Farmers Union spirit, Up in my head, was of accompanying his mother as she cast her first vote following the enactment of Deep in my heart, Down in my toes. the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. I’ve got the Farmers Union spirit, All over me, All over me to stay.” “Mom was excited about voting and somehow it made a lasting impression on me,” see Camp Begins on page 10 he wrote in his recent autobiography. “I think it may account for the fact that in later years I became interested in politics.” Ben was a survivor. He graduated from Tulare High Livestock Disaster Program Provides Relief School in 1933. In the midst of the Great Depression he Along with the thousands of livestock producers it helps, Farm Serjoined the newly established Civilian Conservation Corps vice Agency (FSA) employees across South Dakota breathed a sigh of (CCC) and earned badly needed dollars doing building relief when the farm bill passed, explained Dan Whetham. This farm projects on public lands in the Black Hills and Arkansas. bill contains Livestock Disaster Programs that would finally allow him Ben was a Dust Bowl refugee. There was little opportunity and his colleges to offer relief to the farmers and ranchers they serve. to make a living on the farm in South Dakota, so he and his “We had been desperately waiting to actually assist the folks we have new wife, Dorothy Simons, headed for California in 1935. worked our entire careers to help,” says Whetham, who has spent 27 He became a farmhand and then a foreman at the Governor years in service to South Dakota crop and livestock producers and is Gold Mine in the Mojave Desert near Lancaster. currently a district director for FSA out of Belle Fourche. “We had to Ben was a farmer. The gold market collapsed following watch our clientele suffer through the 2012 drought and losses from Pearl Harbor and the United States entry into World War 2013 Storm Atlas without being able to assist them with programs that II. Ben, Dorothy and their four-year-old daughter, Dona should have been available.” returned to South Dakota and bought a family farm in The urgent need for implementation of these programs was not lost on Spink County. Because farming was viewed as an essential the United States Department of Agriculture, Whetham explains. occupation, Ben was deferred from service in World War II. “Due to the severity of the drought and the magnitude of losses in Ben was a young Farmers Union leader. Late in 1944 Storm Atlas, this is the fastest implementation of any portion of the Farmers Union organizers made a stop at the Radcliffe farm bill that has ever occurred,” he says. farm and soon Ben was president of the Crandon Local and see FSA on page 8 see Radcliffe on page 6
Farmers Union Camp Season Begins!