Salute to Soil Conservation
B2 | February 24, 2022
TSnews
Hopsons win Conservation Award
By Sam Jack TSnews
At the Sedgwick County Conservation District’s annual banquet, Jan and Bruce Hopson were awarded the 2021 Conservation Award, recognizing their efforts to add to and improve erosion control systems on a half-section of land they own about three miles west of Peck. The project was designed by National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) soil conservation technician Mike Wallace, and dirtwork was executed by Conway Springs’ Lange Excavating. Tyson Koontz installed block structures. Martin and David Ternes, who rent the land and farm it, also cooperated during the three-year project. Jan Hopson noted that terraces installed by her parents, Stanley and Izetta Henderson, in the early 1950s, were found still in fairly good shape nearly 70 years later. The new project entailed adding some additional terraces and making repairs. “That’s showing that our family was interested
in conserving the soil. It’s always been an attitude in our family, of improving the land and conserving soil,” Hopson said. Hopson now lives with her husband, Bruce, near Clearwater, but she was born on the farm west of Peck and has fond memories of working and playing there. “I grew up learning how to work and help out,” she said. “I was driving a wheat truck by the time I was 12 or 13. It was just a family effort. I did have one brother, Ronald; unfortunately, he was killed when he was 29. That was a tragedy. But we survived.” Jan Hopson’s family history with the land goes back even further than her own childhood. The land once bordered a railroad line, now defunct, that connected Mulvane and Clearwater. Hopson’s great-grandfather, R.J. Huckle, who had survived a Civil War POW camp in Kentucky, brought his family west to settle in the area. He helped found a little town named in his honor – anchored by the railroad and complete with its own Huckle, Kansas,
Dale Stelz/TSnews
Jan and Bruce Hopson were awarded a 2021 Conservation Award for their efforts to add to and improve erosion control systems on their land near Peck.
post office. “R.J. served at the Statehouse in Topeka in the late 1800s, and he felt there was a need for the railroad service to come through there, and was instrumental in making that happen,” Hopson said. The land that hosted the town of Huckle and
the railroad line has been returned to agricultural use, and it is hard to find any trace of them now, Hopson said. Jan Hopson and her husband, Bruce, met each other in grade school, married after finishing high school, and went to K-State together.
“I feel very blessed that my husband believes in the soil, or having farmland, as much as I do,” she said. “Of course, his grandparents were on a farm, so it’s not like this was foreign to him.” Hopson felt she was really accepting the Conservation Award on behalf of
generations of her family who have stewarded the land. “I didn’t say it in public, but my husband and I are both honored to receive this award. I feel like I’m receiving it for my grandparents and parents, because they saw the need,” she said.
Water award recognizes major project in Sumner Co. By Travis Mounts TSnews news@tsnews.com
Kevin Stonehocker un-
derstands the benefits and the challenges of water as it relates to farming. A fifth-generation farmer, Stonehocker’s
homestead has a mile of the Ninnescah running through it. It floods about every 10 years, and there is not much anyone can do
about that. But water issues on another piece of ground were able to be fixed, and Kevin and his wife, Moni-
ca, received a water quality award from the Sumner County Conservation District for their efforts. The land is located northwest of Wellington. They put in a small waterway about 20 years ago, but recently it had not been working. “We put over a mile of waterways in,” Kevin Stonehocker said, explaining the project. There are two halfmile long waterways and a third, shorter one. That’s just the first portion. They will be putting in about 25,000 feet of terraces. That work is tentatively scheduled for summer 2023. Asked if the work done had already made a difference, Stonehocker laughed and said, “Yes.” “It think that field has every angle on it. It’s pretty hilly,” he continued. “We’ve seen some areas
already improve. We’re basically saving our field, our top soil.” In addition to improved drainage and saving soil, the terraces will help hold more water for crops. Stonehocker said a project like this takes years to complete. “They didn’t get that way overnight, and you won’t fix them overnight,” he said. The award, Stonehocker said, is a nice recognition. On the homestead, which sits just south of Clearwater in the northern part of Sumner County, Kevin and Monika have land on both sides of the Ninnescah River. He said he’s been dealing with water issues his entire life. “It’s nice to be able to fix a field, and to be able to get an award for it,” he said.
Michelle Leidy-Franklin/TSnews
Monika and Kevin Stonehocker added more than a mile of waterways to a piece of farm ground they have northwest of Wellington. The work will continue as they add terraces in the future.
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