Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
First Person is produced in cooperation with the Far East Broadcasting Company, who rejoice in the stories of changed lives through the power of Jesus Christ. Learn more at febc.org. If each of us will set aside some undistracted, quiet moments, that just the attitude and the acts of thankfulness will engender a mindset that brings even more blessings. Is that possible? I see it every day. I really do, Wayne. I see it every day.
Happy Thanksgiving to come and welcome to First Person, where our guest, Max Armstrong, one of America's favorite farm broadcasters, urges us to be grateful. Together with Max, we'll pay tribute to American farmers for the abundance we enjoy. I'm Wayne Shepherd, inviting you to stay with us for the conversation.
Before we turn to our guests, though, I invite you to follow the links we've provided at FirstPersonInterview.com in connection with today's guest. We'll be mentioning a book titled More Stories from the Heartland, and you can learn about it at FirstPersonInterview.com. This interview and all of our past programs are also available at that same place for listening when it's convenient for you. Or use our free smartphone app to download programs for on-demand listening.
Max Armstrong has spent 53 years on radio and TV reporting on the theme of agriculture in all its forms. His is a household name in the farming community. And as he looks back on all those years of reporting, his is a grateful heart full of thanksgiving to God.
I began by asking Max if this time of year makes him think of growing up on the farm in Indiana. Oh, it sure does. Wonderful memories. It's my favorite time coming into this season, certainly, because growing up on the farm in Indiana, it was always such a special event, Wayne. Family would come over, just as we continue to do today, of course. But out on the farm, I think we had a real appreciation for the wrap-up of harvest. Most people try to get it done in time for Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving.
And our aunts, we had a couple of spinster aunts who would come out and enjoy Thanksgiving with us. Cherished memories of Aunt Marjorie, Aunt Bertha, and Aunt Flossie. You don't hear those names anymore, do you? No, you don't. They're not making them anymore. People don't name a kid Flossie anymore.
Well, when you're driving down a rural highway across America and see those big green or red or blue machines harvesting, does it ever kind of draw you in a little bit? Do you ever wish you were back at it? I like to be out there with the farmers. There's no doubt about that. I knew that I didn't have what it took to be a farmer. And I wanted to be on the radio. I'd be on the tractor as a young man in southwestern Indiana listening.
And I'm sure your fervent desire to be on the radio came at a very young age, too. Yeah, we have that in common, yes. I'd be out there roasting in the hot sun, crawling across the field on a farm hall with a four-row cultivator cultivating soybeans, and I would listen on that tractor radio to the guys in the air-conditioned comfort there. And I thought, man, they've got it made. Yeah.
All right. Well, it's just such a great time of the year, this Thanksgiving time. And I want to pay special tribute to farmers, American farmers today. And I thought, who better to talk with than Max Armstrong? I don't know of anybody who knows more farmers than you do, Max. Oh, you know, I told my wife, Wayne, that I wanted to put up a map in the shed and put pins on the map of all of the farms I visited. And she laughed and she said, good luck with that, partner. You don't make enough pins. Yeah.
Yeah, I may have to have some help in the social media from some of my farm friends to remind me. But, oh, my goodness, what a blessing it has been. And to your point, to be out in the field and to be in the cab, you know, they started putting a buddy seat. They started calling it, oh, goodness, must have been 20 years ago. They added a seat into the combine cab and the tractor cab. It was the instructional seat, I guess they called it. But you can sit in there with a grower and you should go across the field, especially at harvest.
And the farmer will take an accounting of his or her blessings and really share openly with you. And it's just the two of you there in the cab. And it's neat to hear the family things that they talk about. Sometimes I've been a little bit embarrassed. They share things with me. I'm surprised they share. But I feel honored that they take that confidence in me. And as you know, there are so many folks of faith.
of faith out there who really, you know, connected with the Lord in the harvest season, especially about all times of the year. And, and you watch the social media for farmers, you watch Twitter, you watch Facebook and you see all of their sunsets and sunrises and, and,
And they're expressions of appreciation, everything that God has given us. Yeah. As you know, I recently spent a week back in Ohio on the family farm, and boy, it just brought back all those wonderful memories myself. My dad was not a farmer, but we lived in the old house, you know, the old farmhouse with all its creeks and fields.
cracks and crevices and uh it brought back a lot and seeing that harvest time was very special too they were they were uh picking beans when i was there and the corn was a little too wet but uh i was hoping to see some some corn getting harvested too but those are those are special times um but i you know i think of the american farmer and i i think of all the how do they exist these days i mean you look at those machines in the field they're driving million dollar machines aren't they
They are big machines. There's no doubt about it. Many farmers are highly leveraged. Fortunately, we had a couple of good years of profitability in the business. You know, we're expecting the next couple of years to be a little more challenging, depending on what happens with global production. And we're very much in a global situation where we compete with others today in the world marketplace. Yeah.
You know, the South American production has gotten to be so big in the southern hemisphere. The Brazilians continue to find more land to farm or to go out into the pastures and plow it up so that they can expand their acreage. And we're very much in competition with them and have been. It's just that that competition has grown so much that we are now the number two supplier to the world, not number one of soybeans. All right.
Well, I want to talk more about that, but let me back up and say and explain why you are so connected with the American farmer and agriculture in general, because your career in radio and television has really spanned a decade. You've recently retired. I understand, Max, but it has spanned decades of reporting and being being that guy.
Yeah, you know, I always wanted to be in the broadcasting business. From the age of seven, I'd sit in the closet of the old farmhouse and then practice as if I were on the radio. I would take the local newspaper, the Evansville, Indiana Courier, and hold it in front of me and act like I was playing to the camera. And then my 16th summer, Wayne, was a busy, busy summer. You'll appreciate this. That same summer, I got my driver's license there in southern Indiana. I
I tested for my FCC license, and you might remember you had to go into a big city to do that. The third-class license. Mine was in Cincinnati, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, sitting on a farm in southern Indiana, you'd either go to Cincinnati or St. Louis or up to Chicago. Well, we were going to Detroit that summer. I had relatives in Flint, Michigan, but the reason I was in Detroit—
was for the National Bible Bowl at the North American Christian Convention. It was at Cobo Hall, and my classmates in Sunday school and I studied week after week in that summer of my 16th year the Book of Luke. So when we went to participate in the Bible Bowl that summer, I took my FCC exam at the
Federal Communications Office in downtown Detroit. So it was a busy summer for yours, truly. Max, your work at WGN in Chicago, of course, with the legendary Orion Samuelson, and as I said, the farm report you've done on television all these years, it's been a special career for you. Oh, it has. You know, Orion and I were business partners for 45 years. Up until this spring, we had the partnership and owned our own television show together,
that we started 18 seasons ago, and I'm still contributing some to that with Max's Tractor Shed and maybe a few other things along the way, but it was just a wonderful ride. I went to work with Orion at the age of 24 at a big city radio station at AM Radio's heyday. WGN was clearly number one in radio in Chicago then. We had very strong personalities on the station, but to be able to go on and talk about agriculture
And to share that, it was something that the people in the city appreciated because we'd explain agricultural matters to them. But farmers appreciated it too, Wayne, because we were talking about them. And when the first cell phones came out of the mid-80s, I said to Ori and I have enough farmer friends who have them. Let's take calls from them.
out in the field. And so we would, during harvest and planting season, take calls on the radio. And they would be all the way from Green Bay to Evansville and from Cedar Rapids over to Fort Wayne, who would call in. And you could hear them as they were sharing stories about harvest. And folks really loved listening to them. Well, you broke a lot of new ground. There's no question about that. And that city radio station that reached the entire Midwest,
I know so many farmers who every day at the noon hour, they had to listen to Max and Orion on the noon show. So that was a staple in its day. It also led you around the world on the theme of agriculture. Just name a few of the places where you've been and maybe a couple of highlights, Max. Oh, my goodness. We went to Algeria. We were in Egypt, Egypt.
We were in Belgium, the Netherlands, Brazil, I think three times, four times perhaps, and Argentina on a couple of occasions, Chile, Colombia, Vietnam. And, you know, when we went into Vietnam, this was back before many people had started traveling there as tourists again, the United States, and we weren't sure what to expect going back there. And there were a couple of military veterans with us.
And we would be with the Vietnamese people and not sure what to say at times. And then we realized that, my goodness, this was the shortest war they had ever fought. And they harbored no grudges against the United States. And then we were in England during the foot-and-mouth disease epidemic. I was fortunate enough to visit 10 Downing Street to meet Tony Blair there because they wanted to welcome Tony.
Americans back in. Max, I'm going to break in right there just to remind everyone that there is more to this conversation and it's coming up in just a moment here on First Person.
Hi, I'm Ed Cannon. And as you know, situations around the world are changing quickly. Stay current with FEBC's ministry and get a deeper understanding of people who need to find hope. Hear how you can feel the pulse of God's Spirit moving through the hearts of believers dedicated to reaching the lost. Be sure you join me for the podcast until all have heard. Discover how the gospel is making a difference around the world.
Search for Until All Have Heard on your favorite podcast platform or hear it online at febc.org.
My guest is Max Armstrong. Max has a new book out, More Stories from the Heartland. Years ago, we talked about stories from the heartland. Now we get to talk about more stories. Max, it's a book about people and places and tractors. I couldn't come up with the alliteration for tractors, but there's all of it in this book. It really is just a memoir, really, of your years in radio and television, and you're rubbing shoulders with all these people who are in agriculture around the world.
Well, it's probably too much about me to be honest with you, Wayne. I didn't intend for it to be that way and the folks who helped me with it
Steve Alexander and Diane Montiel pulled the stories together and they said, no, that's kind of the way it needs to be. But I didn't intend to have quite as much family in there. But there are some just wonderful folks that I've met along the way who have left quite an imprint on me. Characters, some of them real characters. I know. And I said, you know, characters can affect you for life and in a very wonderful way. Yeah.
Just great stories, and I teared up at some of them, Max, because, well, here's one. It was a high school teacher who, upon his retirement, the class presented him with a very special tractor. Yes, it was one that he had grown up on, and he had taught there for many, many years, and little did he know that some of the alums of the FFA in that community, some folks who had been his students and parents of his current students, were getting together and
they had acquired that tractor that they knew he had, his dad had as a much younger man, and they did the restoration of it. And at a special event at the high school as he retired, they unveiled it, and he got on that tractor for the first time in many, many years. There is that sentimental attachment, a very strong attachment to the machine that dad had. If you're fortunate enough to be able to find it, to get back with it again, but Mr. Larry Plapp,
Had been for 30 years a high school advisor there in southern Wisconsin, and he'd grown up on a farm around Malta, Illinois, to the west of Chicago. And you understand that love of old tractors. You've got a couple of them yourself.
I have two that my father had. And the one is, there's a very strong attachment to it because it's a farm all. It was delivered to an international harvester dealership two blocks from the hospital where I was delivered the same summer. And that's the tractor on which I learned to drive. And it's been with me in many different places, including downtown Chicago. Yeah.
Back to your book. Here's another story of Gene and Mike Miller, retired, but they spend their time caring for a rural church, a rural country church that Mike attended as a young man. And they open it up, I guess, once a year, you tell in your book. They do. There is a Christmas church tour.
Every December. And folks might want to put this on the radar screen and check into it. It's in Perry County, Missouri. So in other words, it's about 100 miles south of St. Louis. And they have a number of churches that participate and open their doors for a couple of nights. And people will come and they tour. It's a wonderful area. Many different denominations represented there. But this couple, he grew up specifically in the church. And then
They met each other while working in St. Louis. They retired back to that area. They bought the church building. There's no worship that takes place there. However, once a year, they open the doors and folks come in there for the Christmas tour and the local rural electric cooperative turns on the power for one week. My favorite part of the story. I think that's great.
That's right. They energized the house of the Lord for one week there. Well, your book is full of pictures and stories like that. Let's see. What's another one? What comes to your mind at the moment? One of these stories you could tell us.
You know, there was a fellow I worked with by the name of Michael Jordan. Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, he worked at the radio station, which is interesting because, of course, there was another Michael Jordan in Chicago sports history. But Michael worked in the sales department, and as a hobby, he would go to movie shoots and try to get bit parts. He would take a day off from his work, back with the sales department there,
And he would go to a movie shoot with a suitcase loaded with all kinds of sweaters and shirts and caps that he would wear so he could get a bit part, you know, a walk-on part, non-speaking part in so many movies. And he made his way into movies like Fugitive.
Groundhog Day. So whenever these run again on television, I always look for Michael in the background. But the backstory to Michael was the fact that he was such a wonderful gentleman who had an impact throughout the station on us because of
you know, I think I described him as, um, being Christ-like. He truly was a sweet, gentle man, always with a smile. As he walked around the station, he'd never speak an unkind word. I said, no matter how much you baited him, Michael just wouldn't go there. And every Sunday he was at his church on the South side of Chicago before everybody came into worship. And long after they left, he was the, the audio visual guy there. And, uh,
And he made sure that the sound system was working, and it was a passion of his, you could tell. Just a wonderful man. All these years in broadcasting, both radio and television, you've got to share a story of something. Maybe, I don't know, an embarrassing moment, maybe? Do you ever have one of those? Certainly not, right? None of those ever happened to you. Oh, no, nothing like that. No. Oh, my goodness. I don't know where you start with that. There are just so many of them, you know, missteps that you can make, especially in live radio. Oh, goodness. Yeah.
Yeah, and we were live. I mean, bloopers, I think, meant a little more back then because we were a little more formal. It was not quite the fault or all that you have today in the radio. And so when you made a mistake, it came back to haunt you. You know, I'd been there, I think, two weeks, and I said, well, my colleague Orion Sabielson is up in Escobana, Michigan, and one of the engineers at the keep, that's Escanaba. Yeah.
Well, let's get back to our theme of Thanksgiving here, and that is a salute to American farmers. And again, you know these folks so well. They look up to you, and you certainly look up to them. There's no question about that, Max. But what makes this breed so special? There's a farm family, and I guess I just have to use examples.
Because of families that I know, there's a family of brothers, three brothers who farm in Northern Indiana and their sons now farm with them. Those guys came out of a family of 11, I believe. And, you know, their faith permeates everything they do.
And it comes through. And these guys, I mean, they're just moving all the time. Like many farm families, they've divided up the responsibilities on the farm. One of them will handle the grain marketing. One of them handles the swine operation there. And they just pull together everything.
And there was an article I was reading about them after I'd gotten to know them. They come up to me at shows all the time. It's the three brothers are always together. They're always smiling. And they greet me so warmly. You can't forget them. And it's just an example of what you see. In any business, there are folks who struggle, who have difficulties, and it's a challenge for them. These guys, and I'm sure they've...
They've had challenges. They meet them. They smile with them. They don't have disagreements, they said in a recent interview, because they just...
They talk together, and they know the ultimate goal, and that's to keep the farm and the family and to serve the Lord. And so it's just neat to meet these family operators. You know, we talk so much about corporate farms today, and you hear a lot about corporate farms taking over agriculture. We are watching closely corporate investment in rural areas and the buying of farmland and foreign investment in farmland.
but let there be no mistake about it. We still have a lot of great family operations. They may have incorporated for tax purposes, Wayne, but they're still very much
family businesses they meet around the kitchen table on a weekly basis and and plan what they're doing for the week in many instances so i i guess the family farm i would say is still in very good hands yeah this generational aspect it means so much to me but i i think it is changing rapidly because of the economic forces here i mean land is so expensive equipment is so expensive
There's a lot of pressure, you know, there's development that eats up farmland. So I appreciate hearing a story like that. I know there are lots of them still out there and we just are thankful for them. That's one of the things we're thankful for here at Thanksgiving time, Max. So, hey, thanks for talking about these things. Again, you can read Max's book, More Stories from the Heartland. We'll put information about how to get the book out there.
book in our program notes at firstpersoninterview.com. But you conclude the book the way I want to conclude this interview, Max, and that's with a very special final word, I guess. You say, and now this, the last two pages of your book. And I wonder, can I ask you just to share that with us right now? I think it's what we need to hear here at Thanksgiving.
Oh, I'd be honored, Wayne. I tried to think of the right way to end the book. And how do you do that other than if you're a thankful person as I am? You try to convey that in some way. And I've often called this my book of thanksgiving, just as my first one was, because I'm so thankful for the people I've been around, the folks I've met along the way, the industry that I've been involved in, but especially the family into which I was born and the church family in which I grew up. So, and now this.
I've often referred to stories of the heartland as my book of Thanksgiving, and I hope that came across in many of these accounts I have shared, because, my goodness, no one has more reason to be thankful than I do.
I'm not abundantly grateful because I simply do not pray well or at least not out loud in public.
It is the case when the prayer needs to be delivered vocally, thanking our almighty God for the endless blessings he has bestowed upon us. I guess I'm fearful someone will think I'm pompous or pretentious while pretending to be pious. I often stammer or stutter in my oral prayer, seemingly apologetic. I'm far more efficient in my private moments of prayer and always start those with my listing of things for which I'm most thankful—
But whether in public or private, that must always be a greatly abbreviated list because I have, in fact, so many things for which to give thanks. And do you think it is harder today to be thankful? Oh, from the raucous, amped-up, partisan malarkey, as I guess I would call it, being spouted in the never-ending news cycle, one might conclude there are fewer things for which we should be grateful. But I would argue that the need for gratitude is unchanging and everlasting.
and that if each of us will set aside some undistracted quiet moments, regardless of our faith or our walk in life, that just the attitude and the acts of thankfulness will engender a mindset that brings even more blessings. Is that possible? Oh, I know so. I see it every day.
I really do, Wayne. I see it every day. So I can speak with confidence about that. That's such a powerful conclusion to Max's book that I had to ask him to share it with us as we approach Thanksgiving. I would add, give thanks to the Lord and forget none of his benefits. Our guest has been Max Armstrong and his book, his second stories book, is called More Stories from the Heartland. We place a link to the book so you can find it easily at FirstPersonInterview.com.
These programs are made possible through the support of the Far East Broadcasting Company, who is thankful for our many friends and supporters. FEBC reaches deep into the world's difficult-to-penetrate countries with the gospel, training listeners in God's Word and helping to build churches. Take a few moments to hear some of the outstanding stories of how God is using radio to accomplish His kingdom purposes. Go to febc.org. ♪
Now, with thanks to my friend and producer, Joe Carlson, I'm Wayne Shepherd. Join us next week, at this time, for First Person.