Cotton's Other Crop 



THIRTY ODD YEARS AGO, on a hot Texas June 

 morning, a painfully thin, but exceedingly wiry young 

 man walked off the campus of Baylor University. He 

 carried in his hand a crinkly parchment scroll duly 

 inscribed to Thomas Jefferson Harrell and in his head 

 the quaint notion that said Harrell was worth $5,000.00 

 a year of any prospective employer's money. Three 

 months later he was shoveling cottonseed into a storage 

 bin at an annual salary that moved the decimal point 

 precisely one digit to the left. 



Twenty-five years later another scroll was presented 

 to Thomas Jefferson Harrell. It was signed by five hun- 

 dred and twenty-four of his fellow townsmen and pro- 

 claimed him Fort Worth's citizen of the year. At the 

 banquet when this Golden Deeds Award of the Ex- 

 change Club was made, it was solemnly declared that 

 this now thickset but still galvanic man is as modest, 

 as useful, and as versatile as the cottonseed upon which 

 his career has been built. 



"Togie" Harrell is president of the Traders Oil Mill 

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