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Sfrwck by fha baauty of a pair of colHmt th» Cheathamt taw In 



Ohio during fheir hoftaymoon th»y brought thorn hem* Mrlth thom. 



Hera Kannath play* wifh tham In hl< yard. 



America's Star 

 Farmer of 1948 



Illinois Youth's Career 

 Shotvs That Chief Ingredient 

 Of Success on Shotv Grounds 

 Is Hard Work and Plenty of It 



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ii 



I 



DON'T think they believed it." 



America's outstanding young 



farmer laughed heartily as he 



recalled a visit to his farm by a 



group of young Future Farmers. 



Their instructor had told the FFA 



boys they were about to visit the farm of 



Kenneth L. Cheatham, America's Star 



Farmer of 1948. 



"I guess they expected to find every- 

 thing in tip-top shape," the 19-year-old 

 Bond county youth said, "but they came 

 just after I moved here. Everything was 

 run down. The buildings were badly in 

 need of fixing and the driveway was 

 covered with weeds. 



"They looked at me a bit suspiciously 

 when they left," he chuckled. "I guess 

 they wondered if the judges in Kansas 

 City really knew all the facts." 



The boys would no doubt be startled 

 at the changes in the farm near Smiths- 

 boro if they should visit it a year later 

 because Cheatham appears to thrive best 

 when there is plenty of work to be done. 

 He joined the Bond County Farm Bureau 

 early in his farming career and is a mem- 

 ber of his township membership com- 

 mittee. 



The youth who brought national re- 

 nown to Illinois last November at the 

 FFA convention in Kansas City grew up 

 in Greenville and Alton and spent the 

 summers on the farm of his grandparents, 

 Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Cheatham of near 

 Smithsboro. His parents separated and 

 he went to live with his grandparents 

 about the time he was attending high 

 school. His father now runs a trucking 

 concern at Greenville and his mother 

 lives in Los Angeles. 



Kenneth loved farm life and studied 

 vocational agriculture with a great deal 

 of enthusiasm. His first project was a 

 purebred Ohio Improved Chester gilt 

 which he bought with $20 he saved. 

 The gilt farrowed 10 pigs. Five were 

 gilts which he held back to start a pure- 

 bred herd. 



He started a system of records on the 

 dairy herd of 14 Holsteins. Up before 

 five every morning he milked the cows, 

 went to school in Greenville and returned 



By JIM THOMSON 



Asi't Editor, lAA Record 



to Start the milking again at 5 p.m. He 

 had to give up high school athletics but 

 played at night with an FFA basketball 

 team which lost only three of 18 games 

 played. 



Grandad furnished the boy with the 

 incentive he needed, supplying him with 

 feed and occasionally one or two live- 

 stock for his work. He went through 

 the four-year high school course in three 

 years. In his sophomore year he bought 

 a Brown Swiss cow and Grandfather 

 Cheatham gave him four grade Holsteins 

 for summer work. 



By the end of his high school career 

 when he was 16 years old Ken owned 

 five cows, four heifer calves, and 16 bred 

 gilts, all OIC purebreds. And that's not 

 all. In his sophomore year he rented 40 

 acres to grow soybeans. Grasshoppers, 

 however, took over and he had a crop 

 failure. Only temf)orarily discouraged 

 he bought 36 acres, planted 16 to soy- 

 beans and 20 to corn. The beans yielded 

 27 bushels to the acre and sold for $3.21 

 a bushel. The corn averaged 65 bushels. 

 The land cost $75 an acre. He thinks 

 it's worth $135 now. 



In 1946 he decided to go to the Col- 



{Continued on page 25) 



loff: Kenneth Cheatham got his ttart with one pig and hog raiting ramaint one of his most Important activities. Right: The Cheathams 



look over lols' chickens. 



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