As the 40th annual Farm-City Days unfolds this week, much of the reason that it exists can be laid at Gary Parker’s doorstep south of LaHarpe.
He and wife Janice will be honored as grand marshals during this year’s event, along with Paul and Dorothy Setter and Leon and Dorothy Catron.
Sometime before the first festival in June 1971, Parker, then president of the Allen County Farm Bureau, learned about public events elsewhere to better acquaint city folks with farm issues, such as equipment, input costs and all that goes into planting, raising and harvesting a crop.
Also, he thought, people living in town and owners of businesses had problems and concerns that escaped farmers, simply because they didn’t deal with them each day. All the better to bring them together to share and learn, Parker surmised.
He approached Allen County Farm Bureau and Iola Chamber of Commerce. The response was enthusiastically positive.
The effort also was gender neutral, Parker’s wife, Janice, pointed out.
“The (Farm Bureau) women’s chairman and a lot women members were involved from the start,” she said.
For the first Farm-City Days celebration, then in June, two farm families, the Parkers and Setters, volunteered to host tours of their farms.
Setter’s dairy and Parker’s farm, a handful of miles apart, drew an inquisitive crowd.
“We served pork burgers donated by Jim and Dorothy Strong (rural Moran),” Parker said. Hay racks carried visitors about the farms.
Afterward, planning for a second F-C Days started and successive ones came off like clockwork.
The farm tours remained a part, as did tours of businesses and industries, for several years.
Eventually, the crush of preparing a farm for a tour during wheat harvest and when row crops were being planted brought about a change in the routine.
“Also, we just ran out of farms to tour,” Parker said, with organizers reluctant to ask owners of those already shown to go to the effort of being a host a second time.
The festival was shifted to mid-October, when weather usually is mild and inviting with the bulk of activities, including the signature parade, in downtown Iola.
Parker said diversity of farm and town lifestyles continued to be a topic explored through interaction at Friday night’s pork burger feed, sponsored by the Farm Bureau.
