And that reserved optimism is what the Darke County farmer said kept him in business for nearly 60 years.
On Oct. 25, Terry Warner harvested his last crop of corn on land that surrounds his two-story farmhouse on Ohio 571 in Franklin Twp.
He’s retiring from farming before he turns 80 in January, and it was only fitting on that last day that his red International Case combine, which still shines after multiple days in the field, died in his gravel driveway.
“I knew I was close, but I ran out of gas right there. I had a little bit more luck than sense on that day. I think it was a sign,” Warner said with a chuckle from his kitchen table in the home he has shared with his wife, Diane, since 1964.
In January, it will have been 40 years since Dayton Daily News features editor Mickey Davis profiled the Warners and their family in a four-part series on the seasons on the farm.
A lot has changed since then, but if you’re a farmer, not a lot has changed in getting the job done.
Living on the farm
For 60 years, Terry Warner got out of bed somewhere between 4 and 4:30 a.m. each day to attend to his farm, and that hasn’t changed much in retirement.
“No one said life was going to be easy. It’s just something you do to get the job done. It’s a part of life,” Warner said.
When the Dayton Daily News first featured the Warners, their children Nonnie and Noelle were teenagers, and Shane was the youngest at age 8.
All of their children helped work on the farm and earned enough money to buy their first cars.
Nonnie and Noelle still live about two miles away from their parents as the crow flies in the Franklin Monroe school district, and Shane lives in Granville, near Columbus.
The Warners have 10 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. A recent holiday family gathering involving aunts, uncles and cousins had attendance around 75.
Family has always been a big part of the Warners’ farm, but it’s something that also brings a little sadness to Terry Warner.
None of his children or grandchildren got into farming, and they won’t be taking over the farm.
Nonnie works in childcare; Noelle works in the Tri-County North school district, and Shane is employed in the IT industry.
“It’s kind of sad, but I don’t blame any of them. Farming is not for everyone, but it’s something you call your own,” Terry Warner said.
The Warners own 365 acres on five different farms within 10 miles of their Darke County home, which sits about an hour northwest of Dayton. Next year, a lot of the land will be leased and farmed by Noelle’s husband, Brian Rhoades.
Always lived on the farm
Terry and Diane Warner have lived on farms their entire lives. Their parents were farmers and they started dating in junior high at Franklin Monroe, one of the smallest schools in the Dayton region.
Neither has lived outside of Darke County, except for two years when Terry Warner served in the Army during the Vietnam War.
Next year will be their 60th wedding anniversary. The secret to their success?
“I was always in the field. She never had to see me,” Terry Warner said with a laugh.
“You have to live with the bad and the good,” Diane said.
Before going to Vietnam, Terry Warner worked for a while at Hobart in Troy and NCR in Dayton. When he returned from Vietnam, Warner began leasing land from his dad and Diane’s father.
For more than 20 years, the Warners farmed tobacco, which was a very laborious but profitable crop. They’ve always farmed corn and soybeans too. But tobacco is what always took a lot of help from family and neighbors.
Terry Warner and his twin brother, Larry, and his brothers-in-laws, Dean and Kent Thompson, worked tobacco fields together.
The Warners had 10-acre tobacco fields and often in the winter, they would deliver more than 1,800 pounds of dried tobacco to the National Leaf Tobacco Co. in Miamisburg.
“It was a great time,” Diane Warner said. “The family kids and all the neighbor kids would work in the fields. We would cook big meals and everyone would eat together. It was our own work-out gym.”
Diane Warner said things changed after they stopped growing tobacco, along with similar changes in society.
“You hardly see your neighbors now. People don’t get together like they used to,” said Diane, who was a school bus driver for 18 years.
The couple still go to church at Trinity Lutheran Church in Pitsburg, where they first attended when they were kids. Both sang in the choir at some point and Terry was a trustee.
Pitsburg still has no stop light, and its biggest business is the grain elevator in town. The only restaurant/bar in town has been closed for years, but new owners have plans to open soon.
“We’ve always been here. I still feel safe here and it’s been a great place to raise a family,” Diane Warner said.
Retirement and future of farming
Terry Warner, wearing his favorite John Deere hat, was outside in 30-degree temperatures cleaning his farm equipment on the day of his interview with the Dayton Daily News.
It always feels 10 degrees colder in Darke County than Dayton because of the flat land with little elevation ... where you can see white farm houses and barns dotting the landscape for miles.
“That’s never bothered me. For me, I started knowing it was time to retire when it gets harder to get out of bed without holding on to something,’ Warner said.
“I also don’t have that fire to get out there like I used to. The fun has sort of stopped. Don’t get me wrong though, there’s nothing more I ever wanted to do than farm.”
Technology has changed a lot in farming and made it easier for farmers, but also more complicated for some to adapt to the technology.
In years past, Warner would have plowed a field for three days to get it ready for planting. Now, they pull the planter out and drill the seeds into the ground, saving on erosion and time.
“Now you have tractors and combines that cost more than $400,000, driving themselves and telling you when to drop seeds and how much,” Warner said.
He feels sorry for young people who want to get into farming.
“It’s nearly impossible if you don’t have someone helping you out,” he said.
Farm land costs $15,000 an acre now. It was $3,000 an acre 40 years ago, Terry Warner said.
And the prices for crops haven’t changed as dramatically.
Compared to 40 years ago, corn was $3.50 a bushel then compared to $4.75 now. And soybeans are $13 a bushel now, compared to $8 back then.
“The profit margins are tough if you’re starting out with loans and where the interest rates are now,” Warner said.
The no-plow technique has saved farmers on gas prices, but the cost of seeds and fertilizer has negated that savings.
Optimism is as vital to a farmer’s welfare, Warner said, as a healthy combine.
“When weather is your biggest worry year after year, you have to have some optimism or it will drive you crazy,” he said.
Looking to the future, the Warners said they don’t have big vacation plans in retirement. Their biggest trips have been to Lake Erie and down to Florida in the past 40 years.
Terry Warner said he’ll always be around the farm.
“There have been some farmers from up north asking about buying my land, and all I know is that this land will always be in our family,” he said.
And as he looked out the window to the hardwood Maple where a tire swing once hung for his children, he said, “You can count on that.”
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