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Saturday, November 22, 2008
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News Detail
Call of farm life proves strong
9/3/2008 12:01:54 PM
By Leslie Reed
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
STATE FAIR PARK -- Even after generations away from the farm, the love of agriculture can run deep in the genes.
Kane Warren, 17, a senior at Blair High School, says he's wanted to be a farmer since he was a little boy.
It's not something his father, a software salesman, or even his grandfather, an oil and fuel supplier, taught him. His closest farming ancestor is his great-grandfather. In fact, Kane's the one who got his city-boy father Jeff Warren hooked on raising and showing livestock.
Kane is among 1,400 youths competing in 4-H livestock shows today and Monday at the Nebraska State Fair.
He will show two crossbred fat steers, Teddy and D.J., who weigh about 1,200 pounds each, in today's Market Division contest. He might show his 275-pound crossbred pig, Nocab (bacon spelled backward) on Monday.
It's a funny story about that pig.
Julene Warren, Kane's mother, said her boy bought the hog without telling his folks. It took him three weeks to fess up, she says.
"His dad says, 'No pigs,''' Julene said. "But then I'm looking at Kane's checkbook one night and wondering 'What's this check for?'''
Kane told her he had been keeping the blue-butted pig, for which he paid $450, at a buddy's place. Kane maintains that he told his parents what he was going to do. They must not have been listening, he says.
"My parents seem to be hard of hearing,'' he said. "I told my mom that, in the spring, I was going to buy the pig from my friend. They said yes, but three weeks later they acted like they had no clue.''
Both Kane and his mom agree that Nocab, who now lives happily in a barn on the Warren acreage near Blair, has become a favorite of former pig-hater Jeff Warren.
"Before this, Dad always complained about pigs. He said they would smell and they'd tear up the place,'' Kane said.
"Now he might be more hooked on the show pig than the cattle. He loves the pig. He feeds it marshmallows and walks it. The pig has a personality. He's a character.''
Jeff Warren said he likes the pig, which was the grand champion at the Washington County Fair, but he doesn't plan to get another. His son agreed.
"One show pig is enough,'' Kane said.
The family will say goodbye to Nocab this week. The pig will be sold to Hormel Co. for slaughter after the swine show.
"We shed a lot of tears the first year we had the cattle (go to slaughter),'' recalled Jeff Warren. "We'll see how many tears we shed when Nocab goes.''
Kane says it's a part of the business that you have to get used to if you're going to be a farmer. He said his cattle and his pig lived longer and in more comfortable conditions than they would have if they hadn't been show animals.
Julene Warren said her husband was puzzled when Kane came to them at age 8 or 9 and asked to get involved with 4-H livestock programs.
"My husband was just a city kid who played baseball. All of a sudden, he's got this farm kid who wanted to show cattle.''
Kane joined the Orum Feeders 4-H Club, which was founded almost 60 years ago by his great-grandfather, cattle feeder Everett Stork, 93. Orum is a village west of Blair. Kane also is a member of the Blair Future Farmers of America.
Jeff Warren said he and his wife started Kane in showmanship events, which focus more on the skills of the animal's handler than on the quality of the animal, to avoid the expense of buying top-quality animals capable of winning shows.
Kane has gotten so good at "fixing'' show cattle -- lingo for trimming their hair and grooming them -- that adults hire him to help with their cattle come State Fair time.
Jeff Warren, who sells software for Planet Consulting in Omaha, was raised in Blair. The couple lived there early in their marriage. They later lived in Omaha, where he worked as agency manager for Farm Bureau Insurance.
When Kane was 1 and his older brother Clay was 3, the Warrens realized they had a couple of country kids on their hands. They bought 19 acres near Blair, where they built a house and, eventually, two barns.
Their original plan was to keep horses for pleasure riding, but the horses have been crowded out by Kane's cattle.
Clay, 19, a freshman at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, loves to hunt deer and can sit in a tree for 10 hours with a bow and arrow -- but he doesn't want anything to do with farming, said Julene.
Kane plans to farm, even though his parents have no farm to hand down to him. He said he expects to attend the University of Nebraska School of Technical Agriculture at Curtis next year.
Meanwhile, he's building a small cow-calf herd. He owns six cows, four baby calves and three market calves that he hopes to eventually leverage into enough money to buy his own ground. Kane also worked three years for a man with 1,500 acres who raises hogs.
"I'm going to end up farming and ranching down the road,'' he said. "As long as I can remember, that's all I wanted to do.''
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