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Baugh, McGaughey win Ag Day honors
When it comes time for the Ag Day committee to select the winners of the annual Friend of the Farmer and Ag Hall of Fame awards each year, the choice is difficult enough.
After the selection comes the really hard part, tricking the honorees into getting to the Ag Breakfast without tipping them off.
"We don't tell them," committee member and award presenter Darrel Thomas said Saturday morning. "We're pretty devious."
The 2013 awards, sponsored by Farm Bureau, were a special kind of challenge, with one winner landing in the hospital on Friday night and the other having to be strongly encouraged to attend -- in a phone call from Florida.
Lauralee Baugh is the 2013 Friend of the Farmer, and she made it to the ceremony in spite of a Friday-evening health scare.
Dale McGaughey was named the 2013 Ag Hall of Fame winner, and he was at the annual Ag Day breakfast while his sons were busy enjoying the warm weather of spring break.
"The Friend of the Farmer is lucky to be here," Thomas said, introducing his fellow retired Purdue Extension educator.
All the groundwork had been laid to get Baugh to the breakfast with no suspicion. Thomas had tracked her down after a recent Rotary meeting to ask her to help him make coffee for the breakfast.
"I've worked with the Ag Breakfast before," Baugh said. "Darrel said he didn't have enough help."
Her alarm was already set for 5 a.m., but at about 7:30 p.m. Friday, things "went into a spin" for Baugh.
While out for dinner, she began to feel ill -- so much so that she had to leave a local restaurant on a stretcher.
At the hospital, a few tests revealed the problem was serious, dehydration, but corrected easily enough.
So on Saturday morning, getting Baugh to the breakfast was still a scramble. She tried to sleep in, but got a call from friend Sandy Jessup, who had to spill the beans.
Baugh made it, not feeling great, but feeling she owed it to the committee and past winners to accept the award in person.
"When I see all of you (past winners) stand up, I'm very honored to join you," Baugh said.
Baugh officially served as county extension educator from 2002 through 2008, but she simply describes that era as the time she got paid. She's actually been involved in extension for 59 years, ever since she was old enough to join 4-H.
Baugh remains active working with the shooting sports project and extension homemakers.
Even when late husband Jim Baugh was serving in the U.S. Air Force in Guam, they managed to get a small 4-H program going.
"I've lived in the city. I've lived on Guam. I've lived all over the world," Baugh said. "But I'm a farm girl. I realize that is where the base is."
In McGaughey's case, the beans were never exactly spilled, but he had his suspicions about what was going on Saturday. His sons Brandon, a doctor of physical education at Purdue, and Brent, a senior at Purdue, were both on spring break, so there was no one available to take him to the breakfast.
One of them did call him earlier in the week telling his dad he really thought he should go.
"I had an inkling something might be going on," the Russell Township farmer said. "But I though maybe a close friend was getting an award."
Even when his suspicions were confirmed, McGaughey was self-deprecating.
"I'm not sure what the criteria is for this, but I have a felling that it has something to do with longevity," the lifelong farmer said. "I'm not really comfortable with personal accolades, but I really appreciate being selected for it."
Besides his years of farming, McGaughey also spent 18 years on the North Putnam School Board.
He said farming has been in his family for as far as he can trace -- clear back to his great-great-grandfather.
Son Brent will graduate from Purdue this year (like his dad did in 1975) and join Dale in the family business, so farming will stay in the family for at least one more generation.
At an event with a 2013 theme of "Generations Nourishing Generations," choosing the fifth of six generations of farmers for the Ag Hall of Fame seems fitting.