By ANN ALLEN
Indiana Correspondent

COLUMBIA CITY, Ind. — A man instrumental in getting the county’s Ag Museum built, a collector of Sheppard Diesel tractors and a long-time president of the Sheppard Diesel Club – that’s Lynn Klingaman.

“Lynn’s been a community guy for a lot of years,” Otto Boggs said in a statement that seemed to sum up all of Whitley County’s feeling for Klingaman,

Diagnosed in March with pulmonary fibrosis – a hardening of the tissue of the lungs that makes oxygen absorption difficult – Klingaman recently sold many of his grain bins, shop equipment and even his Sheppard signs, literature, toys and collectibles.
“I’m not down and out; I’m downsizing,” he told fellow collectors.
Nevertheless, in a close-knit rural community like his, compassion ran high, prompting Trent Smith, a collector of steam-powered equipment, to organize a plow day.

“It’s something I do every year, anyway,” Smith said, with a shrug. “We don’t have a club; we just like to get together and swap stories and plow. I decided this year we’d do it for Lynn. He wouldn’t hear of a benefit, so we called it a tribute.”

He could call it anything he liked: If it was for Klingaman, the community was behind him. By word of mouth and a notice in the local paper, news spread that the plow day would honor the quiet-spoken man who often said, “I just did what I wanted to do.”
Smith invited neighbors to bring any antique farm equipment as a way of honoring Klingaman for his hard work and dedication to preserving, educating and enjoying the agricultural past. By the time everyone gathered at Smith’s farm on Oct. 18, it looked like an antique tractor show – steam engines, hit-and-miss displays and old tractors of every variety.

It was the kind of tribute Klingaman appreciated since, thanks to his help, the county has one of the largest displays of antique farm equipment in the state at its annual 4-H fair and an Ag Museum second to none.

“I told the boys if they’d put up a building, I’d fill it with antiques,” said collector Galen Wilkinson. “I figured if we didn’t preserve them, we’d lose them.”

The 4-H board agreed. Ron Myer, president at the time, added, “We got a bunch of grants ($50,000 from the Hester Adams Trust and some individual grants) and put Lynn in charge of construction.”

Armed with $100,000 cash, Klingaman and co-workers put up a shell and then applied for and received a $126,000 grant from the Dekko Foundation. Klingaman spent five or six months during the winter of 2006 finishing the inside of the building, complete with loft and walnut, butternut and cherry wainscoting that he planed and finished inside the building.

He also installed the heating-cooling system and designed a mural that Beth Darley painted.

While the board pitched in and did a lot of work themselves, Klingaman organized the process and obtained the materials that enabled construction of 10 learning centers.

“Adults are as interested in the past as the kids are,” Myer said, estimating that at least 1,000 youngsters have passed through the $350,000 center.

When Klingaman proposed an antique tractor display at the fair 25 years ago, 30 tractors showed up. “That increased to over 50 the next year and then to 80 to 90 the next year,” Wilkinson said. “We’ve had as high as 150.”

Best of all, according to Klingaman’s wife, Joyce, the same tractors don’t show up every year.

“The show is always different,” she said. “The hardest thing Lynn had to do this year was sitting back and watching other people put on the show.”

He’s also had to cut back on his involvement with the Sheppard Diesel Club that he started in 1995, and with the Maumee Valley Steam and Gas Assoc. But Sheppard enthusiasm is still in his blood.

“He never farmed with them,” Joyce said, “but he certainly did like them.”

According to Klingaman, he saw a Sheppard tractor in 1949 and suggested his father buy one. It didn’t happen.

Klingaman eventually farmed – he was one of the first in the county to use a diesel tractor – worked as a millwright and as an insurance adjuster. Along the way, he and Joyce raised four children, none of whom were especially active in 4-H; however, that didn’t slow his interest in the 4-H fair.

By the end of Oct. 18, steam engine, antique tractors and a covey of garden tractors accomplished much plowing. There’d been bluegrass music, sawing demonstrations and a threshermen’s lunch of roast pork, hot dogs, salads, beans and dozens of homemade pies and cakes, all furnished by neighbors and friends. Best of all, Smith was able to present a sizable amount of money to the man who modestly said he intends to just keep plugging along – pulmonary fibrosis or no.