By MICHELE F. MIHALJEVICH
Indiana Correspondent LAGRANGE, Ind. — The idea behind Dan Prough’s latest invention came thanks to an offhand comment from his youngest son.
Last fall, Prough and his son Logan were greasing equipment in their pole barn. It was difficult to see and they didn’t want to pull the equipment out because it was raining.
Logan was holding the flashlight for his father and made reference to battery tools that now come with small lights to help the operators see what they’re doing. He asked his father, “Why can’t they put that on a grease gun?”
Prough started thinking about how to do it and came up with a solution that suited him. He attached a rifle scope mount to the handle on the top of his heavy-duty grease gun, and then put a small flashlight in the mount. The result, an illuminating grease gun, provides light when and where he needs it.
Not only did the idea suit Prough, but it also suited the American Farm Bureau Federation, which earlier this year gave Prough its grand prize in the Farmer Idea Exchange competition.
“For the contest, they’re looking for simple things that anyone can do,” Prough said. “At the competition, someone had wagons using hydraulics to pick up bales of hay. That’s not what they’re looking for, and I think that’s what helped us win.”
This isn’t the Prough family’s first time to enter the contest, as this was their fourth time to go to state and their third time in the national competition.
“We’re always looking for ideas,” Prough said. “And we pretty much know what they’re looking for. But it was kind of cool this time, because you come up with these ideas but never win. After you do that a few times, people start to treat you like you’re a fruitcake.”
Prough’s previous entries in the competition were a combination hitch that could use either a trailer ball or wagon pin, brackets for mirrors so what’s happening in a spreader buggy can be seen from the tractor cab, and a way to set up finely chopped straw in windrows to be more easily baled.
The prize for their win in the competition is one year’s use of a New Holland T-6050 tractor.
Prough and his wife Lisa are on the LaGrange Farm Bureau board.
In addition to Logan, they have a son Ethan and a daughter Amanda.
The family raises beef cattle and farms 300 acres of hay and wheat.
The American Farm Bureau Federation looks at several factors in determining which idea will be chosen best at its annual meeting, said Matt Scramlin, director of leadership development for the organization.
“We consider the ease of developing the idea, the ease of understanding,” he said. “We also look at the cost versus benefit and the innovativeness. And his idea had a good mix of these things.”
Prough’s idea was one of 36 entered in the competition, which has existed about 20 years.
The ideas are judged by a panel including the sponsor and staff from state farm bureaus.
Prough said not everyone he’s shared his idea with has raved about it.
“Farmers are the best criticizers,” he said. “If there’s a way to say there’s something wrong with it, they do. They say it’s my wife’s job to hold the flashlight, or why not just clip a light to your hat.”
Some local newspapers, radio stations and farm magazines have done stories on his idea, and Prough hoped someone would contact him about trying to manufacture it.
“We talked to a patent lawyer and it costs $1,500 just to get the patent process started, and you could have $6,000 to $8,000 in it before you ever get your patent,” he said.
Prough hasn’t ruled out trying to win the competition again if the right idea comes along.
“As far as I know, no one has ever won it twice,” he said.
“But in the end, the whole idea about the convention is networking and to talk to people about their ideas.” |
