55 years ago
Lightning wiped out a herd of 26 cows on a farm near Corydon, Ind. The Jerseys were registered and their value was about $5,000, and belonged to John Bye.

John Stanley Pickering of Lewisville led his Hereford steer to first place in the Henry County 4-H beef show. Byron Bales of Mooreland won showmanship honors.

Used cars for sale: 1954 Oldsmobile 88 4-door, $1,795; 1953 Olds 98 4-door, $1,495; 1953 Chevrolet 4-door, $995 – Ramsey Auto Sales, New Castle, Ind.
A report shows that 20,122 Hoosier farmers signed to retire 231,918 acres of corn land and about 1,000 other farmers agreed to retire about 10,000 acres of wheat and about 150 acres of tobacco in the Soil Bank signup for this year. Checks will be issued in September.

40 years ago
The Indiana State Fair has officially opened, starting a week earlier and is two days shorter to allow for school-age children to attend. Jacqueline Anne Fowler of Bloomington was crowned Miss Indiana State Fair.

A group of disgruntled farmers from Missouri dumped 100 truckloads of corn into the Missouri River to protest dropping corn prices.

“The West Coast dock strike is doing irreparable damage to U.S. farmers,” Secretary of Agriculture Clifford Hardin said. “Farmers are losing valuable cash markets for exports every day. Foreign buyers are turning to other sources, and it will be hard for us to win them back.”

Area residents are invited to attend an Open House at Risch’s Cackle House, located at the Lawrence Risch Farm two miles north of Connersville, Ind., on Waterloo Road. Refreshments will be served and door prizes awarded.

25 years ago

More than 50 million bushels of grain could be stored in an underground limestone quarry in Crawford County if state and federal officials approve the plan.

The Horseman of the Year award was recently bestowed upon George Wilfong, 75, of Greenfield, Ind., at the Indiana State Fair.

Triple J Seed Farms Field Day will be held at the farm of Omer Otto of Kokomo, Ind., with a lunch served.

Burley tobacco producer-members of the Growers Cooperative Assoc. now have fewer than 51 million pounds of leaf in storage after recent negotiations with the four top tobacco manufacturers.

10 years ago

Gypsy moth caterpillars defoliated a record number of acres this year as they moved into new areas of Ohio, say state officials. The leaf-eating caterpillars are moving from the northeastern part of the state into east-central counties, and oak trees are their favorite food source.

The board created to dispense Kentucky’s tobacco settlement money voted to put a chunk of it into ethanol production in grain-growing western Kentucky. A new plant, Commonwealth Agri Energy, would use 7.4 million bushels of grain per year to produce 20 million gallons of ethanol for use as a gasoline additive.
Severe thunderstorms packing high winds toppled trees across parts of northern and central Indiana, with hail as large as softballs pulverizing 1,500 acres of corn and soybeans north of the town of Oxford.

Two large dairy operations being developed by Dutch farmers should be in operation soon. The farms near DuPont and Miller City in northwestern Ohio are 75 percent complete, said John VanderHoff with VrebaHoff Dairy Development Corp., a Hudson, Mich., company developing the farms. The DuPont farm will have about 690 milking cows within three months.