Richard Woodfin: A Century of Memories

In 1900, when Richard O. Woodfin was born in Pleasant Gap, Missouri, he had no idea what the next 101 years would bring. But he celebrated his 101st birthday last December and can say that in looking back, it has been a life full of adventure.

Before Richard was two years old, the Woodfin family moved from Missouri to a Kansas homestead in a covered wagon, and by the time he was five, he had learned to plow and manage a team of horses. From life in a dugout, the family moved to Oklahoma, where he started school and saw his first airplane, and then to Colorado, where his family purchased a farm near Cheyenne Wells that, according to the real-estate agent, could "grow cheese on a cactus."

Woodfin attended Horns High School on the Colorado A&M campus in between employment as a lettuce hauler, wheat stacker, milk tester, and railroad worker (at $6 a day). After graduation in 1923, he attended Colorado A&M, where he was a member of the first freshman class to haul rocks up the hill to make the white-washed "A." After graduation in 1928, he got a job as a vocational agriculture teacher in Nebraska for a salary of $175/month.

In 1930, he submitted an application to be a County Agricultural Agent in Colorado, and shortly after, started as a County Agent in Ordway (Crowley County), where he remembers his office was in the jail and his salary was $2,200/year. He met Irene Carpenter there when she came to pick up her mother at a home demonstration meeting; they were married in June 1931. Times were tough then--a vote to cut taxes meant a job abolishment, and a move to Fremont County--and in just a few months that job also was abolished. While out of work from 1931 to 1932, he hauled vegetables, pounded nails, sold insurance, until he found a job in Denver as a milk tester.

Still pursuing a career as an Extension Agent, he applied and got a job for $125/month as the Kit Carson County Agent. He remembers the Farm Bureau purchasing a 120-volt generator and 100 feet of electrical cord to run a motion picture projector--all carried in his car--to bring information on electrification to rural residents. He attended monthly community meetings "where the real extension work was done." He helped with farm management, land-use planning, and a five-year ag production study to determine what it would take to net $2,400 a year. During this time, he and Irene had three children. In 1944, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the Colorado County Agents Association, of which he served as treasurer, secretary, vice president and president.

In 1946 he transferred to the Mesa County Agent position. His tasks were to organize a county Farm Bureau and community committees to pursue high-quality domestic water, and to provide educational programs on farm management, livestock, home economics, pest control, soil and crops. Woodfin retired in Jan 1962, and became Farm Director for KREX radio. In 1966 he was elected State Representative for Mesa County. He is an avid CSU fan, and a member of the CSU Alumni 50-Year Club. He established the Woodfin Family 4-H Scholarship and still attends the National County Agents Association Convention.

--Wendy Douglass

For more information, contact your local Colorado State University Extension office.

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