It Happened in Crawford County | Fred Miller is member of Ohio corn program board
Fred Miller was raised in Bucyrus Township on Knauss Road, son of Jim and Barbara Turney Miller. Siblings include Nancy, Penny Cuffman and brother Tom. Fred attended Mount Zion School and Wynford, where his first farm crop enterprise was 80 acres of corn, selling for 85 cents a bushel. The project was supervised by FFA adviser Jim Neff.
Fred received his State Farmer degree in production agriculture with FFA. As a member of 4-H, he won the Reserve Champion Pen of three barrows. His dad was proud the hogs were raised on their farm. Fred graduated from Wynford High School in 1973 and enrolled with the second class at the Agriculture Tech Institute, or ATI, in Wooster, a branch of the Ohio State University.
His class went to national soil judging contest in Illinois. They won first place in the individual soil judging contest. Fred graduated with honors in 1975 with an associate degree in applied science.
At ATI, Fred met his future wife, Carol Moherman, a daughter of Will and Virginia Moherman of Montgomery Township, rural Ashland. They had dairy and raised crops. Carol’s siblings are David, John, Paul and Ann. Carol went to Ashland High School, was a member of 4-H, her projects mostly sewing and cooking. She milked cows and worked in a flower shop while in school. She was the former Dairy Princess in Ashland County, and also in FFA while studying horticulture.
She graduated from Ashland High School in 1974, and received her associate degree in floriculture at ATI in 1976. She married Fred Miller that next month.
Carol ran the Miller Greenhouse on Wyandot Road for 15 years, raising poinsettias, Easter lilies, bedding plants, mums and veggie plants. In 2010 she was named Republican of the Year; received an honorary FFA degree and a few years later a 4-H volunteer award. She was a longtime 4-H adviser, helping with many projects. They are extremely active members at Mount Zion United Methodist Church. Carol also serves as secretary in the Republican Central Committee, and a seven-year board member for the board of elections, appointed to serve by John Husted.
Carol does a lot of quilting, making about seven last year, and also enjoys machine embroidery and canning jams from the berries she cultivates in her back yard.
Fred and Carol own a farming operation together named the “Little Scioto Farms.” They produced corn and soybeans, and practiced no-till, meaning the ground isn’t plowed. Other conservation practices include buffer strips, the grassy areas around the waterways. They installed grass waterways to prevent erosion and planted pollinators, plants for bees and monarch butterflies. They practice precision soil sampling so fertilizer is applied only where, and in the amount needed.
The Millers have four children. Two are part-time farmers. Tyler is the precision soil sampler and Ted helps with repairs and maintenance, and more. Crystal Forbes lives in Michigan, and Claire is a junior at the College of Wooster and will study in China next semester.
Fred served on the board of directors for Farmer’s Co-op for 15 years and 13 years on the Morral Companies Board. When the opportunity came up to serve on the Ohio Corn Marketing Program, OCMP, board of directors, he jumped at the chance and retired from two other boards.
OCMP administers the “corn check-off program” with three-quarters of a cent per bushel approved by the majority of farmers in Ohio. The program supports the Ohio Corn and Wheat Association of the National Corn Growers and US Grains Council. They invest dollars into research and development for corn and promotion of exports. Water quality issues are a priority for the OCMP. This led to membership in the US Grains Council, while their focus is export of corn, sorghum and barley.
Fred is currently the advisory team leader for the western hemisphere team. The council believes exports are vital to global economic development and to U.S. Agriculture’s profitability, www.grains.org.
Fred and Carol have traveled around the world, visiting Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico, Canada and China in six years. They had a group of Asian grain-buyers at the farm in October; they were excited to be on a working farm. The combine was running and the first person to get on it was a lady who said “me, me me.” They were the nicest group of people they ever worked with from Malaysia; Indonesia; Vietnam and the guide from the U.S. Grains Office in Kuala Lumpur.
The Millers attend meetings twice a year, giving them the opportunity to meet with some of the same people. While at the Denver summer meeting, the women visited a local food bank and helped sort food, processing about eight tons of food.
Readers, if you are interested in sharing a story, write Mary Fox, 931 Marion Road, Bucyrus, OH 44820 or email littlefoxfactory@columbus.rr.com.