50 Years Of FARM SHOW Really Flew By!

50 Years Of FARM SHOW Really Flew By! By Lorn Manthey, Contributing Editor I was working at a Minneapolis ad agency when Harold Johnson launched FARM SHOW Magazine 50 years ago. I’d met Harold, a 30-year veteran ag writer, and knew he had “the right stuff” for success, so I wasn’t among the naysayers who expected it to fold after a few issues. Even though the first issue of FARM SHOW didn’t have any subscribers or accept advertising, it had Harold’s eye for what farmers and backyard builders wanted to read about. And it still does. Over the past half-decade, well over 100 ag magazines have withered away or slimmed down, as if on a weight-watching diet. Not FARM SHOW. It never has and never will. Of the hundreds of people I’ve interviewed for stories over the past 36 years, most confess to reading each issue, six times a year, cover to cover. Amazingly, others have saved nearly every issue for “future reference.” Their porches and basements might be full of back issues, but their minds are full of ideas. FARM SHOW is successful because it’s unlike any other publication. Clever and unusual inventions, “best and worst buys,” “money-making ideas,” and Ag World features captivate readers. Many of those stories have been compiled into special-topic books. Every story since issue number one is available to subscribers on the FARM SHOW website. In the early 1990s, I visited Mark Newhall and asked about three large boxes in his office. “They’re VHS, Hi-8 and Super 8 tapes, still pictures, and audio tapes that readers send in,” Mark said. I asked if I could look through them and see if I could make a “Best of FARM SHOW” video. “Great,” he said. “We’ll give it a ‘plug’ in our fall mailing and see what happens.” In less than a year, FARM SHOW readers had ordered nearly 40,000 copies of the first-ever 90-minute “Best of FARM SHOW” on VHS. “My kids played it so often that the tape broke,” one viewer wrote. Versions two, three and four came next, followed by a DVD over the next eight years. The dawn of YouTube and phone cameras ended that run, but it was sure fun while it lasted. FARM SHOW is proof there’s no such thing as a bird-brained idea that can’t be turned into an interesting story. Guys have put loaders on old combines, installed 12-cyl. engines in Ford 9Ns, converted metal grain bins into gorgeous houses, and built locomotives from scratch. And that’s just a sniff of what’s appeared in FARM SHOW issues. These days, advancing technology makes it much easier for us writers to dig up unusual story leads and locate people off the grid. One old-timer told me, “I don’t like those fancy phones; send me what you write by mail, and I’ll call you on my landline. You know what that is, sonny?” “Of course,” I said, “our office still answers every call on one of those.” That friendly service, an amazing group of writers, and tremendously loyal readers have helped make the publication successful. Thanks, FARM SHOW, for 50 years of quirky stories, corny Sven and Ole jokes, Liberty Quotes, “Best Buys,” and great stories you’ve published. Keep the presses rolling. Like thousands of others, I’ll be reading every issue cover to cover!

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