SEGMENT: FARM BUSINESS, FARM-RELATED WORK, & COLLEGE EDUCATION
Myles Harston>LPL Interviews A-M>LPL Interviews A-J, Segment 9
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- RELIGION
- Found his missionary work very memorable, especially some of the landscapes. He was on mission from January 1972 to December 1974.
- COLLEGE EDUCATION
- After the mission work, he moved back to the US to Illinois, where his family had moved. The original farm was in Champaign, IL. He went to Parkland Community College for a while, then he went to Brigham Young University in Provo, UT, where he majored in animal science. Met his wife Nancy Forrest from Boston at BYU.
- FARM BUSINESS
- When he returned from college the family was breeding Arabian horses, which was quite a trendy way to invest money. When the tax laws changed to disadvantage horse breeders, his family had to sell off their business. The family had over 100 horses. They moved the farm to McLean County. After the crash, horses bought at the beginning of 1984 couldn't be sold for 10% of what they had been paid for by the end of the year. A good stallion could be sold for over $1 million in the beginning and couldn't be sold for $50,000 by the end of the year.
- FARM-RELATED WORK
- He took a job with AgriCovers in 1985. The company made covers for grain bins. They were located in Gridley, IL. The government had been subsidizing grain storage. AgriCovers made about 40 grain bins across the US and in Haiti and Puerto Rico. When the government stopped subsidizing them, they began looking for other places. He met Mike Frinsko from Illinois State University, who started the Illinois State Fish Breeding Program, using cinderblock brick as tanks.
