Plenty Of Rounds Left In These Combines

By Jennifer M. Latzke

A central Kansas wheat field, two combines roar to life and start to make the rounds, slowly bringing in the harvest.

Now, this in itself is not an unusual sight for Kansas in mid-June. But what is unusual is the models of combines that are moving through that field. They don’t gleam in the June sunshine with fresh green or red paint. Actually, the factory paint jobs on the 1979 model White 8900 and the 1973 model Oliver 7600 lost their lusters a decade or so ago. They may be noisier, dustier and come with fewer gadgets and doodads than today’s combines, but these two machines have something those new models can’t imagine—experience.

And maybe that’s why Rowe Garrett, of Woodbine, Kansas, keeps using them to cut the family’s wheat fields decade after decade.

On this particularly scorching June day, Garrett runs the White combine while his grandson Andrew Martinez runs the Oliver and his son-in-law Thomas Blake hauls grain into the local elevator in Woodbine.