Reese on his farm in Nardin, Okla.


By Anna Politano H 14


e wears a suit to work and goes about the daily business of overseeing the state’s agricultural production. He puts on a friendly smile. To him, tending to agriculture needs is not a job, it’s a lifestyle. Agriculture is his essence. When away from the


offi ce, he wears a buttoned-up, short-sleeve white shirt and goes out to work the fi elds on his farm where he produces wheat, soybeans and sor- ghum Though he holds a cabinet-level job, Secretary of Agriculture Jim Reese still fi nds time to do what he’s most passionate about: farming.


Farm training came early for Reese. The fourth-generation farmer grew up


watching his parents run a full-time dairy and wheat operation in northern Oklahoma. In his childhood years, the farmer-in-the-making not only ob- served his parents, but put his hands to the plow—literally—learning early on the particulars of farm life. From morning calls to milk cows to feeding calves and working hay machines, Reese’s young years were fi lled with mem- ories at his family farm in Nardin, Okla. “It was a typical life on the farm,” Reese, a member of Kay Electric


Cooperative, said. “My siblings and I always had jobs. During the winter we would turn the lights on in the early morning hours to feed calves before catching the school bus. We would take shifts and do whatever needed to be done.”


Undeniably, young Reese was entrenched in farming. His great-grandfa- ther, August Reese, started a farm operation near Blackwell, Okla. His


grandfather Frank Reese continued the tradition by running a dairy farm in Kay County, primarily for family provision, but Frank and neighbors loaded up excess on trailers to be retailed in nearby Blackwell. Reese’s work ethic may have been infl uenced by his dad, who after passing the dairy to two sons, Max and Ken, began working in the oil patch, roughnecking and checking wells at age 60.


It was in those early years that a passion for farming stirred in Reese. As a young adult pondering what the future would hold, he was clear on one thing: whatever job he took, he wanted to continue farming. It doesn’t come as a surprise, then, that the farmer at heart holds Oklahoma’s post for Secretary of Agriculture. The farm boy from Nardin is now in charge of stirring a passion in producers and consumers while developing Oklahoma as fertile ground for agriculture.


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