Success Story

Elton Ellison, 20, of Rails, Tex. has made the furrows of a farm look like a highway to business success. The Future Farmers of America, meeting in their Kansas City convention this week, gave young Ellison the title of "Star Farmer of America" and $500 prize money. For Farmer Ellison, recently inducted into the Army, this prize money was just another cash token of an operating success that started when he was 13. By then he had saved up enough money to buy a pig. A little later he borrowed money to finance an eight-acre cotton patch; paid off his debt with his first crop.

A year after he graduated (1941) from Cooper High School, he added a tractor, next a truck and some cows. Soon he was able to advance $2,000 to his father to help him buy a 260-acre place, while he rented 270 acres for himself. In 1943 young Ellison was not so much a Future Farmer as a future country gentleman. In that year, he had 220 acres of cotton, 265 of milo, 27 of Sudan grass, ten of hegari (grain sorghums), 64 hogs, four dairy cattle, two beef cattle, 350 hens. Total net income for the year: $3,805.97.

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