Born out of disaster 70 years ago, annual corn drive is a tradition for rural Minnesota ag students

WELLS, Minn. — On a recent Tuesday morning, a group of high school boys turned a dusty Ford pickup off the paved country road and into a cornfield. Moments later, a farmer turned his green combine around and extended the mechanical auger over their grain wagon.

Very few words were spoken because very few words were needed. Soon, golden kernels of corn — worth money at the elevator in town — spilled into the hopper.

For the 70th year in a row, Minnesota's corn drive is underway. Each fall, National FFA Organization chapters and agriculture students leave classrooms to solicit what are essentially in-kind donations of corn that are sold at local elevators, with the proceeds given to charity.

Freshman Drew Bullerman ran with an envelope up the ladder of the combine to the cabin where Scott Nehring sat. Nehring opened the door and Bullerman handed over the donation form. Then the student crawled back down the ladder.

"He gave us a ton," Bullerman said, with enthusiasm. "He just kept pouring."

The grain prices aren't breaking any records this year, but even in a down year, every kernel counts.

"They give you 100 bushel, I would say that's $450. That's a lot of money," Dan Dylla, the longtime agriculture teacher, told his students last week in the classroom at United South Central High School in Wells.

Past FFA trophies lined the classroom walls. Student clusters with township names were on the white board. Dylla reminded the students to check in by text message every two hours.

"If your location stamp comes back Owatonna McDonald's or Buffalo Wild Wings, we got a problem," Dylla said.

The corn drive began in the aftermath of a straight-line wind — sometimes called a derecho — on this flat farmland west of Albert Lea in 1953. An ag teacher in Freeborn, Minn., Lee Asche, told his students to go out and pick up the refuse corn.

Jim Beach, a lifelong Freeborn resident, remembers the inaugural year.

"The freshmen picked up the corn off the ground. The sophomores kind of helped with the shelling of the corn. Juniors drove the pickups, and the seniors kind of supervised," Beach said.

Through the years, the donations have added up. About 50 chapters across the state complete corn drives during the harvest, according to True Friends, a nonprofit organization formerly known as Camp Courage that aids children and adults with disabilities. Some chapters also add on pancake breakfasts and flower sales. All told, these drives have donated some $7 million to True Friends.

Farming — and the corn drive — has changed in the 70 years.

"It's a lot different now," said Martin Dylla, ag teacher Dan Dylla's father. "You went out to the farms and you cleaned up the crib or you picked cornfields that had fallen off the stalk."

More than half of the students live in town or maybe in the country, he said, but fewer than in past years grow up on working farms.

Still, they keep a close eye on activity in the fields.

"Pretty sure my neighbors were picking corn today," said sophomore Jake Cassens of Freeborn, who is driving the pickup. "So I have a bit of an idea where to look."

On the second stop the boys make, the farmer says he can't give any corn this year.

"He just said it's been a tough year," Bullerman said.

Land east of Faribault County dipped into the nation's most extreme drought category this past summer. Some fields barely reached the fabled knee height. Some will be chopped into silage for cattle. Every bushel counts.

But as the boys stopped in a field east of Wells, farmer Darin Yokiel popped out of a fast-moving tractor and told them to meet him back at his farm. They did, and Yokiel filled up their grain wagon. Smiles abounded.

Even though commodity prices have softened this year, he donated to the corn drive. It's tradition around here.

"I gave 3,600 pounds. That divided by 56," said Yokiel, noting the pounds per bushel. "What's the math on that?"

Yokiel graduated in the 1990s and now farms organically. A single bushel might fetch him $10. His gift works out to about $600.

After leaving Yokiel's farm, Cassens parked in line at the elevator in Wells. It's the only traffic jam you'll see in rural Minnesota in the fall. Bigger grain trucks from larger operations waited in line. Their gravity box is almost antiquated now.

But the elevator worker knew what to do. He opened the chute, and the golden grain spilled out.

The boys pulled the truck around to wait for their weight slip.

They grabbed lunch at Dairy Queen before venturing out to find more harvesters willing to drop a little grain in the box.