Long-time farmer Truman Cooley has met every MFA president

Truman Cooley is a name most farmers in Audrain County know. He spent a lifetime of row-crop and livestock farming just northeast of Centralia, Mo. During that time, he's been a strong supporter of agriculture and good friend of MFA Incorporated. In fact, through his family's dedication to the cooperative, Cooley has had a chance to meet every MFA president from the cooperative's founder William Hirth to our current President and CEO, Bill Streeter.

Cooley was born in 1916 in Iowa. His family moved to the Centralia area in December of the same year, when Cooley was two months old.

While MFA founder William Hirth's efforts to organize farmers into local farm clubs had taken solid root by then, it was in 1916 that Hirth concentrated his efforts to form a state-wide association of farmers that became MFA.
Cooley's father, S.T., was an admirer of Hirth and joined the local farm club. That's where Cooley remembers first seeing Hirth.

"The elevator had already been built here in Centralia," said Cooley. "I remember that Mr. Hirth came to Skull Lick School just east of here. Of course, they had called on all the neighbors to let us know Mr. Hirth was the guest speaker.

"He was a medium-built fellow, I can recall. He had really heavy black eyebrows and a brave strong voice. He didn't need a PA system.

The second time I met him, I went with my father to Mr. Hirth's farm over on what is now West Boulevard in Columbia. He had a large farm-I'd say the house and barn set off the road a quarter mile. Mr. Hirth had bought a pair of mules and he had to show them to us. I was just a small lad. I was more interested in the mules than the conversation."

Cooley spent those boyhood days on the farm, attending Harrison School, just down the road from the farm through eight grade, then riding horseback to Centralia High School for four years until he graduated in 1936. During those years he joined his parents and younger brother to attend the MFA convention in Sedalia. Here again, he was around Hirth and eventually MFA vice-president, Fred Heinkel, who assumed leadership of MFA upon Hirth's death in 1940.

After high school, Cooley saw a few economic truths of the times.

"Times were pretty rough and all," he said. "Jobs were scarce. Instead of hunting a job, if your folks would give you a place to sleep and something to eat, you pretty much stayed. Of course at the time, we didn't have a tractor on the place. We did it with horses and mules and thrashing machines."

A couple years later, he and his younger brother E.V. put together enough money to buy 120 acres that joined his father's farm. "We gave $1,800 dollars for it, which was $15 per acre. And, it was all tillable. Capital gains tax would be pretty ugly if you sold it today."

But back then, outside investors were eager to get any return on hard assets.
"You could have bought as much as you wanted for $15 or $20 an acre. Insurance companies owned most of it. There were very few farms that weren't lost."

Cooley and his brother farmed hogs, cattle and sheep. But in 1941 the government  came along with the selective service. Truman's number was low, so he signed up for a year and planned to come back. His father was about ready to slow down. But Cooley left in March just before the December of Pearl Harbor. He eventually served just short of five years in the South Pacific. His brother E.V. got drafted in June of 1942, leaving their father to manage the farm in their absence. "But we left him with a good tractor and a combine-some good new equipment."

E.V. had started a family and decided to pursue life off the farm. Cooley and his father bought his interest.
After the war, commodity prices outpaced increases in land prices in the area and Cooley and his father were able to expand the farm. During those days, Cooley said that MFA helped lead the way in a transition for agriculture. "MFA followed the trend [of farm modernization] and maybe led it. They showed us what kinds of yields we could get by using fertilizer; they showed us what new products could do," he said.
Cooley continued his involvement with MFA at field days and by serving on the local board.

By 1977, he was elected to serve on the MFA state board of directors, where he met then President Eric Thompson. Cooley met his fourth MFA president when Bud Frew became MFA's president in 1985. Cooley remained on the state board until 1988, a stretch of difficult time for agriculture.

It was during these years he met Don Copenhaver, who was working as vice president of retail distribution for MFA. Copenhaver went on to become MFA's president in 1998 after Frew's retirement. Cooley says he still sees Copenhaver from time to time-having a sandwich at a local pool hall where farmers gather.

Bill Streeter, who has a farm not too far away from Cooley's became MFA president in 2008. Cooley says he can't remember the first time he met Streeter but has had the opportunity to visit with him on several occasions.
Truman Cooley takes it easy these days. He sold his cattle in 2006 and rents out the crop ground and pasture now. He is 95, after all. But, from his father's early interest in MFA, through the years he farmed and served MFA at various levels, Cooley says he's been true to the cooperative.

"I was raised up on two things. MFA and going to church. I've kind of kept the MFA, maybe I don't go to church as much as I should."