Bill Webster grew up in Limestone County, Alabama, on the Tennessee Valley Regional Research and Extension Center farm in Belle Mina where his father “Dub” Webster was the assistant superintendent and later retired as director. At its peak, 13 families lived on the property, and everybody had a house. When Webster was young, he headed to the field after school to join the other workers handpicking cotton for 6 or 7 cents a pound. “I bought my first bicycle, which cost about $23, and my first shotgun picking cotton,” he said. Eventually, a 422 IH picker was converted to a plot picker, followed by a converted John Deere 9920, leading up to an automated Case IH 2022 today.