My Turn

By Jay Mahaffey Scott, Miss. As I get older and more sentimental, lessons learned in my experience become a bit clearer. I have spent time in cotton fields since I was a very young boy in northeast Louisiana. Many of these experiences resulted in hard work, frustrations, satisfying learning experiences and, generally, a good time when considered as a whole. ... Read More »

BY TRENT HAGGARD KENNETT, MO. A quarter century ago, I excitedly left my hometown of 10,000 to attend the University of Missouri. I was plunging into a student population of more than 25,000. Just the students amounted to two and a half times the population of my entire hometown. During the prior two years of high school, I had often ... Read More »

By Jim Granberry Dallas, Texas When I was a child, my summer vacations were spent traveling with my parents from cotton gin to cotton gin in the family’s blue Buick (the model with four scoops on the front fenders). During those sweltering southern days, I spent untold hours waiting in the shade of cotton gin suction sheds, while my father ... Read More »

By Woody Anderson Colorado City, Texas As I prepared to plant my cotton here in the Texas Rolling Plains, I once again was reminded that growing cotton without access to crop insurance is an awfully risky venture these days. Hundreds of dollars per acre are spent to plant a crop in the hope that it will come up, the weeds ... Read More »

By Hub Miller Sydney, Australia Taking a moment to read the My Turn stories on the back page of Cotton Farming is something I truly look forward to every month. It has always been one of my favorite things to do. I enjoy it most because the short stories about this most interesting crop and all the outstanding people in ... Read More »

BY MIKE LAMENSDORF ROLLING FORK, MISS The 2012 crop was probably one of the easiest and least stressful crops I have made in my 30-plus years of farming. The growing season was great, and the weather at harvest for all crops was ideal. With new pickers, we eliminated three boll buggies, four module builders and all the seasonal labor we ... Read More »

By Emory Jones Cleveland, Ga. My old friend Frank was a pig. I don’t mean that he was sloppy, although he was pretty informal. No, Frank was a real pig, curly tail and all. Here’s how we met; it was up in North Dakota – just outside Hoople. Or maybe it was Can Do – I can’t remember. Anyway, I ... Read More »