From 4-H'er With a Calf to Randolph County Dairyman, 1945

By F.H. Jeter, Extension Editor, N.C. State College, Raleigh, as published in the Wilmington Morning Star  and the Charlotte Observer on Aug. 27, 1945

It started 16 years ago with a calf. The other day M.N. Lowe of Farmer, Randolph County, joined the American Guernsey Cattle Club and became the first dairyman in Randolph County to be admitted into the ranks of that select organization. But the whole thing began with one purebred calf that N.M. bought back in 1929, 16 years ago, when he joined the dairy calf club being organized in the county by E.S. “Shorty” Millsaps. The boy secured a registered, highly bred calf from T.D. Brown in Rowan County, and from that day on he determined to become a dairy farmer.

His first activity was to exhibit his calf at the little Randolph County fair that fall, where he took 19^th place in a field of 20 entries made by the club boys of that county. N.M. says he always had a thankful place in his hart for the boy who took the last place, because it kept him from being at the very bottom. But this did not discourage the young dairyman. He knew nothing then about how to groom a calf for exhibiting in the show rink; neither did he know anything about how to show a calf once he was in the ring.

Therefore, he came back the next fall and each succeeding fall until the present war emergency caused the Randolph County fairs to be cancelled. Each year, N.M. went a little higher in his winnings. He and another boy, Charles Kearns Jr., now a lieutenant in occupied Germany, became friendly rivals and they developed into two of the best cattle showmen that Randolph County has ever produced. Young Lowe continued to show his animals, all of which were the descendants of that first heifer calf. In 1939, for instance, he took first and second places for senior yearling heifers; first and second place for junior yearling heifers; third place for senior calf; first place for junior bull calf; and grand champion female of the show. “Shorty” Millsaps says he cannot recall the winnings made by this boy at succeeding fairs, but he does recall that the time he almost made a clean sweep of all the first places.

Time when on. The boy graduated from the Farmer High School in 1934 and then elected to remain with his father, Worth Lowe, on the home farm. He worked here with his father until 1936, when he decided he must do something about getting a place of his own. So he started working part time in a textile mill at Asheboro. He did not sell his small breeding herd, however, but continued to look after his animals early in the mornings and late in the evenings, before and after his work in the mill. By 1939, he had enough money to make a payment on a farm of his own, and moved there in the fall, taking his Guernseys with him. He continued his work in the mill. By 1939, he had enough aid in his farm work.

By 1943, he bought another tract adjoining his original farm, which gave him 121 acres. With this amount of land, N.M. figured that he could go ahead with his Guernsey breeding, and when labor became tight in his home community he gave up his place in the mill and now devotes his time exclusively to his farm and his Guernsey cattle.

During the same period, the young man has remodeled his home, installed electric lights, has running water, and has equipped his home in a modern, efficient manner.

This year, he built a modern barn for housing his cattle and storing his feedstuffs. Right now, he plans to build a modern milking parlor and milk house by which he can produce grade “A” milk. The building is to be constructed of glazed tile.

It is well to go back also to the time when N.M. took his cattle from the Randolph fair at Asheboro to the Piedmont District Fair at Greensboro and won almost as completely as he had at his little county fair.

Shorty Millsaps says that his recognition by the National Guernsey Breeders organization is richly deserved. And now that the young man has realized the dream of his boyhood days, what he has done is an example to other boys in that section. There is no better way in which to keep a boy interested in the farm than to give him a valuable animal of his own. Mr. Worth Lowe was wise enough to do this, an dhe has the satisfaction of seeing his own son own a farm adjoining the home place. This boy is carving a name for himself in the farming annals of Randolph County, and it all started with one little Guernsey calf, 16 years ago.