Sisters bond over agriculture - write book to educate on the ABCs of Corn - Tony Thelen

Hi everyone. I'm Paul Yeager. This is the MToM podcast, a production of Iowa PBS and the Market to Market TV show. We never stop learning. At least that's the goal. And sometimes you can learn things that you thought you knew. Or you can have a confirmation of what you should have known, whether it was from a cornfield in Iowa or a farm in west central Iowa.

Tony Thelen has been inspired at many parts of his life, a career filled with working for John Deere and many different aspects. He turned author or as he likes to refer to it, as finisher. His mother and two aunts wrote a book, or at least the manuscript of the book, the very good start of one called the ABCs of corn.

We'll get into how the book finished, how it came across the finish line, and how it was a global effort to get the book from there. Ideas and time. Growing up on the farm to the hands of people around the world. New episodes come out each and every Tuesday of this podcast. I heard about this from Tony. He sent me a message, a direct message on Twitter or X, you can do the same. If you have an idea for me, or you can just email me at Paul.Yeager@IowaPBS.org. Now let's get to Tony and discuss the book. Tony, good to see you again. It's been a couple of years. I guess I better make full disclosure. We have met in previous lives, right?

[Thelen] Yeah. Good to see you again, Paul.

[Yeager] that time you were with Deere and Company, and, that's where a lot of your background is. How many years were you with Uncle John?

[Thelen] Yep. I worked for John Deere for 35 years and retired in May of 2023.

[Yeager] And finance, technology. What would you say your role kind of changed over time?

[Thelen] Manufacturing, in Waterloo and sales and marketing for 14 years. And then I got into the precision ag business, for for four years. And then the final ten years was with the John Deere Financial, helping them connect the financing organization to dealers.

[Yeager] And before all that, you're an old farm kid, right?

[Thelen] I grew up in an agricultural community, but I technically was raised in Carroll, Iowa. But both my sets of grandparents lived on the farm, every Sunday, going back to the farm to visit grandparents. and all my friends, not all my friends, but many of my friends in high school, obviously came from the farm and very familiar with the rural, rural upbringing.

[Yeager] It's close enough to being on the farm for me. That's why I said it. I knew you weren't exactly directly, but, it's close enough with all of that.

[Thelen] And I should say I do tasseled, I walked beans, I did all that stuff during my high school years, so I legitimately did work on a farm.

[Yeager] And then, it's important. It's kind of like, you know, I might have grown up on one, and, but my joke always is I was really good at planting tractors and not fixing them either. So hence I'm around agriculture. Not necessarily in it as a way, but everybody has a role, when it comes to agriculture, there's all types of support. I mean, how would you describe what your relationship through your life working with a company that was centered on agriculture?

[Thelen] Definitely, advancing, technology for farmers around the world and all the roles that I had, particularly in tractors and, and precision ag technology, but helping farmers be more productive and efficient in what they do, was my life, with John Deere.

[Yeager] And how do you add the term author editor finisher? What's this latest line on your resume?

[Thelen] Yeah. So the last few years I've been, getting into some writing, trying to share some of my life learnings. through, some books. I have a column now on LinkedIn. dear Tony, kind of like Dear Abby, but for executive coaching and, the, the latest one, the book that was just recently published, came to me from my aunt in 2016, and my aunt, got together with my mother and her sister. So my three, my mother and two aunts got together and put together everything they knew about corn, everything they knew about agriculture, and went through the alphabet A to Z, and they put it in a manuscript. And the one request I got from my aunt and my mother passed away in 2014. My other aunt passed away in 2012. The third, author, my mother, aunt, came to me in 2016 and said, would you please do something with this sometime? And, and I was so busy with dear and company and all the job I, gathered all the materials, but I let it sit there and I finally had time to unpack each that in 2023 and got a lot of the family members involved, over 25 family members involved in helping pull together, read scripts and get information pulled in and and all of that effort after all of this was, the book ABCs a Corn, I got published and is available on Amazon today. I’m very, very proud of my, mom and her two sisters for what they did to put this book together. And I'm very, very proud to have a small part in getting it across the finish line.

[Yeager] What prompted them to start this whole process?

[Thelen] My my aunt is kind of a writer anyway, but they they got together and were going through all of their upbringing and reminiscing about the values that you get being raised on a farm, the hard work values, the common sense values, the resourcefulness type values, and just the just the good way. And both of them are all three of them a very large family, nine kids. And, you rely on each other out there. And they wanted to codify that in some way and give it back to a new generation. And and they just got together one day. And it was a fun exercise as well, in a way, for them to get together and spend some time together and, and do something productive.

[Yeager] So do you think they actually sat together and worked on this book, or was it more of a remote thing? I'm going to send you a couple of ideas and then come back.

[Thelen] Oh, I'm positive. They sat around the kitchen table for a full day and went through the alphabet. Yeah, they had a lot of fun doing that.

[Yeager] Where did they live, close to each other? At the point they were working on this.

[Thelen] They did. Carol and more specifically around Brita, Iowa is where they were raised. And then my aunt was, from Des Moines, and I'm sure they got together and it was a one day, walk through the past and also a creative, session for the three of them.

[Yeager] And do you have any idea how long it took to get even what it is that you would finish then for them?

[Thelen] Yeah, it was, it was a good manuscript. So I think the raw notes, were assembled that day, and then my Aunt Lois really put it into a manuscript form, and that's what she gave me in 2016 was, like a core manuscript. what it needed was a cover. What it needed was, an illustrator to bring it to life. And and then I also, through the help of over 25 family members, we added a special section on there that, my, my two aunts and my mother didn't know about, but we went out, went through a family history of what it's like being raised on a family farm, what it's like being raised on a farm that, does seed corn genetics and, and, the values that you get through running a small business in rural America when you.

[Yeager] When you receive this and you start looking at what needs to be done, I mean, how much you mentioned 25 family members, but how much really needed to be done? It sounds like they had done a whole lot of the heavy lifting, and you were much more of a fine finisher than a massive overhaul.

[Thelen] The big step was finding an illustrator, and we crowdsourced that and found an illustrator in Columbia, South America to really adopt us. And once we coordinated on, the vision, it was amazing to see that illustrator Maria is her name, put together and in such a colorful way. the book she gave us the title to begin with and, and we put that out to all the family members and they absolutely loved this. So the the whole book has that theme all the way through all the pages of, of the alphabet. And it was just wonderful to see that. And then secondly, we asked family members to bring in some of their artwork. So there's some original artwork from quilts, some original drawings from family members. depicting rural scenes. And then, of course, the stories came out about a picture of the farm that they grew up in and all the different things it takes to run a farm. It's really amazing. And one, one story that came out that's quite amazing is a photo from 1944 with, Father Flanagan from Boystown, where we, the family donated seed corn that came from the farm to Boystown back then. And a handwritten letter, to Father Flanagan, was unearthed in this process. And we included that in the book as well.

[Yeager] Well, that's what I wanted to ask about those images, because sometimes I've seen with friends who've written books, the illustrations will strongly resemble other people in the family. Or, is there any of that where you might see some family members depicted in some of these images?

[Thelen] No, no, none of the illustrations. They were really meant to resonate with an age group of 3 to 10 in a big, bouncy, beautiful, vibrant colors. And then there's the historical part that were actual photos and, things from when they grew up as a farm, you know, in a farm, family. that's just kind of a separate, little, little earthy touch to the book that really brings it home and says, hey, this is real this is a real life lived. This was how a farm actually works. This is where it really came from. And that's truly where all of the ideas, all the ideas from internet search to corn facts to field research, little activities throughout the book for kids to do. All of that came from how they grew up on a farm. And it's fascinating for me to even read that and to see what they came up with, because I, you know, I'm, I they were done farming basically when I was a kid. My grandparents, I would go out and visit them on the farm, but the full time farming aspect, they had retired from by that time and they just talk about it. But now I'm seeing it come to life through this book.

[Yeager] Right in, through those images. So I'm so then it might not be that you recognize one of your aunts, but you recognize the barn or the pan or something. That was on the farm. So in that sense, you do have a little bit of a. Yeah, yeah, I know what that is.

[Thelen] Oh yeah. Yeah. The especially the, the images around the, Shelley, that's my mother's maiden name. Shelly. Shelly hybrid. seed corn was, the company and all of the imagery around that, all the promotional items that were unearthed, it was very, very fascinating to hear that come up again.

[Yeager] Family. tell me your three aunts that are credited here, for doing the work, give me their full names and, and then again, don't tell me your mother, their maiden name and a little bit more of their family upbringing.

[Thelen] Yep. my mother's, named Jean Marie Thelen. Her maiden name was Shelley. her sister Lois wrote, and then her sister, Norma Kennebec. And they were all, raised in Breda, Iowa, on a farm about a mile and a half west of Breda. And all of them were in for age growing up on the farm. All of them were active in farming activities, getting the eggs, walking the beans, selling the corn, sorting and sizing the seed corn to be, split out, two different varieties of corn. They were all active in the family business as they grew up. And, largely remained true to their active agricultural roots. Lois moved away to higher education through the University of Iowa and eventually, relocated to Des Moines. Norma, kind of grew up and, raised a big family of her own in Brita, Iowa. And then my mom, raised six of us in, Carroll, Iowa.

[Yeager] That does sound like you have a workforce. Instead of walking the beans, your, proofing pages, fact checking this, communicating with the author, that's just a different form of of family labor use. Not necessarily on the farm, but about the farm.

[Thelen] That's right, that's right. And the entire family is very proud of this book coming out. And it does really highlight a life well lived. And it does tip the hat towards an agricultural, values based upbringing, which makes everybody who is involved in this project very, very proud.

[Yeager] You mentioned forage. That's important to you as well. And that also has a part in this story. What is it?

[Thelen] Yeah. In in conversations with the family. we're not here to make money on the book. It's a, it's a very, it's 999 on Amazon. So it's very reasonably priced. whatever royalties there are through Amazon, it's going straight to forage. in in the memory of my mother and her two sisters. And if we can throw off some, money to for each in their name, it's just good karma. It just feels good to everybody involved.

[Yeager] And what was the name of, you were in 4-H. Is that right?

[Thelen] I wasn't in 4-H, but my mother and her two sisters were in. Actually, a whole family was as they grew up in Breda.

[Yeager] Were they all in the same club?

[Thelen] They were, there's a small club and Brita, and they were all in the same one as they grew up again, a big family, as you can imagine. And whether it's raising livestock or, you know, baking things for competition, they did it all.

[Yeager] And what was the name of the club then?

[Thelen] Oh, I'd have to check the one in the book.

[Yeager] All right. Yeah. That's the reason why you have to buy the book to look up at there. Yeah.

[Thelen] I always think it's the Happy Helpers.

[Yeager] Oh, that's even better than I thought, you know.

[Thelen] Right. There's the picture of them with their new four uniforms on.

[Yeager] They were in the days of uniforms, even.

[Thelen] Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. They had their new uniforms on. somebody track down a, when they just got their new uniforms.

[Yeager] What has been, is that why you have had a connection to 4-H is kind of that family thing to that.

[Thelen] Definitely. And I'm definitely taking their lead on this. It was deeply personal to being raised in that era of the 40s, 50s and 60s, heart health, you know, hands, I can't think of a fourth one, but it's that resourcefulness and that agricultural way of life. And it just feels right to honor that with this project. And it was deeply personal and deeply meaningful to all of my mother's family.

[Yeager] I give my head to clear thinking, my heart to greater loyalties, my hands to larger server service, my health to, you know. So there we go. I could do the pledge if you need me to…

[Thelen] You did it very well.

[Yeager] My son’s in 4-H. We were actually at, he’s at the county fair as we record this right now, and  have seen his involvement. and he's a city kid, an urban, a suburban kid who's in H. So he doesn't show the animals, but it's still a connection back to the home place there where I grew up, where I was a Shady Grove Superstar. For the record, Tony, that was awhile ago, I was a charter member of the group. That's those who've watched this podcast before. I've heard me talk about my time that I should interview my old, advisors and just see if they'd shake their head about me, today like they did back then when you have interaction with kids, and agriculture, let's start with the ones that are more targeted to the book. What has been their reaction?

[Thelen] A lot of nieces and nephews have loved it. And we kind of tested out some of the early, especially the cover. Which ones did they like? Why did they like it? they absolutely love the activities in there. And there's it's more an activity book because you can go online and research some things. You can go out in the farm or go out into a field and look at some corn growing at different stages. It leads you into engagement. And that's where it's not just, like a coloring book or anything like that. It actually helps lift up your knowledge around the diversity of corn in our society in active ways. And that's the thing that I think differentiates this book, is that it's taking those kids 3 to 10 years old is about the range and giving them something to do in the summer. You know, who who doesn't really like the image is, you know, running barefoot in the sun in the summer, all summer long, doing things. And this book gives them something to do outside and active with friends. And, and I think that's just a heartwarming, outcome. The kids that we watched initially engage this, that's what we got from them, is this is going to be a really cool project for them.

[Yeager] You had an early focus group.

[Thelen] Oh yeah. Yeah. Its in the house.

[Yeager] Let's, let's then transition to the older kid, the ones who are over ten maybe, this is agriculture. I go back to the fair, a county fair, specifically the state fair. I always talk about this at the Iowa State Fair is one of their main goals is for the urban to learn more about rural. And they come together specifically front and center in Iowa. Why is that? I don't know if it's a relationship or partnership. Why is that connection important to you?

[Thelen] Well, that actually came up when I was talking with, the, our launch team, we, we put a launch team together that has people that are helping us promote this on social media, which has been fabulous, by the way, just really getting the word out. but the goal was, let's get this in every, grade school in the Corn Belt states. And then we had a couple common conversations beyond that, it's actually the kids that don't have access to the rural daily life that could really get a lot out of this book. It's the ones in Chicago or the ones in Kansas City, or the ones in Atlanta or Dallas that they could really be lifted up by the educational part of this book. And then it kind of expanded our scope and how we talk about promoting the book. It's really anybody that really wants to know what is this thing that people talk about all the time growing corn. How do you grow corn? What does it mean to grow corn? You know, and you'll learn a ton of that as you walk through this book A to Z. That to me was I didn't think of that initially. I was thinking Corn Belt states. There's about 7000, grade schools. Let's talk about how do we talk to people that can get it into grade schools? It became much broader than that. And also then we figured out it's not just available on Amazon in the US, it's actually available Amazon globally in Germany, Australia, India, it's in the English language. But you can get this in Brazil, it's available everywhere around the world.

[Yeager] And with your illustrator from Colombia, you have already an international flair to it as well.

[Thelen] And I got a Iot at school, I got Maria Gutierrez. The book would not be as impactful had it not been for her really adopting the course and really working with us and 100% virtual just did an outstanding job on the illustrations.

[Yeager] Let's go back to, you know, I'm going to use a political tie then to to what has come up here. It sounds like you thought the book was maybe necessarily at your base. Kids who are in corn states, estates, grain states, whatever you want to call them. But now it sounds like you feel that there is a strong calling to reach those outside of the Grain Belt to help educate them, and this might be that avenue to do so. Am I am I hearing you right?

[Thelen] Absolutely. That's the urban connections to forage. There's urban programs to put gardens on top of, you know, buildings and things like that. And to get the life of the Edgar agrarian community, into those areas. I just didn't think that far in advance to connect this book to those kinds of efforts. But it's perfect for that. I mean, and especially the activity related aspect of it, where they can do online research around these things and learn about how the world grows. Food, how the world grows, fuel, how the world can grow fiber. I mean, all of those things are amazing. As a kid, you know, you're you're you're you're in a learning environment. You want to take a little bit of that on your own, and it's a fun way to engage it. It really opened my eyes to this. This is a little broader project than Home base Iowa or home based Midwest.

[Yeager] But Tony, you lived in the Des Moines metro area long enough to know there's plenty of people who are within ten minutes of a cornfield who don't understand what that is, and can differentiate between corn and soybeans. So, yes, there is a focus that can be done with those, even in the home area of agriculture, in addition to everybody in Atlanta or Dallas, Kansas City, Chicago.

[Thelen] Yeah. When, when, the United States was founded, I think 70, 97% of everybody was agrarian, agricultural, based in the 40s, 50s and 60s. We were living through the transition from horse to tractor. And yet you still had large families, and largely you could raise a crop, you could raise some animals, you could be very self-sufficient every quarter of a mile. Had a farm place on it. Today, less than 2% are involved in agriculture, a much less than 2% by now. And that distance between where your foods grow and, where your fuel comes from, and the benefits of many benefits to the commodities that are grown through the agricultural cycles. There's a big gap there now, from what it from what it used to be, even even the way my parents were raised, in the 40s, 50s and 60s, it's it's a large gap today from where they were raised and the lessons they learned on that and the values that were given to them through those, those ways of life.

[Yeager] I should ask a really long question so you can, look for this, but do you have a favorite page in the book? Because I'd like you to read it, or at least show it to us if you have one of your favorite letters from the book that you want to pull up and share, is there one that you have?

[Yeager] Can you pick a favorite child? I mean, letter in this, this book, there's it's like Book TV on C-Span3 here, Tony. And now our author is going to read, from the book.

[Thelen] Here's, I'll give you two quick ones. This is a photo on the top side of the actual farm site. And then there's a photo on the bottom labeling every building on the farm yard, which is like hugely beneficial to understanding all the different aspects of the farm. And then I, I personally like, the tea, maybe Tony, maybe my last name to you that I don't know, but it goes tassels produce pollen, then release it to land on the silks. Then kernels develop on the ears in amazing way, tasty treats that tickles the tastebuds of theater patrons through popcorn. And then it goes through what's your idea? How would you illustrate or describe popcorn tickling your taste buds in the theater and then internet research? How? How are many tastings and testings and growing corn? How can you describe the taste test of growing corn for popcorn? They're talking about? and then does a hamburger made of organic beef tastes better or different than a hamburger of regular beef? It's just asking your opinion, you know, so it gets them thinking organic and things like that. And then a fun fact, corn descended from a plant called T, S and T that still grows in Mexico today. So all the corn growing in North America started in the highlands of Mexico. So that kind of range very personal. What's popcorn feel like to you all the way down to the origins of where corn came from, which is the very highlands of Mexico and the temperate cold nights, the hot days, produce great, growing regions for the original corn, germplasm. Anyway, those that's my favorite one that I would pick out.

[Yeager] And that is a great, insight to what you were just what you've been talking about. Here's the letter and the understanding and here's the connection to what a farm did. And then here's the learning aspect of it. So now I'm guessing there you kind of mentioned outreach teams. I mean, I'm guessing if this ends up in schools that might be, is that a home run for you? It would be wonderful to get this into, schools that cracking that code and getting the word out on a book like this that truly is educational while engaging. that would be the best thing that could ever happen for this book. And then it would be a great thing for each community. And it would be very heartwarming for the family to know that this got put into a place to influence, pay it forward in a way the, the lessons that they learned growing up on the farm. that would be wonderful if we could get this into schools.

[Yeager] Tony, the name of the book is The ABCs of Corn. It's available, at, that, large mega website of its own. Is it available in bookstores? In some bookstores as well? 

[Thelen] We're trying we're getting there. it'll be in Beaverdalel Books in Des Moines. and we've got some other interested, bookstores, but that's more of a wave two. The primary one is on Amazon anywhere in the world.

[Yeager] Sounds good. Tony Thelen great to see you. Thank you so very much. Good luck on the book. Is there an ABC's, part two in the works already?

[Thelen] No, no, this is, this is the one project, and it really came from the family. And that's the one we're going to, we're going to put to market.

[Yeager] All right, Tony, thank you very much.

[Thelen] Thanks, Paul. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you today.

[Yeager] The MToM podcast is a production of Iowa PBS and the Market to Market TV show. Production supervisor is Chad Aubrey, audio technician and editors that assist on this: Sean Ingrassia, Neil Kyer, Kevin Rivers, Julie Knutson, and David Feingold. The executive producer of Market to Market is David Miller. My name is Paul Yeager. I'm your host, producer, and editor. 

We'll see you next time. New episodes each and every Tuesday. We'll see you then. Thank you. Bye bye.