Wheat Show President Welcomes You

Tuesday, February 5th, Floyd Miller, President of the National Hard Spring Wheat Show welcomes guests at 7:30 am at the Airport International Inn in Williston.

Miller was born with farming in his blood. His first memories of his childhood were when he was very young: Barely old enough to pull his little red wagon, he’d pull it out in to the field and pick up rocks by himself. Exerted, a short while later, he’d come rolling in with a wagon full of rocks and ask his dad where he could dump them. His next memory was when he was a few years older: He remembers helping his father put loose hay in to the hayloft of their hip roof barn using a sling from the hayrack.

“I have wanted to farm fulltime all my life, but when I married in 1976; my dad told me our family farm wasn’t big enough to support two families. I worked fulltime in town during the day and went out to the farm to help my dad after work. I took extra time off from my fulltime job to help with harvest every year,” said Miller.

In 1983, Miller and his brother, Rodney, along with an International gas tractor and a 10 foot chisel blow, farmed their first piece of rented farm land. In 1987 Miller was laid off from his job and decided to make a go of it and began farming full time. The farm was small and in order to make ends meet, he did custom combining for others in the surrounding area. He also hauled beets with his tri-axle truck in the Buford area until he was able to rent more farm land.

Miller, his wife Debbie, his brother Rodney, his son Casey, grandson CJ and granddaughter Tru, work together on the family farm. They raise durum, hard red spring wheat, malting barley, green peas, lentils and small square bales of various kinds of hay. His family farm celebrated a century in farming in 2006 and he hopes a great-grandchild of his will be farming the land in 2106.