The Independent-News, Volume 108, Number 35, Walkerton, St. Joseph County, 3 February 1983 — Page 7

Singing Farm Family Delights Rural Audiences

DO YOU remember the “Singing Millers” in our December 1982 Country EXTRA? The 8-year singing career of that Pennsylvania farm family began as away of saying thank you to neighbors who helped them in time of tragedy. Well, an article in a recent issue of Farm Wife News described an Illinois farm family that also has “hit the road” as a singing group. Phil and Linda Hartzler and their four daughters have been delighting people at local functions and special events around Minonk, 111. They say that entertaining neighbors and other friends has brought their family closer together and shed

At Lost, a Fann Magazine Just for Country Kids... Reprinted from Wichita Beacon HOW MANY city kids gel to spend a day with a veterinarian or find out things they wanted to know about P‘gs? And how many farm kids see magazine stories about subjects they can relate to —like famous persons who grew up on farms? Not many in either case, Roy Reiman fears. That’s why Mr. Reiman, a Wisconsin publisher of several agri-cultural-oriented magazines, including Farm Wife News and Farm & Ranch Living, has launched what he says is the first national publication (Continued on EXTRA page 3) "Just Right To Sit On My Daddy's Knee ’ ’ BEVERLY SCHMIDT wrote a beautiful poem which was used in the Premiere Edition of Country Kids, the publication recently launched for young rural readers. Beverly lives on a Rhinelander, Wisconsin beef and dairy farm. The poem, which appeared next to a photo of a young child looking wistfully out the window at his father doing farm chores, went like this: "If I were 6 and grown quite tall, / know first graded be best of all. "If I were 8 and wiser still, Fd park my toys up on the hill, "So Daddy coming home al night could see my things without a light. "If I were 10 and big and strong, To a cowboy club 1 would belong. "If I were 11 and Dad’s hired hand, Fd milk the cows and plow the land. "But I am little, I’m just 3; Just right to sit on my daddy’s knee. "When I am 4 Dad’ll say, "Hey, Son, you and I got chores to get done!"

many rays of sunshine into other people’s dark days. Actually, the singing quintet is an all-female group composed of Linda and the girls. But Phil plays an active

role, introducing the singers and helping them get ready for performances. Since their daughters range from 3 to 8

years old, Linda says that helping hand of Phil’s “includes lots of shoes to buckle and bows to tie!” The career of “Hartzler’s Hams” got started when friends coaxed them to enter a Flanagan, 111. Centennial

FEBRUARY 1983 Cmhu Adding Extra Humor, Photos and Fun to Your Rural Newspaper vjv r * u "SPARE" RIBS. Clayton Hunt's hogs thrive on bowling balls tor their playthings Bowling Bolls Bring Homo Bacon A SOUTHWESTERN Kentucky farmer has a high-scoring bowling team in his hog barn. And no professional team has better rooters. According to an article in a recent issue of Country People magazine, Clayton Hunt’s pigs were eating his wooden feeders. His veterinarian diagnosed the problem as “boar-dom”. Clayton pondered various “sow-lutions". His goal was to satisfy hogs’ desire to fiddle with something that makes noise. Then he recalled reading about a farmer with a similar problem and an unusual cure: bowling balls! So he bought some defective bowling balls from the Ebonite Bowling Products factory in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. His hogs proved him right. “They really enjoy rolling the balls around the floors," Clayton reports. "They mostly like to root them up the walls and drop them with a resounding bang! “The pig pen literally becomes a play pen until the newness and novelty of the balls wear off,” he adds. “But even after the hogs become accustomed to the balls in their pens, there’s much less feeder biting than before I started my own bowling team. They seem much more content now.”

“Daddy Says We Gotta Eat Pork” is a big original hit for “Hartzler's Hams’’

Contest. “Lo and behold,” Linda remarks, “we wound up with first place!” The winning number was an original composition Linda penned about

husband Phil’s plight as a farmer attempting to have a son. “I wrote it as a joke,” Linda explains. “We feel

very blessed to have four girls.” Fhey sang the song to the tune of On Top of Old Smoky. Daddy Says We Gotta Eat Pork and Our Daddy’s a Farmer are other popular original Hartzler songs that

FEBRUARY 3, IM3 - THE INDEPENDENT NEWS —

delight chuckling audiences at church suppers, nursing homes and campgrounds. There usually isn’t a dry eye in the whole house —either from laughing or just the sweetness of ^uch fresh, good-times talent —when this family sings its way into people’s hearts. Linda has been “singing and playing the accordion since my grade school days.” She grew up in Peoria with music around her. She sang with her mother at mother-daughter banquets for years. “I belonged to a choral group in Minonk until the girls started singing,” Linda adds. Paula, the oldest, (Continued on EXTRA page 3

Psst! Can You Find "Mystery Ad"???? IN THIS ISSUE of Country EXTRA, we’re introducing a new “Mailbox Marketplace” section. It’s a classified ad section allowing our rural readers to offer anything from their favorite pickle recipe to baby chicks, wholesale spices and crossstitch craft patterns. To encourage readership of these folksy ads, we’ve planted a “Mystery Ad” in this section in one of the 213 rural newspapers carrying Country EXTRA. It could be in the paper you’re reading right now. The first reader who finds the “Mystery Ad” and dials the phone number listed there wins a free dm ner for four at a local restaurant' So, before you put this paper down, be sure you turn to EXTRA page 4 and scan those “Mailbox Marketplace" ads closely.. especially if you love a mystery (and a free dinner)! "• Winning Roll Recipe From Wheat Country! THE warm aroma of baking bread and rolls has templed a lot of noses at our Country EXTRA offices the last few weeks. .Annette Gohlke, food editor of Farm Wife News, has been testing dozens of entries from Country EXTRA readers in our latest recipe contest category, Homemade Breads and Rolls. Readers really "warmed up" to this one! They sent us recipes for delicious wheat breads, wheat and rye breads, and rolls of every type! After plenty of enthusiastic munching by CX staffers, the winning recipe proved to contain an interesting combination of both grain and dairy products: Cottage Cheese Rolls! First Contest Entered Appropriately, the winning recipe in this breads and rolls contest category comes from wheat country — western Kansas... and from a (Continued on EXTRA page 2)

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