Harold Steele receives Lincoln National Agriculture award
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| Harold Steele’s new award depicting Abraham Lincoln nurturing a sprout of corn, sits in a place of honor in Steele’s Dover home. Steele received the award Tuesday at the Farm Progress Show in Decatur. (BCR photo/Barb Kromphardt) |
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DOVER — Harold Steele, past president of the Illinois Farm Bureau and a leader on agricultural financial policy issues, is the 2009 recipient of the Abraham Lincoln National Agriculturalist Award.
Steele and his wife Margery traveled to Decatur for the Farm Progress Show, where he was one of five people to be presented with one of the Abraham Lincoln National Agriculture Awards.
Steele first learned about the award, and that he had won one on Aug. 4.
“Margie and I were up in northern Iowa, and the cell phone rang,” Steele said. “This voice came on and said, ‘Are you so and so? Well, I want to tell you, you just won an award.’ And I said, ‘Ma’am, wait a minute, a quarter of a mile up ahead there’s an exit,’ so I pulled off at the exit and parked on the ramp, and she read the honor.”
Steele learned he was nominated by Phil Nelson, president of the Illinois Farm Bureau for the recognition. Steele was elected as its president in 1970 and served in that capacity for 13 years. In its nomination of Steele, the Illinois Farm Bureau said he “has given a distinguished record of service to agriculture, characterized by vision, keen insight into issues, effective leadership, and hard work to get results” and that his achievements “will be long recognized by farm families and agriculture across this state and nation.”
After being a highly decorated officer in World War II, Steele returned to his family farm near Dover and quickly became a community leader and advocate for agriculture. That latter service was rewarded with recognition as the Outstanding Young Farmer in Illinois in 1956 and as a Prairie Farmer Master Farmer in 1970. In 1999, he was inducted into the Lincoln Academy of Illinois.
Steele’s citation indicates an individual “whose contributions to the betterment of mankind have been accomplished on behalf of the state of Illinois and whose achievements have brought honor to the state by dedication to those principles of democracy and humanity as exemplified by the great Illinoisan whose name it bears.”
Following the financial challenges for agriculture in the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan appointed Steele to chair the National Commission of Agricultural Finance, and later by President George Bush to be chairman of the board of the Farm Credit Administration.
Steele has received Distinguished Service Awards from the University of Illinois and the American Farm Bureau Federation, as well as Illinois Farm Bureau. Western Illinois University and Illinois Wesleyan University have conferred Honorary Degrees upon him.
At Tuesday’s ceremony, the award winners were presented with a bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln kneeling alongside a small corn plant, which was created by the sculptor John McClarey of Decatur. Steele had the opportunity to meet McClarey and said he was especially impressed by what McClarey said about his statuary.
McClarey wrote, “I envision Lincoln sitting on a rise of land nurturing a sprout of corn in his hand, symbolic of his broad interests in agriculture, railroads, cheap land development, free labor and free soil, scientific curiosity, mechanical invention, cultivation of the mind and devotion to the art of peace ... In the statuary, Lincoln is symbolic of us, and the ‘Field of Dreams’ becomes a symbol of excellence in agricultural pursuits today, as in the past, and of the help given by government and private enterprise to make this country the land of opportunity envisioned by our founding fathers.”
Steele said the award was especially meaningful to him because of Lincoln.
“Abraham Lincoln really is symbolic of America,” he said. “Not many countries could permit or enable a person who was born in poverty, lived in a log cabin, as many people did, and who was self-taught rise to be president.”
Steele said he felt very honored to receive an award bearing the name of the man who struggled against slavery and the break-up of the nation.
“It was his intelligence and his nurtured determination, that enabled us to win that war,” he said.
Then Steele smiled.
“We sure need Abe now,” he said.
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