Six people will be inducted this year to the Saskatchewan Agricultural Hall of Fame.
Rose Jardine, Jerome Bechard, Lin Boyes, Bill Cram, Olaf Friggstad and Bud Morken will be inducted at special ceremonies Aug. 10 at the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon.
Rose Jardine
Jardine was raised on a farm near Dundurn, Sask. and worked for nearly 60 years in agricultural journalism. After graduating from the University of Saskatchewan, she joined the staff of The Western Producer, first as a secretary and later as a reporter and women’s editor. In 1960 she married and moved to Flaxcombe, Sask., and then to Oyen, Alta. She contributed the Garden Chat column to the Producer from 1960 to 1996 and is an honorary member of the Saskatchewan and Alberta horticultural societies.
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Jerome Bechard
Bechard was a farmer-inventor born near Lajord, Sask. in 1911. As a young farmer he started modifying farm equipment, putting dual wheels on tractors, tires on tillage machines and invented the in-line series hydraulic control system.
Likely his most important development is the air seeder. The Bechard system is now used on Bourgault air seeders.
Bechard, who died in 1991, also served his community through 25 years of participation on the Wascana Conservation and Development Board.
Lindsay Boyes
Boyes, late of Yorkton, is known for his advice on farm practices. After service in the Second World War and graduation from the University of Saskatchewan’s agriculture college in 1948, he served as an agricultural representative at Wynyard, Sask. for 19 years. He helped establish the province’s first weed control unit and encouraged shelterbelt planning.
He published a newsletter with agricultural information and was the founding managing editor of Grainews.
In 1976 he and his family moved to Yorkton, Sask., where he became farm management specialist. Boyes was active in various community groups and was editor of The SAGA, a newsletter of the Saskatchewan Agricultural Graduates Association, for 15 years.
He died in 1991.
William Cram
Cram, of Indian Head, Sask., has supervised the production and distribution of millions of farm shelterbelt trees. He graduated in agriculture from the University of Manitoba in 1939, conducted vegetable variety trials for Agriculture Canada and served in the Second World War.
From 1947 until his retirement in 1977, Cram devoted himself to shelterbelt growth, propagation, seedling storage and delivery.
He was active in western Canadian and American horticulture societies and the Canadian Tree Improvement Association.
Olaf Friggstad
Friggstad was a farmer, farm machinery innovator and manufacturer at Frontier, Sask. He and his two sons used their own inventions to form Friggstad Manufacturing Ltd. in 1970.
Their main product was a cultivator with the ability to follow land contours and provide even soil penetration. The product line had up to 280 employees in plants at Frontier, in Montana and in North Dakota. The company went into receivership in the 1980s recession, but the designs were purchased by Flexi-Coil and are still available to farmers.
Friggstad was named an honorary member of the Saskatchewan Institute of Agrologists in 1981 and installed as a Member of the Order of Canada in 1982.
Bud Morken
Morken was a farmer and farm leader in Sturgis, Sask. A graduate of the University of Saskatchewan’s agriculture college, he farmed and was elected as a delegate to United Grain Growers in 1969. He served as a director and then on the executive committee as Saskatchewan vice-president.
Morken was a director of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, vice-chair of the Saskatchewan Beef Stabilization Board and a 4-H leader. As well, he served as a municipal councilor, chair of the Sturgis Hospital Board and on the board of his church.
He passed away in 1994.
