Breaking Ground for the Future

Lynwood Schrader ('52) has plenty of memories of past successes, but it's the future that has always enticed him.

Schrader, of Lexington, has been a volunteer fund-raiser for the College for many years, and he sums up his efforts by saying, "You do it for young people."

In the 1960s, before there was an Ag North, Schrader helped lead the effort to persuade the legislature to fund it. In the early 1980s, the Kentucky Leadership Center for 4-H at Jabez was just a dream, but the Friends of Kentucky 4-H, of which Schrader was a member, led efforts to find money to build it. (For more information on Friends of Kentucky 4-H, see related story.) The Jabez center was dedicated in 1987, when Schrader was president of the Friends.
Now, Schrader and others are dealing with the issue of future housing for FarmHouse. (The fraternity is now housed in a 1951 building across from the William T. Young Library.)

Boyhood on the Farm

Schrader has always been a farm boy at heart. His roots are deep in Graves County soil, where his father built a farm during the Depression and where he grew up in 4-H and FFA.
He still owns a portion of that Graves County farm and still farms it, growing the soybeans, corn, and tobacco that his father grew. Schrader has brought some tangible memories of the farm to his Lexington home—a tobacco peg that he used to set plants when he was a kid, a water jug that the mule carried in the field.

He keeps his mementos in his study, where he also displays diplomas, plaques, and souvenirs from what was to follow those early farm years: first college, then the Army, and then a full, rich career at Kentucky Utilities.

The Schrader family includes his wife Pat (B.A.,'71; M.A.,'79) and three sons (John, B.B.A.,'76; L.L. D.,'79; Joel, B.S. in Animal Sciences, '79; D.V.M. Auburn, '83; and Jamie, B.B.A.,'82). That's a total of seven UK degrees, including Schrader's. It is a UK family: They are all life members of the UK Alumni Association. Lynwood and Joel Schrader, ag graduates, are also life members of the UK Ag Alumni Association. Schrader is a UK Fellow and a member of the Scovell Society.

Pat Schrader was Extension information specialist for 4-H from 1981 to 1989, and her work included editing the Ambassador. Once you move outside the family circle, Schrader's heart may well belong to UK and its College of Agriculture.

First President of FarmHouse

He had never even been to Lexington when he arrived here in 1951, suitcase in hand, to finish up his schooling after attending the less costly Murray State University for two years.

Right off, Schrader joined what was then FarmHouse Club. Within a year, the club was chartered as a fraternity, and Schrader became its first president.

He describes the fraternity as "a struggling group of poor farm boys." The fraternity's first house was an upstairs apartment on Euclid Avenue. Its second one was a house on Conn Terrace.

"A couch and a chair from UK surplus was all the furniture we had," Schrader says. "We went down to an FFA camp and got some used steel beds. They had been used by soldiers during World War II."

Schrader remembers the first housemother of FarmHouse, who told its members:
"We must teach you some social graces."
Says Schrader: "She had plenty of opportunities—and did quite well."

He speaks proudly of the FarmHouse brothers—"our boys," he calls them—when talking about the honors the fraternity has garnered over the years and the success members have experienced in later life.

One of the unofficial roles Schrader has taken on over the years is mentoring FarmHouse leaders. Garry Weston ('00, health administration, '01, M.B.A.), who was FarmHouse chapter president in 1999, says Schrader is "really a people person, and he's up front with you." Weston says Schrader, as someone who worked his way up through the ranks at Kentucky Utilities, has been an inspiration to him.

Schrader also has good memories of being in agriculture. "You have a camaraderie with outstanding fellow students and make friendships that last all your life," he says.

Bill Survant, who taught soils, is one of the ag professors Schrader remembers best. "He made the subject interesting and was very much concerned about all his students,” he says. “He made us feel as if we could succeed."

And Schrader did succeed, beginning his career as a farm services adviser at Kentucky Utilities in 1955 and ending it as a senior vice president, retiring in '92.

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A Good Match

In his early years at Kentucky Utilities, Schrader found himself working for a company that was interested in the future of Kentucky. The company found in him a man who wanted to help create a good future for the commonwealth. The match meant that his energies often intersected with the goals of the College. Fund-raising for 4-H was a natural pairing of his interests and the College's needs.

Schrader was a member of the board of Friends of Kentucky 4-H from the 1970s until the 1990s, serving as its president from 1978 through 1980 and from 1985 through 1989.
The dream for the leadership center at Jabez was jump-started into reality with a $950,000 federal grant from the Economic Development Administration. After that, fund-raising for the center got easier. Some of the money was even raised through 4-H bake sales.

In 1983, Schrader received the Thomas Poe Cooper Award, which is given annually by the Kentucky chapter of Gamma Sigma Delta, the agricultural honor society, for distinguished farm leadership.

Schrader has continued to give his energies to the College and to UK.
Last year, FarmHouse celebrated its 50th anniversary, and Schrader served as co-chair in planning and carrying out the anniversary activities.

He helped plan the 50th reunion of his UK graduating class, part of homecoming festivities this fall.

But it is perhaps for his work with Friends of Kentucky 4-H that Schrader is best known. He's a strong believer in what 4-H can do.

"In 4-H, winning a blue ribbon or a red ribbon encourages the child to do better and take responsibility for a project. It's a most valuable thing.

"I'm glad to be a part of making a better college," Schrader said. "We're reaching more young people than ever before and training them to be successful and productive people. That's what it's all about."

Kentucky Friends of 4-H awarded
$2 million

Dr. Carl J. (Jay) Hellmann ,’85, a Kenton County veterinarian, finds himself presiding over an organization that has been awarded the largest single gift Kentucky 4-H has ever received—$2 million.

The gift, made to Friends of Kentucky 4-H Inc., is tobacco settlement money that was awarded by the Kentucky Agricultural Development Board. It will eventually provide about $100,000 a year in income for special projects that help youth make the transition from tobacco production to other enterprises. Hellman is chairman of the board of Friends. The organization has been in existence since 1974 and is made up of a 25-member board of directors.

He said the grant “really makes it possible for tobacco money to be used throughout the state for youth development.” He is gratified that "the board has progressed to the point that it's in a position to accept and handle the grant.”

Projects funded through the endowment have to qualify under the agreement between Friends and the Agricultural Development Board.

"The money opens up exciting opportunities, but a lot of 4-H programs don't have anything to do with making the transition from tobacco. Alumni and others who want to designate their gifts for 4-H should continue to do so,” Hellman said.

Hellman was active in 4-H as a young person—working on electric projects, demonstrations, community pride activities, “pretty much everything,” he said.

He sees being on the board as a natural progression from the activities many board members, now successful professionals, were in as kids in 4-H. “The kids we are helping today are probably going to be the ones who take over Friends tomorrow,” Hellmann said.

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