Editor's Note:
As the year comes to a close, we've once again asked the DTN/Progressive Farmer reporting team to pick out the most significant, most fun, or otherwise their favorite, story of 2024. They range from solar events to seeing how seed corn is produced, political/policy coverage to wildfire impact, to including profiles of American farmers and ranchers who shared their marketing, production and even life choices with our writers. We hope you enjoy our writers' favorites, continuing the series with today's story by DTN Staff Reporter Russ Quinn.
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OMAHA (DTN) -- For the Dreessen family of Kennard, Nebraska, their International tractor collection started with one tractor. A 1953 International Farmall Super M.
This tractor helped to start a love of red tractors, which burns through four generations of a Nebraska farm family today.
When Julius Dreessen purchased the brand new 1953 Farmall Super M tractor from a long-gone implement dealer on the outskirts of Omaha more than 70 years ago, there was no way he knew what he was starting.
The Dreessen family now owns more than 50 International/Case IH tractors, including Julius' Super M.
Four generations have kept the love of red tractors going. The family had an open house for Julius' son, Wayne, for his 80th birthday back in late August 2024. Also there to celebrate and show off their impressive IH collection was grandson, Tim, great-grandson, Taylor, and even great-great grandson, Toby.
The tractors ranged from a 1937 IH Farmall F-20 to a 2013 Case-IH 340. The collection grew over the years as the family would rarely trade in tractors and kept the old tractor as they added new ones to their stable of farm machinery. In addition, they would buy various red tractors which they found interesting.
This was my favorite story I wrote in 2024 for several reasons.
Firstly, I do have a love of all things farm machinery. For some reason I have always been enamored with tractors of all colors, especially vintage tractors with their many unique features.
When I was growing up, we had John Deere tractors, but we had friends and neighbors who had International tractors and there were even some Allis Chalmers folks in our area. I had an uncle who had Oliver tractors and there was even one farmer who had a hill of Prairie Gold Minneapolis-Moline farm equipment.
Maybe this wide variety of tractors I saw regularly fostered my love of vintage tractors.
Another reason this article was my favorite story of the year is my personal connection to the family. As I wrote, my family and the Dreessen family have a long history together as being good friends for multiple generations.
I rarely write articles about people I know personally. I'm not sure why this is the case. Regardless, maybe I should write more about people I know because writing this article was the best thing I wrote in 2024.
You can see the complete article, "Nebraska Farm Family's Red Tractor Collection Grew From Just One Tractor," at https://www.dtnpf.com/…
Russ Quinn can be reached at Russ.Quinn@dtn.com
Follow him on social platform X @RussQuinnDTN
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