UMC’s 29th Annual Ag-Arama to Honor Gene Miller
It
is with great pride that the 2004 Ag-Arama Planning Committee has chose to
dedicate UMC’s 29th Annual Ag-Arama
in honor of Eugene “Gene” C. Miller, engineer, pilot, horseman, and
author. Miller is a true pioneer of agricultural and aviation education
and is recognized as an early builder of the University of Minnesota,
Crookston (UMC) and the Northwest Research and Outreach Center (NWROC).
A native of Wisconsin, Miller attended the Stout Institute (now the University of Wisconsin at Stout) in Menomonie before WW II, when he then served in the Army Air Force as a pilot instructor. After the war, he graduated from Stout and taught industrial arts for a time before switching to agriculture and completing his master’s degree at the University of Minnesota in 1953.
Miller went on to train on-farm veterans near Fergus Falls and then accepted a position at the University of Minnesota’s Southern School of Agriculture in Waseca. In 1954, he relocated to Crookston and the Northwest School of Agriculture (the precursor to UMC) and the Northwest Experiment Station (now the NWROC). When classes for the new technical college at Crookston began in 1966, he was involved in launching the first instructional programs in mechanized agriculture and agricultural aviation. The latter was perhaps one of the very first such programs in North America.
Summers in those years were spent crop dusting and administering the academic programs. Miller later became employed full-time with the Experiment Station, where he served as an agricultural engineer and worked on and evaluated new silo research, early haylage experiments, pollution control technology, slatted buildings for livestock confinement, and solar energy applications. He also supervised the construction of a major addition to the Red River Valley Winter Shows building.
Flying was always a passion for Miller, and he owned and flew a variety of aircraft over the span of his career. He and Arlene, his wife of 60 years, were officers in the Minnesota Flying Farmers, and he estimates that they landed on almost every airport in the state of Minnesota. He also played a role in organizing four flying clubs.
Horses were another of Miller’s passions, and he raised and showed Quarter Horse and Appaloosa breeds for many years. In 1973, he was named “Horseman of the Year” by the Red River Valley Horsebreeders Association.
After his retirement, he turned his interests into a successful career as an author and poet. He has written a book about his home town in Wisconsin, “Fairchild – When You and I Were Young,” two volumes about his flying career, “The Wish and the Wisdom,” and a two volume set, “Horses in Our Lives.” In 1995, the University asked him to write the 100-year history of the Northwest Experiment Station for its centennial celebration. Publishers are currently reviewing his latest work, a 200-page book that details experiences of the summer of 1993, when he and his wife lived in a houseboat on the Mississippi River.
In 2002, Miller organized the Valley Writer and Poets Association and continues to publish poems which have been nationally recognized. He is also currently active in the local Skyline Preservation Foundation, whose aim is to preserve historic buildings in Crookston. He and his wife live in Crookston.
Posted 01/14/2004
Contact: Andrew Svec,
218-281-8435