Doug Clough

For our anniversary edition this year, Farm News would like to thank our team of writers that contribute and make this publication possible.

In these pages, we hope you will enjoy getting to know our writers better, as we asked them each to answer a few questions to highlight their interests and backgrounds.

Of course, we also always thank our readers and advertisers.

Our mission is to cover our farms and rural communities, bringing stories that educate, inform and help move the ag economy forward.

Doug Clough

Farm News welcomed Doug Clough, of Ida Grove, to the Farm News writing team this past year.

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1. Who was president when you were born?

Lyndon B. Johnson (Democrat)

2. What was the name of your 4-H or FFA Club?

I was not in 4-H or FFA as I was a city kid, but I have married a farmer’s daughter, currently living in Ida Grove — the hub of northwest Iowa’s agricultural land. One of the things that best suits me about agricultural writing is that I learn more about farming with each interview. Writing for Farm News is incredibly fulfilling.

3. What’s your favorite story you have covered?

Over a decade ago, I did a series called “I Never Went to Market” where I did jobs in the agriculture industry, since I was so far removed from it growing up. I helped a cattleman with artificial insemination, and I was deathly afraid of loitering behind the cow where I could get a swift kick.

4. What is your must-have food at the Iowa State or Clay County Fair?

Pork chop on a stick, hands down.

5. What was your very first job?

I delivered newspapers for the now defunct Des Moines Tribune after school. When in school at The University of Iowa, I delivered 350 Iowa City Press Citizen newspapers to be able to pay my apartment rent and utilities. Newspaper ink permeated my pores and is now part of my blood.

6. What’s the last book that you read? Shoeless Joe, the book that the movie Field of Dreams was based on. You can smell the fabric of Iowa in its pages. If you build it …

7. Who is the most famous person you ever met?

Mo Rocca … CBS Sunday Morning correspondent, panelist for NPR’s “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” and author of “Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving” (podcast also). Rocca came to my mother-in-law’s farm southeast of Ida Grove to film his cooking show “My Grandmother’s Ravioli.” He was kind and generous. Before my mother-in-law Edna Mae passed away, he sent his love via video, so I could share it with her among her goodbyes to her husband and 14 children.

8. Favorite place for a picnic in Iowa?

Gabrielson Park south of Sioux Rapids; my wife and I enjoyed a picnic there — it was an incredible place to be in the moment with someone you care about … another place in the middle of nowhere where a person, couple, or family can just be.

9. Favorite clean cuss word?

Holy Mackerel!

10. Daylight Saving Time, awesome or awful? Short sunlight days are a downer, and I’m under the impression that you can’t avoid them no matter what system you buy into … I’m just for everyone being uniform, so I don’t have to guess when I should or shouldn’t call someone. I mean, goodness, I don’t want to interrupt their lunch even though it’s 11 a.m. my time!