-Farm News photo by Deanna Meyer
Dana Lantz, advertising manager for Farm News, holds a framed copy of the first issue of Farm News ever published from March 1995.

There’s a saying that life isn’t about having the right opportunities; it’s about handling the opportunities right. Perhaps no one at Farm News knows this better than Dana Lantz.

“Some people say newspapers are dead, but it’s quite the contrary with Farm News,” said Lantz, the advertising manager for Farm News, The Messenger and other area newspapers. “Working here has been the best 22 years of my life.”

Lantz has seen a lot of changes at Farm News since he joined the team in January 2003, yet some things never change.

“Farm News has succeeded by focusing on consistency, following good fiscal management and building relationships,” Lantz said.

Farm News took root and flourished in the same region that Lantz calls home. He grew up on a farm south of Knierim in the Somers area. His parents (Horace and Frances) raised seven children (including Lantz and his six sisters) on a crop and livestock farm. Lantz participated in 4-H when he was growing up and enjoyed showing cattle at the Calhoun County Expo in the 1970s.

“One of the highlights was the time I won top honors with a steer from our feedlot,” said Lantz, who used the proceeds to purchase a Mercury Montego from Gerald Thomas, who ran B & G Auto in Farnhamville.

After graduating from Cedar Valley High School in 1980, Lantz attended Iowa State University, where he earned his ag business degree (with a minor in management) in 1984.

The timing couldn’t have been worse for new ag grads, however, due to the Farm Crisis. “I couldn’t find a job in agriculture,” Lantz said. “Neither could people who’d worked in the ag industry for years. It was a tough time.”

Ag grads often had to look beyond farm-related careers — and even Iowa itself — to land a job. Lantz, a lifelong sports fan, seized the opportunity to join a management training program with the Foot Locker athletic shoe store chain.

“I was trained to work in inner-city Chicago,” said Lantz, whose Foot Locker career took him to Chicago, Illinois; Benton Harbor, Michigan; Topeka, Kansas; and downtown St. Louis, Missouri.

Many of these stores were located in diverse, rough neighborhoods where crime (and cash-only policies) were common. The stores were also extremely busy. “While you might only have a few customers at a time in a Foot Locker at Crossroads Mall in Fort Dodge, the stores I managed usually had 20 employees and had 150 customers at any one time,” Lantz said.

It wasn’t uncommon for Lantz and his team to use codes like “PT19” if they spotted a potential theft in progress. “The city was a completely different world than rural Iowa.”

Working for Foot Locker connected Lantz to some of the biggest names in sports. He met the legendary Chicago Bulls player Michael Jordan around 1987-88, when the basketball star was signing autographs and promoting his Air Jordan sneakers at Foot Locker. Lantz also met Muhammad Ali when the professional boxer (who had a mansion in Berrien Springs, Michigan) brought his daughter Laila to Foot Locker to buy some shoes.

Lantz thrived during his 10 years with Foot Locker. His secret to success?

“I could out-work anyone,” said Lantz, who drew on the work ethic he’d learned on his family’s farm. “I also learned you judge a person by what’s on the inside, not what’s on the outside.”

Those lessons served him well when he moved to Jacksonville, Florida, to begin a new career in the rent-to-own business. Not only did he manage rent-to-own stores in the inner city, but he doubled as a repo man. As a repossession agent, he dealt with everything from televisions and entertainment centers to refrigerators and freezers.

As his family grew and times changed, Lantz began reevaluating his career. In September 2002, Lantz moved back to rural Iowa.

“I was an Iowa boy who wanted to get back home,” said Lantz, whose mother was battling cancer at the time. “Moving back to Iowa was one of the best decisions I ever made.”

Special sections help Farm News grow

Lantz got a job driving a truck for NEW Cooperative that fall. He noticed that his father, a long-time seed dealer, was an avid reader of a weekly newspaper called Farm News.

“Around this time, the advertising manager job at Farm News opened up,” said Lantz, whose father encouraged him to apply. “I stopped by The Messenger office in Fort Dodge, filled out an application, and Larry Bushman hired me in January 2003.”

Lantz relished the opportunity to finally combine his sales management experience with a career in agriculture. He faced some big challenges, though. Farm News had been operating in the red since the paper launched in March 1995.

“There was pressure to turn things around, but I knew how to motivate people,” Lantz said.

Lantz became the face of Farm News as he met with countless advertisers and readers, from the Iowa Pork Congress trade show in Des Moines to the Clay County Fair in Spencer. “Back then I was usually on the road a few days a week,” Lantz said. “Within six years, Farm News became a $1.2 million operation.”

Lantz helped grow Farm News’ annual Century Farms section, which debuted around 2000 and covered 33 Iowa counties. This success prompted the Farm News team to launch the annual Barns section in 2007 to feature a barn from each of the counties in Farm News’ coverage area. Both of these special sections remain a key part of Farm News.

Farm News also added more special sections throughout the year, with stories focused on corn, soybeans, beef, pork, spring planting, fall harvest, ag progress, farmhouses and more. “Readers love these special sections,” Lantz said.

Readers also enjoyed the annual Farm News show, which debuted in Fort Dodge in 2002 and later expanded to Emmetsburg, he added.

Trust is earned; it’s never given

In the past five years, big changes in the publishing industry created new challenges for Farm News, from higher printing costs to soaring postage rates. While Farm News was a weekly newspaper for years, this changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2021, Farm News became a bimonthly newspaper.

“Publishing only twice a month saved us a ton of money,” Lantz said.

While finances are key, Lantz also credits Farm News’ success to the writers, many of whom have been part of the newspaper for decades. “So many great people have been part of the Farm News family through the years,” said Lantz, who worked with several Fam News editors, including Randy Mudgett, Larry Kershner and Kriss Nelson, along with many dedicated advertising sales specialists. “I always compliment the writing staff for growing Farm News’ readership.”

While the writers handle the editorial side of Farm News, Lantz and Todd Wood handle advertising sales. “Trust in this business is earned; it’s never given,” Lantz said. “We’re blessed to have advertisers who’ve been with Farm News for 10, 15 or 20 years.”

The personal touch drives the loyalty that many Farm News advertisers and readers feel toward the newspaper.

“I’m proud of all we’ve accomplished,” said Lantz, who looks forward to more years with Farm News. “We’re viable, we’re blessed to have great writers, and we’ll be around for years to come.”