On Jan. 19, Gerry Hayden, of Calhoun, was presented with the 2023 Distinguished Service Award from the Kentucky Soybean Association — the highest honor given annually by the organization — at the Kentucky Commodity Conference in Bowling Green.
“I had no idea,” Hayden said Monday about receiving the award. “The first words out of my mouth was ‘Ya’ll keep good secrets.’ ”
A fifth generation farmer, Hayden, 71, got his start in farming during his youth in the Buel community in McLean County before moving to Calhoun in 1960.
“I’ve been farming for a long time,” he said. “My granddad put me on a little Massey Ferguson 50 (tractor) When I was 9 years old, because we worked everything then — we tilled all of our ground. My nephew (came) by yesterday and we were just reminiscing — and we had three tractors working the ground in front of a 494 John Deere corn planter.”
During his time at Calhoun High School, Hayden continued to be involved in agriculture.
“At the time, being involved in FFA was the ‘in’ thing,” he said. “We really had a good class. We were all farmers’ sons, and a lot of us are still around including the ladies of our class.”
Hayden got into a business relationship with his father to help run the family farm after graduating from Western Kentucky University in 1974 and took over the reins after his father’s retirement in 1992.
“I farmed with (Dad) after college (for) 46 years,” he said. “The last few years, he was just here for consulting.”
Currently, Hayden runs the farm with his son, Ben, 42, who came back home in 2018 — who had prior experience working with farmers at companies like Miles Farm Supply and Southern States.
In total, the Haydens oversee and take care of over 1,500 acres of land, where they raise soybeans, corn, wheat and cattle.
“We’re doing what we like to do,” he said.
Hayden became involved with the KSA when he joined as a member in 1995, before being elected to the KSA Board in 1999, followed by a tenure as vice president and served as president from 2003 to 2005.
Additionally, Hayden has served on the association board and on the Kentucky Soybean Promotion Board since 2001, holding the position of chairman in 2011 and 2012.
Throughout his time with KSA, Hayden was recognized as one of the top 10 soybean association recruiters in the U.S. in 2003 and won the top honor the following year. He also earned the KSA Eddie Voils Leadership Award in 2002 and received the American Soybean Association (ASA) Lifetime Achievement Award, Membership Focus, in 2009.
Additionally, Hayden has worked on the national scale.
In 2013, Hayden was elected by the KSA board to serve as one of Kentucky’s ASA directors and held the position until December 2022. He also served as co-chair of the Commodity Classic Joint Venture Committee in 2018 and 2022 and became part of the Soy Transportation Coalition as Kentucky’s representative when the state joined the coalition in 2010, eventually becoming chairman before departing in 2019.
“The big thing is we represent farmers up on the hill in Washington, D.C.,” he said.
He’s also been involved in an international capacity after being chosen by the ASA to serve as its representative to the World Initiative for Soy in Human Health (WISHH) Board in 2017, becoming vice chairman in 2019 and 2020 and eventually chairman in 2021 and 2022.
Throughout his experiences and different roles, Hayden has been able to travel around the world to countries such as Argentina, Cambodia, Dubai and Panama during the expansion of the Panama Canal.
“All these countries are so hungry for knowledge, so hungry for self-sufficiency,” Hayden said. “They want to produce food and so forth for their families. And they’re just like farmers — they hand down what they’ve done for years.”
Regarding his work being recognized by the KSA, Hayden takes it all in stride.
“You don’t do it for that, but you’re thankful for it,” he said. “It’s not easy — it takes away from family, it takes away from farm life ….
“You don’t work to get to that point; you just wind up at that point. We try to think what’s best for all soybean producers; we try to think of what would move the needle in a positive direction; we try to do the right thing for all of us.”
And Hayden feels the bonds he’s formed with others has been the best takeaway.
“The camaraderie is probably, in my opinion, the biggest reward that I’ve received over the last 25 years,” he said. “I’ve got friends (all over) — you can just name the states and I can name the people’s names. … I’ll probably receive an average of one or two calls a day from these individuals.”
Hayden hopes the family legacy will be strong for years to come.
“My granddaughter and I were talking the other day and she’s a senior over at the high school and she’s working on scholarships,” he said, “and I said, ‘Well, you need to apply to this one, this one and this one’ and she said, ‘But, I’m not in agriculture.’ And I said, ‘But you can be.’ ”
But Hayden, himself, has no plans calling it quits.
“I love what I’m doing,” he said.
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