Roger Richter does a bit of everything at Nichols Farms.
“I guess I go wherever I’m needed,” says Rog. He helps Alex calve first-calf heifers; rounds up and sorts cattle; makes hay and mans the tender at planting. Sometimes he’s the farm gopher.
Rog also spends a good amount of time on the road delivering bulls across the Midwest and beyond. He’s been 12 miles from the Canadian border and was even able to make a stop to see the Incredible Dr. Pol, of television fame, in Weidman, Michigan. He left with a signed poster for his granddaughter, now in vet-tech school.
Rog and his wife, Vickie, live less than 5 miles from where Rog grew up near Adair, Iowa. They have a son, a daughter, and two granddaughters. The family spent several years traveling the show circuit when his granddaughters were showing Shorthorns.
Rog graduated from Adair-Casey High School and attended Southwestern Community College in Creston before serving a tour of duty in Vietnam. He is Post Commander for the Adair Veterans of Foreign Wars, providing military funeral rites for veterans and honoring them with an annual Memorial Day program.
He was on the Adair Volunteer Fire Department for many years and has served on the Guthrie County Fair Board for nearly 40 years, helping to oversee a period of growth and new building construction for the fair. The latest is a new show barn and arena. Rog started the West Cetral Iowa Farm Toy Show, now in its 34th year.
In whatever spare time he can manage, Rog says he is “pretty good with a remote if I can get myself into the right position.” He also likes to travel a bit and enjoys a good farm toy show or a cattle sale or show.
He just hit his 10-year anniversary at Nichols Farms and at age 74 sees no reason to retire: “I enjoy what I do. I like working with a great group of people. I intend to keep going if I can.”