About

Edwin B. Petersen (Grandpa) decided to become active in the Farm Bureau because of the good things they were doing. He was elected to be their township chairman and soon after started that assignment (about 1959). Because of this, he became a member of the county board for Farm Bureau. The Albert Lea Tribune was interested in the Farm Bureau policies and as the elected county; chairman it was his duty to write on Farm Bureau views - they asked for about eight articles. It was entitled Your Farm Bureau. The editor liked the pieces and asked grandpa if he would like to keep writing and they changed the column to One Farmer's View.  Grandpa said he usually wrote them on Tuesday and if he remembered right they came out on Fridays.

The first couple of weeks he would just write some ideas and the paper would put it together, but Grandpa didn't like how they came out and so he completely took over the writing of the column. Grandpa said he was never asked to re-write a column. He wrote for twenty-three years. He finally quite writing in 1982 when they left for their mission to Ireland. He doesn't remember ever missing a week (writing ahead or from where ever he was at).

Grandpa said it made him happy to find people from Rochester and Mankato who were reading his column and felt it must have been fairly widely read. 

— BJ Petersen compiled this information after speaking with Grandpa.