The U.S. Custom Harvesters Hall of Fame

INDUCTEES OF USCHI HALL OF FAME

Darrell Wagner, Mankato, Kan. - (2015)

It was 1964 and Darrell Wagner was only 14 when he convinced his dad to take the family farm combine to Harper, Kan., through Bushton and back to the farm in Mankato, Kan. By the time he graduated from high school, he was ready to make the entire run, so he got a job with Howard and Jerry David running a 55 John Deere. The next year he did it on his own. At 19, he set off for Texas with a Gleaner A2. He still recalls loading the combine onto the truck with the header still attached. When he hit a rough patch in the road, that header would bang and clang on the cab roof of the truck.

That first run started in Texas, through Oklahoma with a stop in Bushton, Kan., where he had started with his dad a few years before. That stop in Bushton, at Larry Schroder's place, turned into a home away from home over the next 46 years. Darrell stopped at the home base in Mankato before pressing on to Colorado and Montana. Eventually, he mapped the run all the way to South Dakota and North Dakota, a route he still runs today.

Today Darrell and his sons, Jason and Allen, bring Wagner's Harvesting up the Great Plains every summer. Their fleet of four semi-trucks, five combines, three mobile homes and two tractors with grain carts is an impressive sight. Darrell has been a loyal Gleaner customer. After starting with that Gleaner A2, he grew the business to running as many as five R75 Gleaners. Today, he makes the annual harvest run with a fleet of S77s.

U.S. Custom Harvesters recognizes Darrell's can-do attitude and his 50 years of loyalty to his profession and his customers.

 

Darrell Wagner