The U.S. Custom Harvesters Hall of Fame

INDUCTEES OF USCHI HALL OF FAME

Ray Pollert, Clarinda, IA - (2004)

Raymond Pollert was born January 27, 1908 in Sauers, Indiana. He passed away February 9, 1992.

Ray and his family moved to the Clarksdale, Missouri area in 1919 where his father bought a farm. When Ray was 17, he moved to Clarinda, Iowa and worked on a farm.

He married Clytha Edmonds in 1932 in Kansas City, Missouri. They had one daughter, Sandra Kay.

When World War II broke out, Ray was too old to be called to battle. However, he felt that feeding the American people and our soldiers overseas was just as important as carrying a rifle. He farmed on a large scale even my mid-forties standards-producing wheat, corn, hogs, cattle, and selling implements from Massey-Harris. He was instrumental in establishing and participating in the Harvest Brigades that Massey-Harris promoted to get combines in the hands of 500 men that would agree to harvest 2000 acres per machine. He would go on the combine tour during those Harvest Brigades to run, ramrod, mechanic, and be the public relations person. The public relations person would go in front of the machines lining up jobs for the combines as they move north. However he would never admit that the PR position required one to be an individual that was somewhat of a “BS-er (Better-salesman), he filled the position better than most. He could sell a Massey combine to a man that already had 4 John Deere’s, two Gleaners, and an International, and the man would like it, and thank him for it.

Ray quit being a Massey-Harris-Ferguson dealer in 1960 and started buying land in Holt county Missouri.

One of Ray’s tenants in his latter years thought that Ray ought to be President. He had more common sense than all of Washington D.C. put together.