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Duggan a farmer for life
Doug Flanagan/Post-Register
Wyman Duggan has been a farmer all his life.
Wyman Duggan has lived a lifetime in farming.
Duggan grew up in southern Idaho, where his father ran a dairy farm. When he was a teenager, he planned to start a Jersey cow dairy operation with his brother, but when he graduated high school in 1961, Duggan realized that laboring in that particular profession would be rough because milk prices had plummeted.
At that point, Duggan made a decision that changed his life — he moved to Quincy to take a farming job that paid better wages.
He’s been here ever since. He likes to joke that he decided to stay here because he’s been too broke to move back home, but over the course of the last 50 years, he’s learned to embrace the area as his real home.
“I hated it when I first came here. Where I came from, houses were about a quarter-mile apart. Here, they were three or four miles apart,” he said. “I’ve seen lots of change. Areas that were just sagebrush before are now taken up with farm ground. (But I like it here because) we’ve got the best water supply of anywhere in the United States, the power is good, and you can grow most anything here.”
Words of a true farmer, to be sure. Over the last few decades, Duggan has worked in just about every agriculture field there is.
“I’ve done row crops, I’ve done orchards, I’ve done dairy, I’ve been a mechanic, I’ve been a welder, I’ve been a baler service man,” he said. “I grew up on a farm and most everything I’ve done has involved a farm.”
Since 1996, Duggan has worked for Quincy Farm Chemicals. His current responsibilities include placing fertilizer tanks and pumps in fields for nitrogation purposes.
“I enjoy it,” he said. “I’m at about the age where I should probably think about retiring, but I still enjoy it, and after all, a guy’s gotta do something.”
Another way Duggan can express his interest in agriculture on a consistent basis is his involvement with Farmer Consumer Awareness Day. As a member of the FCAD board of directors, Duggan helps to organize the event. He’s been involved off and on for about 10 of the event’s 30 years.
“FCAD is a very important part of our community,” he said. “It can be interesting because you’ll have 10 people coming up with 10 different ideas for something, but it all gets done in the end, and we try to put on a good show.”
Duggan’s farming interests also extend to his free time. A hobby that he has shown interest in is the collection and restoration of old farm equipment.
He currently has two 1950s-era tractors that he eventually would like to refurbish.
“I want to get them restored,” he said. “Basically I want to get them back into new condition, make the engine right, clean them up, paint them, get them looking as good or better as they were. My son, Collin, has his grandfather’s tractor that we’d like to restore as well.”
Duggan also has a few beef cows on his property.
“They’re a project,” he said. “They keep me occupied when I get off work. I gotta have something to do to keep me moving.”
Collin is one of Duggan’s two children. Collin also works in the area as a farmer and has one young son. Duggan also has a daughter, Colleen, who is a teacher in Cheney and has two young sons.
“Being a grandpa is great,” Duggan said. “Last weekend all three (of my grandchildren) were together with me for awhile. They keep ‘Poppa’ pretty busy.”
