Catch Up With Chuck | Episode 15

Rural Futures Institute Author

02/21/2018 Added

5 Plays

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In this episode, Chuck is joined by Harry Knobbe of West Point, Nebraska.

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[00:00:04.050]Welcome back to Catch Up With Chuck,
[00:00:05.940]from the Rural Futures Institute at
[00:00:07.670]the University of Nebraska.
[00:00:09.700]I'm Chuck Schroeder, I'm Executive Director
[00:00:11.750]of the Rural Futures Institute.
[00:00:14.080]You know, when we look at thriving rural communities,
[00:00:18.510]we can generally see six common characteristics
[00:00:22.650]that come from a study that was done a few years ago,
[00:00:25.270]but those include, number one, leadership that matters,
[00:00:29.430]number two, deliberate efforts to invite people
[00:00:32.730]into leadership roles and involvement in the community,
[00:00:36.260]who in some cases might not otherwise participate,
[00:00:40.120]and third is a willingness to invest in the community.
[00:00:45.250]Well, joining me today is a friend of longstanding,
[00:00:48.580]and a guy that, I'll embarrass him,
[00:00:51.176]by saying is a genuine hero in my life,
[00:00:53.920]he's a fellow who has demonstrated over many years,
[00:00:58.530]in very real world terms, how those factors,
[00:01:02.360]leadership that matters, inviting people into the circle,
[00:01:05.240]willingness to invest in the community,
[00:01:07.650]he really shows how that works
[00:01:10.490]in a thriving rural community.
[00:01:13.020]Harry Knobbe is a business and community leader
[00:01:16.800]from West Point, Nebraska, Cuming County,
[00:01:20.260]who really has never subscribed to the notion
[00:01:22.725]that a small town can't be a great place to live,
[00:01:26.160]to work, and to build a family.
[00:01:27.930]So Harry, welcome to Catch Up With Chuck.
[00:01:30.510]Thank you Chuck, and I appreciate the time
[00:01:32.640]to tell our story, I like to,
[00:01:34.999]you're doing such a great job here of telling our story
[00:01:38.550]and that we can help other people,
[00:01:40.620]and it'll make our community grow more too.
[00:01:43.760]Well, listen, your impact on your community,
[00:01:47.630]not only the community of West Point and Cuming County,
[00:01:51.040]but your broader community of the livestock industry,
[00:01:54.460]really has been amazing.
[00:01:55.650]You've been a difference maker in so many ways,
[00:01:59.610]I want you to lay a little foundation for folks
[00:02:02.530]about Harry, that we can't find on the internet,
[00:02:06.770]a little bit about your family,
[00:02:08.710]your connection to community,
[00:02:10.870]what makes you do what you do (laughing)
[00:02:14.000]as you invest in other people?
[00:02:16.900]Well, I have to say it's a little bit,
[00:02:19.110]it came from my dad I think.
[00:02:21.510]My parents were 47 and 48 when I was born,
[00:02:24.490]so I had a brother that was 17 years older than me,
[00:02:27.960]so I traveled a lot with my dad, and my dad was always,
[00:02:32.195]he'd be at cattle sales and some people wanted to
[00:02:35.858]buy some cattle and he said,
[00:02:37.710]what do you want and I'll just buy 'em for you like that.
[00:02:40.500]And so he was a giver all the time,
[00:02:43.660]and I've always been, you know,
[00:02:46.870]Chuck I've always felt you can have anything
[00:02:48.980]in the world within reason if you
[00:02:50.460]let the rest of the world have what they want.
[00:02:53.609]And you can't gather all the wealth and everything like that
[00:02:56.230]and keep it for yourself because
[00:02:59.140]you won't be a happy person.
[00:03:00.690]But anyway, so,
[00:03:03.490]my brother got married and we moved to Talon,
[00:03:05.510]I was eight years old, so I was one of them boys,
[00:03:08.130]that believe it or not had a paper route.
[00:03:10.190]A farm boy that had a paper route,
[00:03:12.420]and after high school in 1958,
[00:03:15.955]well I didn't pass for my physicals for sports,
[00:03:20.750]so I always had to be active and things,
[00:03:23.779]and I had a paper route, I even had little things,
[00:03:26.180]I'd drive down the alleys in town and pick up iron,
[00:03:28.810]and sell iron, believe it or not.
[00:03:30.868](laughing)
[00:03:31.701]Two cents a pound.
[00:03:32.730]But anyway, I've always had that drive to be
[00:03:35.220]well was interested around the corner,
[00:03:37.400]over the hill, and ask people, and talk to people,
[00:03:40.410]and to go like that.
[00:03:42.230]So I actually registered for college in 1958,
[00:03:46.830]but I went out to California that summer,
[00:03:49.670]and to be with my uncle feeding cattle,
[00:03:52.230]and I was one of those roust abouts
[00:03:53.940]that didn't show up for college.
[00:03:55.920]So I never went to college, so finally two years later,
[00:03:59.660]my dad says you gonna be in California,
[00:04:01.620]or are you gonna farm?
[00:04:03.525]And my dad had happened to own a farm for 20 years
[00:04:06.507]that was bought in the 30's.
[00:04:08.575]And so I went on that farm in 1960
[00:04:11.310]and I thought I was gonna have
[00:04:12.260]100 head of cattle and 160 acres.
[00:04:14.790]But during that time,
[00:04:16.420]there were just things going on so fast though,
[00:04:18.920]we were coming down here to the university on weekends,
[00:04:22.360]well Friday afternoons and Saturdays,
[00:04:24.920]and if you were an entrepreneur, farming or something,
[00:04:28.470]there was some workshops that were going on.
[00:04:31.050]Sure.
[00:04:32.312]So everybody that was at that
[00:04:33.610]workshop had notes at the bank,
[00:04:36.680]so we were serious, you know,
[00:04:38.140]we weren't in college and just--
[00:04:40.240]It wasn't theoretical.
[00:04:41.290]Right. (laughing)
[00:04:42.480]So it was serious and it was free,
[00:04:44.330]so in the 60's, whether it was a cattle business,
[00:04:48.430]or a row crop farming earned income,
[00:04:50.100]there were constantly free workshops there for ya,
[00:04:53.760]by some of these sea corn companies and protein people
[00:04:57.640]and things like this.
[00:04:58.850]So and then in '66, Cattle Futures were comin',
[00:05:02.420]and I went to Chicago to just,
[00:05:04.560]snoop around and look and I met a guy there--
[00:05:07.210]Looking over the hill one more time (laughing).
[00:05:09.586]Looking over the hill one more time.
[00:05:11.965]And so I started in office in 1966-7,
[00:05:15.970]and that time like this, and today we have six brokers,
[00:05:19.960]and we just do a pretty good cattle business.
[00:05:24.940]And Chuck, you know, I really got to know you
[00:05:27.580]when you were over at NCBA,
[00:05:29.650]half my customers are from the NCBA.
[00:05:31.630]Yeah, and you've been such a
[00:05:34.820]powerful member of that community.
[00:05:37.400]But listen, I wanna think a little bit about West Point,
[00:05:40.900]we've so enjoyed from the Rural Futures Institute,
[00:05:44.360]the opportunity to be in West Point,
[00:05:46.690]get to know a lot of people there,
[00:05:48.110]we've had a couple of events up there,
[00:05:50.090]very unique community.
[00:05:51.130]But, here you are, here's an ag based community,
[00:05:55.090]way off the interstate,
[00:05:57.041]the economist that do these macro studies,
[00:06:01.850]would say well gee, those are big negatives,
[00:06:04.090]but you know, I look at West Point and here's a community
[00:06:06.630]that has been successful not only economically,
[00:06:10.830]but it's been a place that has developed those
[00:06:13.010]quality of life factors that attract young people,
[00:06:16.430]in a very unique way.
[00:06:18.481]You've been at the heart of that.
[00:06:20.270]Talk a little bit about what
[00:06:21.470]you think is unique about West Point.
[00:06:24.360]Well, first of all, I've always felt this,
[00:06:26.870]we have two parochial schools.
[00:06:29.070]So they receive no tax money.
[00:06:31.050]We have a hospital that's not tax money,
[00:06:34.800]we have a rest home that's not tax money.
[00:06:37.170]So if we want those things to survive,
[00:06:40.530]we gotta put some effort in it, donate some money,
[00:06:43.200]put some time in it, and things like this.
[00:06:45.260]Then on top of that, communities that have livestock,
[00:06:49.252]those people that have livestock
[00:06:52.532]don't measure how many hours a day they work.
[00:06:55.890]They measure equity at the end of the year.
[00:06:58.460]And so all that helps to try to help yourself.
[00:07:03.720]And you know, in our county,
[00:07:07.230]we market about 725,000 cattle a year is what we do,
[00:07:12.584]and so everybody, not everybody--
[00:07:14.610]So legendary, I mean it really is.
[00:07:16.560]There's just a lot of cattle.
[00:07:18.810]I capitalized a little bit on that,
[00:07:21.870]you know, we want people to stay at home,
[00:07:24.080]so I seen in the 1980's that you know,
[00:07:27.710]there was a lot of people that didn't have
[00:07:29.960]enough work for their next generation to come back,
[00:07:34.806]so I thought, well we could double their operation
[00:07:37.950]and participate with 'em,
[00:07:40.300]and it wouldn't be anymore investment we would do.
[00:07:43.670]So today we partner with 18, 20 people,
[00:07:47.421]that we own half the cattle, they own half the cattle,
[00:07:51.590]they have a son involved, they have some hired help involved
[00:07:54.490]and everything like this and they are entrepreneurs
[00:07:58.610]and part of the industry, you know.
[00:08:00.110]They're just as much as an entrepreneur as main street.
[00:08:03.230]Absolutely.
[00:08:04.063]Is what they are.
[00:08:06.007]So it takes time to develop those kinds of things,
[00:08:08.980]and it's been good for us,
[00:08:11.242]so we market all their cattle for 'em,
[00:08:14.080]is what we do, they need us, and we need them.
[00:08:18.960]That's been a great partnership.
[00:08:20.810]Well listen, I wanna get specific about
[00:08:24.040]Harry Knobbe's style of leadership.
[00:08:26.290]One of the things that I mentioned at the outset,
[00:08:29.180]those characteristics of thriving communities,
[00:08:32.170]actually came from a study of communities that,
[00:08:35.790]rural communities that are successful in
[00:08:37.840]transferring leadership from generation to generation.
[00:08:41.760]I happen to know the girl that did that study.
[00:08:43.930]And West Point was one of the communities
[00:08:46.980]where she did that research and one of the key findings
[00:08:51.670]that is in those communities that are successful,
[00:08:54.300]there is a deliberate effort to invite people
[00:08:57.740]into leadership roles that may not otherwise
[00:09:01.958]see themselves as leaders, may be inclined,
[00:09:05.560]because of their age and whatever
[00:09:07.860]to kinda stay outside the circle.
[00:09:10.828]I have watched you, over and over,
[00:09:14.480]draw those people into leadership roles, Harry,
[00:09:18.910]and you have a community that has very purposefully said,
[00:09:24.369]you can't stay in the same role for 40 years.
[00:09:28.126]We are gonna, on purpose, roll over the generations.
[00:09:32.290]Talk a little bit about how you go about bringing people
[00:09:36.400]into the circle and why you do it.
[00:09:39.534]Well, you know, I looked back in the 70's,
[00:09:43.990]I was on the Industrial Board,
[00:09:45.740]I was chairman of the Industrial Board,
[00:09:48.566]and we would just talk about going after, you know,
[00:09:51.902]we need that company here to employ 100 people,
[00:09:53.680]or 200 people, that's too many people at one time,
[00:09:57.620]for a whole community.
[00:09:59.300]I made a film in 1979 called Partners in Progress,
[00:10:04.020]and it was to show our people who we really are,
[00:10:07.280]and then we show that to people that wanna come,
[00:10:09.930]and expand our business or something like this.
[00:10:13.331]I believe in term limits.
[00:10:15.750]Now we don't have everything in
[00:10:17.300]term limits in all our organizations,
[00:10:19.484]but term limits bring a turnover of people.
[00:10:23.392]There's a lot of boards where we have nine people,
[00:10:26.660]so every year there's three new and three old.
[00:10:29.970]And finally you got more people pushin' the cart,
[00:10:32.960]then pullin' the cart, and they support you.
[00:10:36.480]And that's like the NCBA,
[00:10:39.502]Chuck I was always so impressed that the NCBA
[00:10:42.650]had term limits on everything, well one year.
[00:10:45.740]I mean, and that impressed me,
[00:10:47.900]and I brought that back a little bit like this.
[00:10:51.430]But I'm not the only person that's doing that is in town,
[00:10:54.140]I got friends that do it.
[00:10:56.122]Sure.
[00:10:56.955]One thing that we do,
[00:10:58.000]Urve Isemeyer and I had this idea one time,
[00:11:01.180]we wanted to talk about things where there was no minutes,
[00:11:05.400]no motions, nothing like this,
[00:11:07.740]so we had bottom line breakfasts four times a year.
[00:11:10.260]We come in at 6:15, put an idea in a bowl to talk about,
[00:11:14.730]at 6:30 we pull one of those ideas out,
[00:11:17.669]and you talk about it for 10 minutes, alright,
[00:11:21.500]after 10 minutes, we go to another one,
[00:11:24.590]after five of 'em, after 50 minutes,
[00:11:26.930]we talk about what we talked about,
[00:11:28.480]and at our, you know, and under 10 minutes,
[00:11:31.100]at 7:30 we're outta there.
[00:11:32.950]Now that thing that I hate the most
[00:11:35.360]is when you go to a meeting and one person
[00:11:37.330]goes on and on and on about their deal.
[00:11:40.160]Where we're not all interested in that.
[00:11:42.180]But at the end of the meeting,
[00:11:43.530]you find out what the crowd is interested in.
[00:11:46.433]We had the Nielson Center come out of that,
[00:11:48.730]we had the theater come out of that,
[00:11:50.910]we got a walking trail came out of that,
[00:11:53.480]we have a restroom--
[00:11:54.313]Came out of that. I love this story.
[00:11:56.050]And they're all things that are being built
[00:11:58.070]by donated dollars, no federal funds,
[00:12:00.690]no grants, or anything like that.
[00:12:02.890]If you wait too long for federal grants
[00:12:05.798]and government to help you, you will be behind,
[00:12:08.990]you will be behind everybody else.
[00:12:12.459]I love that story because,
[00:12:14.785]when you drive in to West Point you see those example,
[00:12:20.080]the way the community has come together and done things,
[00:12:22.450]and one of my favorite Harry Knobbe stories,
[00:12:24.610]you were asked one time in my presence,
[00:12:27.100]so what's the strategic plan here?
[00:12:29.695]And your response was, well, we do something,
[00:12:32.930]when we get that done, we do something else,
[00:12:35.460]that's our plan and it's worked pretty good.
[00:12:38.045](laughing)
[00:12:38.878]I love that.
[00:12:39.711]Well listen, thinkin' about the
[00:12:40.970]way your community functions,
[00:12:44.180]you have never followed sort of the classic,
[00:12:47.810]economical development pattern of spending
[00:12:50.770]all your resources trying to recruit some big company,
[00:12:54.150]you'd mentioned this earlier,
[00:12:55.370]trying to recruit some big company to come to town
[00:12:57.880]that'll be a huge employer and
[00:12:59.830]be the economic savior of the town.
[00:13:01.990]You've had some businesses relocate to West Point alright,
[00:13:05.607]but you and your partners in progress,
[00:13:09.662]have over a long period of time,
[00:13:13.400]really invested back in the community.
[00:13:15.940]When you've seen the need for a business
[00:13:17.770]or you see somebody trying to do something,
[00:13:20.170]you have kinda rallied around and invested back in 'em.
[00:13:24.340]Talk a little bit about that philosophy
[00:13:26.840]and how you've employed it over time.
[00:13:29.280]Well one thing that comes to my mind in early 80's,
[00:13:33.070]there was a tractor lying right near West Point,
[00:13:36.020]120 acres, it touched the boundary of the city.
[00:13:40.125]And I knew if I go to the city and buy that,
[00:13:44.450]and have them buy it, it would take too long of a process.
[00:13:47.110]So I just bought it, and I went to a friend of mind,
[00:13:50.910]and I said, hey I got this land bought,
[00:13:53.090]why don't we start developing it,
[00:13:55.340]but we'll give it to the city,
[00:13:57.780]it'll happen faster if we do it, so we did it.
[00:14:00.420]Today there is 10 acres left that's unsold.
[00:14:03.460]And it was just little entrepreneurs that came in,
[00:14:06.970]or either moved from a spot in town that they
[00:14:10.160]just needed more land is what they did,
[00:14:12.790]For instance, that Ready Makes plant
[00:14:14.540]was where the Nielsen Center is.
[00:14:16.570]Well, they needed to be outta there.
[00:14:18.190]Well we had an option for 'em where they could go.
[00:14:21.130]Too many towns go to a town or anything,
[00:14:24.230]and said if you will come to town, this is what we'll do.
[00:14:27.760]No, we got this already, if you come to town,
[00:14:30.820]it's there for you.
[00:14:31.653]In other words, the streets are paved,
[00:14:33.520]the sewers in and everything like this.
[00:14:35.630]So individuals have to do that.
[00:14:38.420]Another thing, a number of us
[00:14:40.980]own businesses that are partners,
[00:14:43.046]in another things like the motels.
[00:14:45.330]Right.
[00:14:46.616]The motels are owned by groups of people.
[00:14:49.480]Motels in small communities have a hard time to cashflow,
[00:14:53.180]because they're full on the weekend,
[00:14:54.850]and on Monday's they have four rooms, okay.
[00:14:58.526]As long as the cash flows, I have my entity that can go,
[00:15:02.390]but at the same time, all those things around create more,
[00:15:06.500]we have sales tax.
[00:15:07.907]We started a sales tax about seven or eight years ago,
[00:15:10.850]well West Point collects 650,000 a year in sales tax.
[00:15:14.870]And that's just by buying your milk in town,
[00:15:17.090]and everything like this.
[00:15:18.700]And believe it or not, you have to tell people that,
[00:15:21.660]you know, you have to tell people that.
[00:15:24.240]Sure.
[00:15:25.410]So that's what makes things grow.
[00:15:27.450]Inviting people in, Chuck, way back with the NCBA,
[00:15:30.860]when we were involved it was hard to tell somebody
[00:15:34.600]what the NCBA was, I just bought registration for a couple.
[00:15:39.220]Instead of NCBA asked me for a donation,
[00:15:42.200]I gave 'em a donation through show and tell like that.
[00:15:46.284]Yeah.
[00:15:47.117]So at banquets and every time
[00:15:48.979]when there's somebody new in to town,
[00:15:49.960]we always are donating to the organizations.
[00:15:52.840]I indirectly donate to the organizations
[00:15:56.980]by bringing those people to the banquet.
[00:15:59.570]Havin' 'em feel like they're a part of the community,
[00:16:01.960]there's an expectation that you'll come be a part of it.
[00:16:05.830]Well listen, I don't want folks to think that
[00:16:08.780]the history of West Point has been all rainbows and unicorns
[00:16:11.975]you've had your challenges over time.
[00:16:15.236]One of the other factors that we know
[00:16:19.020]always comes up in a thriving rural community
[00:16:21.590]is a hopeful vision backed by grit.
[00:16:25.510]It seems to me that indeed, West Point has faced challenges,
[00:16:30.444]but you've always maintained that sense of hope.
[00:16:35.421]Tell us how you do that.
[00:16:37.420]Well for instance, you know, we had Tyson foods there,
[00:16:40.520]and all the sudden one morning they closed the doors,
[00:16:43.400]and it was 230 people.
[00:16:45.100]Yeah.
[00:16:45.933]I guess at that time, we lost three kids in the school.
[00:16:49.760]So that's how the people stayed around there,
[00:16:52.838]they stayed there, drove other places,
[00:16:54.140]but then we had a dairy operation,
[00:16:55.900]a dairy operation, a dairy butter operation that expanded,
[00:16:58.580]they went there and things like this.
[00:17:00.580]And you know, it's,
[00:17:06.240]going back a little bit you have to
[00:17:09.020]always have raising of funds, you know?
[00:17:12.344]And I think that the Nielsen Center,
[00:17:15.550]so much it cost, five and a half million total donated,
[00:17:19.550]and we were gonna tear down the old auditorium,
[00:17:22.430]because we thought it was obsolete.
[00:17:24.720]Well there was a group of people that kinda thought,
[00:17:26.570]well we could have it as a theater or something.
[00:17:29.950]They have raised a million 800 thousand dollars,
[00:17:32.730]and well I believe it's nine years now,
[00:17:35.630]have averaged 100 people per showing,
[00:17:38.540]and it's five dollars a person to go.
[00:17:41.750]But the secret of it, it's total donated time.
[00:17:45.510]Yeah.
[00:17:46.343]Total, and that group of people that came to that theater
[00:17:49.220]are from a mix match of everything.
[00:17:51.960]You know, it's kinda like the, you know,
[00:17:54.010]the firemen, they're from the bank,
[00:17:56.110]and they're from the school teachers,
[00:17:57.680]and they're from like this, and they meet there,
[00:18:01.163]and it grows.
[00:18:01.996]And at the same time, it draws other people to town.
[00:18:05.060]Sure.
[00:18:05.940]Well, it's just been a great story.
[00:18:07.310]Well listen, at the Rural Futures Institute,
[00:18:09.930]the first of our core beliefs is that
[00:18:13.458]we believe in peoples capacity to shape their own futures,
[00:18:17.330]and I just have to say Harry, you and your family,
[00:18:19.880]and the many remarkable people that we
[00:18:22.280]at the Rural Futures Institute have had a chance
[00:18:25.119]to get to know in West Point, just personify that,
[00:18:28.390]and we're awfully proud to be associated with ya.
[00:18:31.440]Anything you'd like to add today?
[00:18:33.360]No, I just, Chuck what you're doing here
[00:18:35.850]is gonna help a lot of communities,
[00:18:38.060]and we're always willing to invite people
[00:18:40.380]to come and do a show and tell.
[00:18:42.330]But at the same time, it don't happen overnight.
[00:18:45.020]Yeah, yeah, you've been a consistent dreamer,
[00:18:49.590]and making things happen.
[00:18:51.740]Well listen folks, we want you to stay in touch
[00:18:53.590]with the Rural Futures Institute
[00:18:55.160]through Twitter, and Facebook, and Instagram,
[00:18:58.890]and LinkedIn and our website that we know that you'll enjoy,
[00:19:03.821]and please join us again next week,
[00:19:06.840]when we're gonna be talking with real people,
[00:19:09.640]about real places that demonstrate
[00:19:11.912]thriving rural communities are a legitimate
[00:19:14.400]best choice for worthwhile living.
[00:19:16.230]Thank you so much for joining us.

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Catch Up With Chuck | Episode 15

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