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A Farmers’ Event
Heuer Sons Promote Fellowship With Customer Agriculture Appreciation Day
BETTY VALLE GEGG-NAEGER
MIDAMERICA FARMER GROWER
CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO.
Farmers got a glimpse of the equipment and latest technology recently at the Heuer Sons Customer Agriculture Appreciation Day. John A. Heuer, company manager, said his goal is to lure farmers to walk through his front door, so he provided a really pleasant experience for his customers to help them decide to return again and again.
“The vendors’ customers are not necessarily my customers,” he reasoned. “My customers are not necessarily their customers. If we can bring in the whole group, we’re all in this together, we’re all in agriculture, so that’s my goal, everyone helping everyone. We have a real nice fellowship here with some food and drink and just a lot of people.”
He also offered a big thank you to everyone who came out to visit during this event.
Farmers were welcomed to the Heuer Sons Customer Agriculture Appreciation Day by (from left to right) Cousin
Carl, John Heuer, John’s mother Eva Heuer Feuerhahn, the president of the Cape Chamber of Commerce
John Mehner, TV personality Max Armstrong and Ray Feuerhahn.
Photos by John LaRose, Jr.
John Heuer explained he is the third generation running the business, grandson of the original founder, George W. Heuer, who opened the business in 1919.
“The Massey Harris agency was about one mile north of Cape Jaycees Golf Course and he came to town once a week and sold parts out of his car on the corner of Main and Independence by the Woolworths store,” John Heuer explained. “Then the business went to my dad, Ervin, and his brother, Herbert, and then to myself and my brother, Ivan. We’re grateful to Eva Heuer, my mother, who kept this place going through the ‘70s and ‘80s. She's still involved with the business and comes into the shop just about everyday to do her jobs and to keep a eye on things. I think she mainly keeps a eye on me and we talk about what’s going on and things we should be doing. We just keep expanding and growing. We built on this place two times already and we’ve only been here nine years in this facility, and I’m already cramped for space.”
That’s a good sign, proof that Heuer is taking care of customers.
“You have to take care of your customers or we wouldn’t be here. We all need each other. We’re all in this together,” he said.
Cape Girardeau Mayor Harry Rediger addressed the group, commenting on the wonderful event hosted in this city.
“What a facility here! I took the full tour earlier,” he said. “I’ve touted for almost four years now as mayor that we’re a regional hub of southeast Missouri and the several state area. We tout our retail, we tout our university, we tout our medical community, our industry. The word regional hub means region. We’re a city of 38,000 people and we could not survive with the facilities in our city if we didn’t have the region to support us. It’s a great partnership.
“When you talk about region including the land around this city, you start talking about agriculture. Agriculture is such a big part of our economy in this area. So it’s real easy for me in welcoming you to say I have a great time and a real passion to brag on ag. So again welcome to everybody and have a great day, a prosperous new year the next year. Thank you for being here and thank you for having me.”
There were some great bargains for customers as 15 percent off was offered on many items in the parts department
“I imagine John and his crew will cut you a lot of slack on a piece of equipment and maybe a new high horse-powered Massey Ferguson tractor or something like that,” a company spokesperson said.
The president of the Cape Chamber of Commerce, John Mehner, also addressed the crowd.
“It’s a pleasure to be here. I can’t help but think how much better off this area would be if we all started every day with honoring the people that raised our food, prayed to our God and listened to our young people sing songs. Agriculture is extremely important to this area, but let me say something about small business and family owned business. That’s also unbelievably important. It is such a critical key to any area that thrives and I want to thank John Heuer and the Heuer family. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing the Heuers for a long, long time and back in the ‘70s I had the pleasure of playing football with John’s brother, Ivan. I’ve known the Heuers for a long time. I miss Ivan, we lost Ivan several years ago but this is an unbelievable family, it’s an unbelievable pleasure to be included in these kinds of days, so, John, I thank you and let’s just celebrate. This is an awesome day.”
Cape Girardeau Mayor Harry Rediger addressed the group,
commenting on the wonderful event hosted in this city.
TV personality Max Armstrong discussed the extraordinary year it was in crop production.
“I think everybody is stunned that we could really grow crops that good this year; the eastern corn belt, you look through Ohio, Indiana and a big chunk of Illinois, corn yields there were surprisingly good in spite of the weather. I would quiz people about it and say is it just because things were just so bad last year that it looks so good, and then guys got into the harvest looking at the yield monitor and said ‘wow, it’s here’.”
Armstrong hosts “This Week In Agribusiness” on RFD TV as well as channel 12 and appears on about 90 local television stations altogether.
“It’s great to be here,” he said. “I was here the summer of 2012 and we were right in the midst of an intense drought at the time and didn’t know what kind of a crop season we were going to have. It was a pretty nervous time but this is such a great productive area of agriculture, great producers. I always thoroughly enjoy coming here and seeing what’s on your minds, what you’re talking about.
“It’s not without precedent that we learn something here. For example, I remember visiting with Robert Henry a few years ago and we started talking about weed resistant herbicide and, my goodness, it’s become such a huge issue over such a wide geography now and that was the first I heard of it when he and Cousin Carl were talking about it. Now you can’t go to a meeting without somebody talking about that and discussing different modes of action trying to cope with that challenge, using various tank mixes and doing some things that we had long ago thought we had given up. You really do learn coming to an event like this and that’s why I thoroughly enjoy it, plus the people in this region are just outstanding, wonderful friendly folks. I’ve always felt so welcome here. I grew up around Evansville, Ind., but I feel like I grew up here because people have just been so open and kind. I always appreciate that so much.”
The event began with the pledge of allegiance by the Advance FFA and continued with the Advance Choir singing the National Anthem. All was broadcast live on C106.1 radio.
Pastor Anthony Kobak of Hanover Lutheran Church opened the program with prayer. The program continued with comments from the mayor and Chamber of Commerce. Another prayer preceded the meal.
“We are smoking 72 Boston butts, you wind yourself through my parts department and you come to my middle shop and we’ve got around 20-25 vendors in there from people like Robert Henry Seed Co, Ford Groves, Taylor Power, B&S Radiator, Cape Starter and Alternator, Montgomery Bank, Jerry Welch Insurance, MidAmerica Farmer Grower, RGS Energies, Agri Systems of Cape & Jackson, Bootheel Diesel, T & L Irrigation, Morgan Distributing Inc., Q Maxx, Capello cornheads, Bridon Cordage, Hy Capacity, Monosem planters, Crustbuster, Unverferth. Rhino, Earthmaster. Redline, Versatile, Bruder toys, RC Cola and KWKZ C106.1. We have a lot of them,” John Heuer said.
Around 700 visitors were able to register for door prizes which were drawn about 3:30. On display in the back hall were several high horsepower tractors, vertical tillage discs, class 7 combines, a lot of equipment, the equipment manufacturers, vendors, their reps were there to talk to you and share information. The vendors presented little giveaways. The event continued until 5 p.m. ∆
BETTY VALLE GEGG-NAEGER: Senior Staff Writer, MidAmerica Farmer Grower
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