Faulkner County Judge Jim Baker of Conway and retired businessman James Bibler of Russellville will be inducted into the Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame in Little Rock on March 6.
Both men said the honor is one of the more meaningful among their many accolades.
Baker called the hall of fame the “Heisman Trophy of agriculture.” He said his other outstanding honor was being named Man of the Year in Arkansas Agriculture in 1999 by Progressive Farmer magazine. At 52 years old, he was the youngest to receive the honor, he said.
“It’s probably the nicest recognition I ever got, in all fairness,” he said, “up to this.”
Baker has a long history with agriculture, beginning with growing up on a farm in Glenwood. His father was the Pike County sheriff and tax collector, and he raised cattle.
In 1983, Baker was elected president of the Arkansas Cattlemen’s Association, a volunteer job. When officials with the district office of the Central Arkansas Production Credit Association, where he’d worked for 15 years, told him it was a conflict of interest to do both, he quit his paying job.
That began another career for Baker — manager of Lewis Livestock Co. in Conway.
“That morning I left, and I was hired by Tommy Lewis that afternoon,” Baker said. He served as manager of Lewis Livestock Co. for 11 years, from 1983 until 1994.
Also in 1983, Baker was appointed to the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission, where he served 11 years. He was chairman twice during that tenure.
“That was when Arkansas had the brucellosis disease that was devastating, … and we rallied the producers and sale barns to eradicate the disease,” Baker said. “We became a class A state while I was on the commission — we could move cattle anywhere. We were a class C when I got on there.”
In 1994, Baker was appointed the first administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, where he oversaw 840 employees. He was a charter board member of the Faulkner County 4-H Foundation, beginning in 1985, and is still an adviser.
Baker said his mentor was Orval Childs, a professor of agriculture at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia.
“When I get to the end of this old rugged life, I hope, wish and pray that you might hear some young person say, ‘There goes the man that showed me the way,’” Baker said. “Orval Childs was that man in my life, but there have been many, and you try to follow a little bit in their footsteps and try to do things like they have done them. You just hope you give some young people confidence — No. 1, to get more education, go to school. Don’t quit being exposed to successful people.”
Baker and his wife, Linda, celebrated their 44th wedding anniversary last week.
Bibler is the former owner of Bibler Brothers Lumber Co. The original Bibler Brothers were “my father and his two brothers and one sister,” Bibler said. “We were sawmillers five days a week and farmers two days a week.”
He said the induction to the Hall of Fame means “a great deal” to him. “I think I’m the second one to come out of the forestry side — I actually did something right, I guess,” he said, laughing.
He is a past chairman of the Arkansas Forestry Commission, a former president of the Arkansas Forestry Association and a past president of the Southern Forest Products Association.
“I’m past chairman of a lot of things,” Bibler said. He was chairman of the Ouachita National Forest Timber Purchasers Group back in the ’80s.
He was a member of the Southern Pine Inspection Bureau Board of Directors and served as vice chairman of the public timber division of the National Forest Products Association.
Among his many honors, Bibler was named Man of the Year in 1991 by Timber Processing magazine.
Bibler said he is proud of being inducted into the Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame.
“It’s right at the top. It’s about the best one you could bestow on anyone — that and being named to the Arkansas Tech Hall of Distinction a few years back. These two awards really mean something.”
He said he is the only inductee to the Arkansas Tech Hall of Distinction who didn’t graduate. He attended the university for two years.
“My father pulled me out of school when I was going to be a junior. My brother came back from Korea on the GI Bill. Dad said when David gets out of school, you can go. I’ve never seen the inside of a school since,” Bibler said.
That didn’t, however, put a damper on his drive and ambition.
Bibler Lumber Co. was known for its innovation and modern equipment, he said.
“The machinery makers, when they developed or came up with something new — we kind of had the reputation, ‘Sell it to Bibler; he’ll make it work.’” Bibler said he can recall just one piece of equipment that he took out and “cut it up for scrap” because it was useless. “That was a bad deal,” he said, looking back and laughing at the memory.
After Bibler sold all but a small percentage of Bibler Brothers Lumber Co. to Terry Freeman, Bibler stayed involved in the business for many years.
“All that time we kept modernizing — every time a new piece of equipment came out, we put it in,” Bibler said. “We stayed state of the art.
“A log can come in on Monday, and it can go out on a Friday, and it’ll be as a finished product, and it will never be touched by human hands, nor will a human ever make a decision on it.”
As far as mentors, Bibler laughed and said, “I was amazed at how smart my father got when I got about 23 years old.”
Bibler and his wife, Laurie, also have a home in Snowmass, Colorado.
Other inductees into the Arkansas Agriculture Hall of Fame, according to a press release, are John Ed Regenold of Blytheville, the the late Bruce Oakley of El Paso and the late Billie R. Nix of Ash Flat.
Regenold, chairman of the Armorel Planting Co., manages about 10,000 acres in Mississippi County and served as chairman of the Arkansas Highway Commission.
Nix was owner and operator of the Ash Flat Livestock Auction and a longtime officer in the Arkansas Cattlemen’s Association. Bruce Oakley, who died in 2006, built the business he started in 1968 into a diversified commodity-trading, distribution and transportation company.
The men will be inducted into the Hall of Fame at an 11:30 a.m. luncheon March 6 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Little Rock. More information is available by calling (501) 228-1470 or emailing aghalloffame@arfb.com.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.