Time to call it a career

John Knipp knows what it feels like to step out into the unknown.
There was the first time he stepped into a classroom as a vocational agriculture teacher.
There was the time he applied to work for the extension programs at three states in the Midwest.
And then there was that time he arrived in Vietnam as an 18-year-old.
“I got blown up by a land mine the first week I was there,” Knipp recalled in a recent interview. “Three other times, I almost got killed in ’Nam. Twice in one day I thought I was going to get it.”
By comparison, Knipp’s next transition should be pretty much painless.
He’ll be retiring as Jay County’s Purdue extension educator as of Dec. 31. His actual last day at work will be Dec. 29, his 62nd birthday.
Knipp was among scores of Purdue staff over the age of 60 with at least 10 years of service opting to take an early retirement incentive. “I have no way out of it now,” he said.
His tenure in Jay County dates back to Dec. 1, 1988, and Knipp has seen a transformation in local agriculture in the past 22 years.
“There’s just a tremendous change that has happened,” he said, citing site-specific farming, computerized agriculture, and Web-based marketing.
“When I came here if we got 110 bushels of corn per acre that was great in ’88,” he said. “Now it’s 150 or something’s wrong.”
In that same period, yields for soybeans have jumped from 30 bushels an acre to 50 bushels an acre. Wheat yields have climbed from 45 bushels an acre to 70 bushels an acre.
“We’ve got so much excess grain we’ve got ethanol plants all over America trying to solve our energy problems,” Knipp added. “I think we’re just at the beginning phase of international agriculture.”
Knipp traces his roots to Napoleon, Ohio. When he was 7, his parents moved to a farm near Hudson, Mich.
“I spent the next 10 years there being a farm boy,” he said. Graduating from high school at 17, he took a short course on farm equipment sales and service at Michigan State University. He finished that in March of 1968 and was promptly drafted into the army, serving as a combat engineer and earning a Purple Heart.
“Our unit received the valatorious unit award just this May,” Knipp said. He has been president of the 19th Combat Engineer Vietnam Association reunion.
He served 19 months in uniform, 14 and a half of them in combat in Vietnam. His first-week encounter with a land mine put him in the hospital forsix weeks, then he rejoined his unit.
At one point, he recalled, he wrote a letter to his parents, telling them how to dispose of his belongings. “I wasn’t expecting to come back.”
Discharged in November of 1969, Knipp was still in the process of adjusting to civilian life when he was struck by a car while he was using a garden tractor to clear snow off a drive. The accident broke his hip laterally.
“The doctor said, ‘John, you’ve got a 50-50 chance of ever walking,’” recalled Knipp. “It took me about 30 seconds to decide to return to college.”
He spent February through May in a full body cast and was on crutches until late August of that year. He attended Jackson Community College for two terms, then transferred to Michigan State University, graduating in March of 1973.
He took a vo-ag teaching job in Bad Axe, Mich., then in 1974 went to Ayrsville, Ohio, for another teaching job closer to his elderly parents. “I taught there for three years,” he recalled.
Then on a camping trip, he happened to meet a Veterans Administration counselor who told him of a program that would allow him to get his master’s degree at no charge from Michigan State.
It was an intensive nine-month program, and Knipp worked half-time as a graduate assistant while taking a heavy load of classes. He finished in June of 1978 and started the next month at Fayetteville, Ohio, where he would be the vo-ag teacher for 10 years.
When the tiny school decided to drop vocational agriculture from the curriculum, Knipp applied to the Purdue extension program.
He has clearly loved his time on the job in Jay County.
“This job is to smooth the bumps out for everybody, to make everyone else as successful as possible,” he said.
As he sees it, his job is to make useful information available. If farmers use it, that’s great; if they don’t, that’s okay as well.
“That’s freedom,” said Knipp. “That’s what we fought for.”
He added, “It’s a high-stress job, but this job makes you a better person. I’ve learned a lot of things.”
No successor has yet been named, though the Jay job has been posted.
Knipp’s advice for his successor: “Listen well, and be cautious how you speak.” As to his own next step into the unknown, Knipp said, “We plan to stay. We made our home here. We (he and his wife Elaine) have eight kids, and seven of them are 45 minutes from our house. I love those grandkids.
“I’m going to try to get more physically fit,” he added. “And I really have it in my heart to help veterans. I’m also going to take some time and find out who John Knipp is.”[[In-content Ad]]