Against background noise of children gleefully enjoying carnival rides on the east side of the courthouse square, Greene County Chamber president Omega Sang (pictured), Chamber events committee chair Toni Wetrich, and Bell Tower Community Foundation president Carole Custer thanked sponsors, volunteers, and donors at the opening ceremony of the 2015 Bell Tower Festival Friday evening.
A highlight of the ceremony was the presentation by Custer of the Bell Tower of Fame Award to Roy Bardole of Rippey. Bardole has distinguished himself in his state, national and international efforts to promote and expand soybean markets, and to battle starvation with soy protein.
Custer (left) said in her introduction of Bardole (right) that his non-stop efforts across the globe “have impacted economic rewards for our nation’s farmers, economic development through new industries, and food for millions of people who have gone to bed hungry.”
Bardole spoke for less than 10 minutes. He thanked the committee, his wife Phyllis, and his sons Peter and Tim for keeping the farm running in his absence. “Early on in my work I was told that the world is run by those who show up. I chose to show up,” he said.
He said his involvement with organizations in Rippey and Greene County prepared him to run meetings and to work with many different kinds of people. He said that he learned our elected officials in Des Moines and Washington, DC, are “good folks” who try to represent us in the way they believe we want them to. He learned that things happen slowly in Washington but they do happen, and that governments can lose credibility quickly. He learned the importance to farmers on knowing and implementing best practices.
“In Southeast Asia I learned that not everybody likes us so much here in the United States. In Vietnam I learned that the scars of war are different when the battlefield is out your front door,” he said.
Bardole has served as president of the World Soy Foundation. Custer quoted Bardole as saying in his role as president, “A child starved of protein will grow up less than he could be. It’s my responsibility as a producer to contribute to a better tomorrow for a generation that can think and reason better.”
Bardole said that he learned that more than 50 percent of the world population survives on less than $2 a day. “I learned that in this five minutes I’ve been talking to you, somewhere in the world 30 children have died from the effects of malnutrition… I’ve got about a semi load of soybeans left in the bin at home. The protein in that semi load of soybeans is enough to give adequate protein for every man, woman and child in Jefferson for a year. It doesn’t take a whole lot, not for the good stuff. And I’m telling you, we grow the good stuff,” he said.
Bardole concluded saying, “I visited with good people all around the world, and I have friends pretty well spread across the world – really, really good friends. But you know, I never came back through passport control, into Chicago or Atlanta or San Francisco or wherever it be, without a little sigh of relief that I was back in the United States, that I knew what my government was, that I knew that my freedoms were safe here. And when I got off the plane in Des Moines, there was another sigh of relief. I was in Iowa. Don’t you kid yourself. ‘Iowa Nice’ is real. It is real. And when I come back home, real home, there’s no place like it in the world.”
