12-7-05
Contact: Reginald S. Hall, (803) 936-4409

SC Farm Bureau Announces Distinguished Service Award Recipient

Myrtle Beach, SC – Lifetime Calhoun County resident Othniel H. Wienges, Jr. was presented the South Carolina Farm Bureau (SCFB) Distinguished Service Award during the non-profit agricultural advocate organization’s 62nd annual meeting in Myrtle Beach. The award is the highest honor SCFB bestows upon members who have shown extreme dedication and service to the organization.

The soon-to-be 81-year-old Wienges is the son of a farmer named for a victorious judge in the Bible, who brought peace to Israel after a long period of unrest. Wienges’ family settled their Calhoun County farm just outside St. Matthews, known as the Singleton Plantation, more than 100 years ago. Wienges and his son John continue to raise national award-winning thoroughbred horses, cotton, coastal Bermuda hay, and peanuts.

Wienges is humble about being a farmer, “Farming makes you realize how dependent you are on the good Lord. In the long run, He decides a whole lot of things for us.”
During his lifetime, Wienges is responsible for raising 324 horses that have won 2,715 races, placed or showed in 5,277 more, and earned total winnings of more than $17 million. Wienges said, “We haven’t done as well racing horses as we had hoped to, but we have done a whole lot better than we ever expected to do. We have had some very nice horses.”

A founding member of the SCFB Marketing Association, one of Wienges’ most memorable Farm Bureau stories involves the establishment of the association’s grain export elevator at the Charleston port. In 1962, he and a handful of other farmers, each members of the SCFB Small Grains and Soybean Committee, raised $100,000 in less than 30 days to establish the grain elevator, which would serve farmers by protecting their commodity prices and provide a means to export their corn, wheat, and soybeans overseas.

That same small group of farmers raised an additional $150,000 from their peers soon afterwards as the SCFB Marketing Association took over operations of the Charleston facility from the State. Wienges later used his position as a member of the SC House of Representatives from Calhoun County to secure an additional one million dollars in State funds to expand the export facility. Wienges said, “Having played a part in the establishment of the grain elevator, that helped so many farmers for so many years, gave me a real feeling of accomplishment. We all got together and moved a mountain.”

Wienges is a decorated World War II Navy veteran. He earned a degree in English from the University of South Carolina in 1947 and he has received a long list of awards and honors from a number of local, state, and national service organizations. Wienges, who was recently named a distinguished alumnus of USC, is also the university’s current longest tenured member of the board of trustees.

In accepting the SCFB Distinguished Service Award, Wienges complemented the leadership of Farm Bureau for keeping the organization focused on agriculture and on the needs of South Carolina’s family farmers. “I shutter to think what life on the farm would be without Farm Bureau. We have that protective screen out there looking out on every side in every direction. When we do something, we do it together.”
SCFB is a membership organization that works to promote agriculture and rural lifestyles in South Carolina.

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RSH
129