PRIMGHAR, Iowa | For 37 years, Jack and Clara Black reported to work at Black's Farm Store, their enterprise in downtown Primghar.
The business became O'Brien County Ag Supply on Jan. 1, 2014.
The Blacks couldn't be happier with a pair of young pros, Brennen Triplett, 26, and Josh Rausch, 32, who bought the business. The new owners asked the Blacks to stay on during the transition.
"We're still here," Jack Black said on a recent March afternoon. "Things are going well."
In an era when many young people depart rural Iowa by the thousands, it's refreshing to see a few able bodies and sharp minds working to reverse the brain drain.
U.S. Census figures indicate 20 percent of Iowa's population will be 65 or older by the year 2020. In reality, 20.4 percent of residents in O'Brien County had reached age 65 by 2012, according to the data.
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Currently, 15 percent of Iowa is beyond retirement age (65), outpacing the rest of the U.S., where that figure stands at 12.5 percent.
The Iowa Civics Analysis Network reports the state lost 4 percent of its young professional workforce from 2000 to 2009.
It's no secret Iowa grew grayer over the past two decades, not the color scheme a state seeks as it attempts to grow the economy.
For Triplett and Rausch, however, the grass wasn't greener on the other side of Iowa's borders.
"I went to career fairs during college and I could have gone a few different avenues," said Triplett, a Primghar native and a graduate of Iowa State University, where he studied agronomy. "But I wanted to come back. I wanted to be where I grew up. It's where our family farm is located."
Triplett returned, worked locally in agronomy and jumped when the chance to purchase and expand an established business presented itself. When he's not working with farmers now, he's doing the farming himself.
"I run the planter on the night shift at our farm," he said, noting he's the youngest Triplett actively engaged in agriculture. "I'm the lowest on the totem pole."
Same is true for Rausch, 31, a Primghar native and a graduate of South Dakota State University, where he majored in animal science. He's also the youngest family member involved on his farm.
Both family farms have livestock in addition to grain operations.
And, these men are raising a business a business on a corner southeast of the O'Brien County Courthouse, under the shadow of the Primghar water tower on the town square once known for its famed cobblestone streets.
The O'Brien County Economic Development Corporation and its Revolving Loan Fund played a role in the transition.
"One of the issues we address at OCEDC is business succession plans," said Kiana Johnson, O'Brien County Economic Development executive director. "We are delighted to see the perfect execution of a business succession with a young entrepreneur returning home to take over an existing business."
"It was just a seed and feed business," Triplett said while sitting behind his desk and checking his Smart phone. "We expanded to include chemicals and fertilizer with agronomy services and application. There's demand for these services and an opportunity as Jack was retiring."
"They're learning," said Jack Black, 74. "What they know, they know well. They're good people persons."
In many ways, they may remind Black of himself. Black would have been in his 30s when he bought the feed store from Dick Nagel. The old business, Nagel's Farm Supply, came with Nagel's lone employee, Bill Thompson, who stayed with Jack and Clara Blacks for three decades.
"Eggs, cream and feed, that's how Dick got going," Jack Black said.
Through the years, Jack and Clara Black sold cell phones and even dabbled in microwave oven sales for a two-year stretch. The staple, though, involved anything a farm might need for its crops and livestock.
And, that, it seems, won't change anytime soon as a younger generation takes the reins, reducing, just a bit, the "gray area" in downtown Primghar.
