Massey Ferguson Farmer Lends a Hand

With all the snow and blizzards hitting everywhere, I am sure there are a ton of stories like this one. I found this online from the Sedalia Democrat, a local newspaper from Sedalia, MO, USA.

Pettis County officials sang the praises last week of area farmers who helped clear county roads and pulled more than one stranded motorist out of snow banks as record-setting snowfall blanketed the region.

As county road crews worked 16-hour shifts through the week, Pettis County Road and Bridge Supervisor Bret Manuel first noted the efforts by local farmers, telling The Democrat on Wednesday “each pass someone makes in a tractor, that is just that much less we have to move when we go through there.”

“Everybody should thank a farmer,” Manuel said.

His feelings were echoed by Pettis County commissioners on Friday, with Presiding Commissioner John Meehan noting “this was a natural disaster,” and thanking a near army of people in the county who took time to look out for neighbors and pitch in to clear mountains of snow.

“That kind of thing is the very definition of neighbor helping neighbor,”  Meehan said.

Commissioners said there was no way of telling how many people helped clear roads through the storm and its aftermath, but they believe multiple individuals aided in the effort through the week.

Eastern Commissioner Rod Lindemann said Terry Summers, an excavation contractor from Cole Camp who houses his equipment at his family’s farm near Beaman, was “the first person to drop a blade on state Route O.”

“That was very helpful to the community out there,” Lindemann said.

Summers, who criss-crossed central Missouri on his 300-horsepower Massey Ferguson 8480 tractor, pulled multiple individuals from ditches and snow banks and cleared Route O from Beaman to U.S. 50 Highway.

From Tuesday morning to Wednesday evening, Summers had traveled as far as Stover and Smithton before returning to his home in Cole Camp, where he helped clear the parking lot of a local nursing home.

“It was really just something to do. I was just trying to help out my family and friends. We do this just about any time it snows, but this was a lot more snow,” Summers said.  Source: Neighbors showed warmth in blizzard’s blast

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