Volunteers help farmer whose wife had heart transplant

By ELOISE OGDEN, Regional Editor eogden@minotdailynews.com

Eloise Ogden/MDN

From the left, Wes Weible, who farms near Turtle Lake, Warren Zakopyko, Bill Gross (far back) and Gene Spichke, hang the Farm Rescue banner on a truck shortly after Farm Rescue arrives Wednesday to plant spring wheat for Weible. Zakopyko and Spichke are new this year as Farm Rescue volunteers; Gross is Farm Rescue president and founder.

TURTLE LAKE – Wes and Sharon Weible have been away from home or on the road a great deal since Sharon had heart transplant surgery in 2006, in Rochester, Minn.

On Wednesday, Farm Rescue, a nonprofit organization now in its second year of helping family farmers in a crisis, arrived at the Weible farmland near Turtle Lake. Farm Rescue, an all-volunteer organization headed by Bill Gross, was there to put in the Weibles’ spring wheat. Before coming to Turtle Lake this past week, the organization helped a farmer recovering from a major illness in the Hebron area.

This is the first time that Farm Rescue has helped a family in which the wife is the family member who has suffered an illness or major surgery, said Gross, president and founder of Farm Rescue who is originally from Cleveland, a community in the Jamestown area.

The Weibles, who live in Turtle Lake and farm northwest of the city, are happy to have the help this year from Farm Rescue.

“You have to stay in Rochester for treatments when you have a heart transplant,” said Sharon Weible, who is a registered nurse at the Turtle Lake Community Hospital in Turtle Lake. They were in Rochester for three months, home about a month and then she had to go back again because of problems of rejection in the plasma, she said.

They’ve been going back and forth to Rochester since, where Sharon Weible gets treatments weekly.

Sharon Weible said she needed the heart transplant because “my heart was shot.” She had cardiac myopathy, which causes the heart not to function, she said.

Weible went from floor work as a nurse to a desk job in the hospital because of her health condition.

The Weibles learned they were accepted for Farm Rescue recently when they just got home from one of their trips to Rochester. She said her husband had applied for the help from the organization. Others had urged him to apply.

“We got a call. It was Bill Gross, saying call back to Farm Rescue,” Sharon Weible said. But later in the message that Gross left, she said he told them they had been accepted.

“I was happy for him (her husband). He was worrying what would we do if something happened and he couldn’t get the crop in,” Sharon Weible said.

“It sure is great. I just can’t say enough about it,” said Wes Weible, obviously elated Tuesday when the Farm Rescue volunteers pulled into the Weible yard with the equipment and started getting ready to seed.

Farm Rescue volunteers Bill Krumwiede, of Voltaire; Jack Limke, originally from Carpio, Warren Zakopyko and Gene Spichke, both of Kief, and Gross expected to finish planting for the Weibles in about two days, running the equipment around the clock to get the planting done. Then, they’ll move on to a farm at Mohall.

Farmers selected for Farm Rescue provide the seed and the fertilizer. Farm Rescue provides the volunteer equipment operators. Some are new volunteers and others are returning again this year to help with the spring work. The organization has a total of about 50 volunteers working in various capacities to help the organization.

RDO Equipment, the exclusive Farm Rescue equipment supplier, is providing equipment for the second consecutive year. It’s all new equipment for this year, Gross said. That equipment is a John Deere 9520 tractor and a 43-foot no-till 1890 planter.

For its first planting season last year, Farm Rescue helped 10 farmers. This year, Farm Rescue has selected 12 farm families to receive free planting assistance. Ten of the farmers are in North Dakota, one is in South Dakota and another is in Minnesota. Those farmers have suffered various illnesses and injuries, including broken backs, broken wrists, stroke, spinal cord surgery, brain tumor, cancer treatments, knee replacement and heart transplant.

The organization started the planting season April 19 on the farm of Justin and Jessica Metzer, near Eureka, S.D. The Metzgers are rebuilding after a tornado destroyed their farmstead Aug. 24, 2006.

This year, Farm Rescue expanded its coverage area to include 50 miles within any North Dakota border (Minnesota, Montana and South Dakota), excluding Canada.

Nearly half of the farm families helped by Farm Rescue this spring are in the Minot area, Gross said.

Other farms in the Minot area they are going to include Scott Reishus, Mohall; Blaire Olafson, Glenburn; Maurus and Sandy Brossart, Barton; and Dennis and Joann Loewen, Sykeston. They will end the spring planting season in late May in Browns Valley, Minn.

Farm Rescue’s board of directors has reserved two more slots this spring for critical injury or illness cases, which may arise this planting season, Gross said.

The organization has more sponsors this year. The total number now reaches more than 60, Gross said. He said many sponsors are in the Minot area or affiliated with the region.

Farm Rescue is planning to help farmers in need for the harvest this fall, but it will not be on as large a scale as the spring planting, Gross said.

Reprinted with permission of The Minot Daily News. April 29, 2007