HASTINGS, Mich. — A husband and wife known for the genetics of their large dairy herd and providing college scholarships for future milk producers are among the new members of the Michigan Farmers’ Hall of Fame.

Ken and Jane Gasper along with four other farm families were inducted Sept. 20.

“I feel honored,” Mr. Gasper said.

Gasper, 76, tended to as many as 650 cows while his wife kept track of the finances at the farm now run mostly by his son, Aaron, and their grandsons, Quinn and Grant.

The herd has since grown to more than 1,000 since their son expanded the operation by purchasing another dairy farm.

Gasper hasn’t completely retired, though.

He’s in charge of handling the finances now and going out to get replacement parts whenever there’s a mechanical break down at the farm.

Every other day, he also checks on the crops raised to feed their animals on his all-terrain vehicle.   

“It keeps my mind going.  I enjoy it,” he said.

The Gasper’s live in the same home that was on the property when his great grandfather started the farm with 80 acres in 1894.

His grandfather and father were born in the residence that has since been remodeled a few times.

Gasper said the farm has always had dairy cows and once featured pigs and sheep along with about 1,500 chickens his father raised to provide eggs to grocery stores in the area.

His grandfather had a herd of Guernsey cows but later replaced them with Holsteins.

“We’ve been breeding the genetics in the Holsteins ever since,” he said.

Gasper is also a former longtime board president of the CentralStar Cooperative and once represented the cooperative for more than 20 years on the North Star Select Sires board of directors. 

He’s also been actively involved with the Ionia County Cooperative Extension Advisory Committee, Michigan Farm Bureau, Michigan Milk Producers Association and the Michigan State University Animal Science Advisory Committee.

In 1992, he was named the MSU Dairy Farmer of the Year.

Today, he’s active strictly with the Michigan Dairy Memorial Scholarship Foundation the Gaspers’ started recently to generate scholarship money for MSU dairy students.

“Giving back is what we’re doing,” he said.

Other inductees in the Michigan Farmers’ Hall of Fame include Carl and Anne Pease, who raise about 35 registered Shorthorn and Hereford cows along with 25 sheep mostly as feeders on about 250 acres outside Bellevue.

They’re also longtime members of the Farm Bureau branch in Eaton County.

Currently, Mrs. Pease serves on the local Farm Bureau board and is secretary of the Michigan Shorthorn Association.

Mr. Pease, a former local Farm Bureau board member, seemed very surprised to enter such hallowed ground.

“We’re not a big operation at all so I don’t know if I’m really even deserving of it,” he said.

Mr. Pease, 69, also worked full-time for over 40 years as an artificial insemination technician for cattle.

He still provides the service but on a more limited basis.

The couple is also known for providing easy to handle animals to beginners at showing in the 4-H youth program by getting his livestock used to human contact.

“If they’re not tame, they’re not going to be staying on the farm,” he said.

The other new inductees were Tom Durand, Jon and Gloria Haindl and the DeGrandchamp family.

Durand raises corn, soybeans, wheat, black beans and sugarbeets in St. Clair County and has served on both the Michigan Corn Growers Association and the Corn Marketing Program of Michigan.

The Haindl’s have a beef cow-calf operation in Schoolcraft County and also grow potatoes, oats, barley, rye, snap beans, buckwheat and hay.

The DeGrandchamps are growers of fruit, primarily blueberries and cranberries, in the western part of the state and also run a farm store and ice cream shop.

The Michigan Farmers Hall of Fame was started in 1982 by Bill Aukerman, a farmer in Barry County who felt farm couples deserved to be honored for their hard work and dedication to agriculture, much like professional athletes are for their contributions to the game.

A barn and silo were built on three acres of land he donated in Barry County to house the hall of fame, which nearly folded in 2010.

It was resurrected and moved several years later to the Belcher Building at the Calhoun County Fairgrounds.

There are now over 250 inductees.