This month marks a milestone for Farm World. The newspaper first published in February, 1955, sixty years ago. Dave Blower is the current editor. He told HAT the paper was started by Tom and Peg Mayhill who owned the Knightstown Banner.
“The paper was originally known as the Eastern Indiana Farmer,” he said. “They kicked it off by sending 6,000 papers to the Rush County, Henry County, Hancock County area, and it was designed to serve the farmers who lived in those communities. I know that the first two subscribers were Will Willcutt of Carthage, and Philip Wilkie of Rushville. Although I don’t think that they are still subscribers, we’ve had some who have taken the paper for a very long time.”
As agriculture has evolved, so too has Farm World, from three name changes to increased geography, subscribers and content.
“In 1977 the name changed from Eastern Indiana Farmer to Farm Week because we had grown into Kentucky and Ohio. As we expanded it even further we changed the name to Farm World in May of 2001. It’s undergone a lot of changes. When I started 15 years ago we published about 52-56 pages a week. Now we’re up about 84-88 pages a week. We’re 3 sections every week, and we now have color. When I first started everything was black and white.”
And in a digital delivery world, Blower says Farm World has no plans to get away from their popular print editions. Hear more from Blower in the HAT interview:Farm World 60th