Ron Owen retires from soil conservation

Ron Owen is retiring at the end of the year after 27 years of full-time work in soil conservation.

Come the end of the year, Ron Owen will retire from the USDA’s local office as a soil conservation technician. He’s worked locally since 1984 and been involved in conservation practices since 1959.

His first job came in Henry County at the Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation office.

“Back then you didn’t have McDonald’s and Wendy’s everywhere so if you wanted to work you ended up chopping cotton,” Ron said. “I thought that was a better choice than chopping cotton.”

Locally, Ron’s duties include helping nurserymen with good irrigation and conservation practices. He gets out in the fields and helps farmers determine the best ways to battle erosion and things like that.

“This is one of the heavier workload counties around,” said Ron. “And this job has sure changed over the years. Back when I first started, we didn’t even have calculators. We took paper and pencil out to the field. Now it’s all on computer and that computer can be a time-killing project.”

At 64, Ron says he’s more than ready for retirement. “It seems like I’ve worked forever.”

After he retires, Ron plans to continue running a route delivering the Southern Standard. He has around 300 customers in the Civic Center area. But his ultimate plans are to move back to West Tennessee and Henry County later in 2006.

“We missed the grandkids,” said Ron referring to he and his wife, Cheryle. “Now we have great-grandkids and we don’t want to miss them.”

Ron has three daughters, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.