A Farmers’ funeral in Missouri

In 1978, several farmers from Southwest Missouri were actively planning to participate in the Tractorcade to Washington DC. Their tractors had been serviced, the tire weights and suitcase weights were removed. The rear tires had the water removed and turned around to prevent them from wearing out. The phone rang one day in mid-December asking them if they wanted to participate in a protest in Jimmy Carter’s hometown when he arrived in Plains, Georgia for Christmas. Two of the farmers were pilots and volunteered to fly the group to Georgia early that day. Shortly after takeoff, one of the planes developed a vibration because the propeller was cracked. The plane went down and left no survivors. The other plane circled around and tried to locate their friends from the air. The plane landed and the search continued from the ground. After about an hour, the downed plane was found.

When the protesting farmers returned home, four funerals were arranged. The tractors these young men had prepared to drive to DC were wrapped with black cloth and parked near the funeral procession. Every state chapter of the AAM sent delegates to the funeral, including William Scott from Sylvania and Ted Evans Springfield, Georgia. Ted Evans spent time in the Plains City Jail with Wayne Cryts the week before.

That man named Wayne Cryts

The #1 question I get from folks who are interested in the Farmers’ Strike is about Wayne Cryts. I know a lot about Mr. Cryts because when I wrote the Georgia Farmers’ Strike, I initially turned in a book that was 10,000 words over my publisher’s limit. Of those 10,000 words that were removed, Wayne Cryts’s story accounted for 95% of it. I decided to cut that portion out since he was from Missouri instead of Georgia.

In 1978, 2 plane loads of protesting farmers left southeast Missouri and headed to Plains, Georgia to protest Jimmy Carter’s agriculture policies. One of those planes crashed shortly after takeoff. Wayne Cryts was in the other plane, which turned around and headed back to look for the lost plane. After finding their friends’ downed plane, the remaining four farmers decided it was too important to miss the protest so they continued on towards Plains. That evening, Wayne Cryts and three other farmers watched the protest from the Plains City Jail until they were released.

In 1981, Wayne found himself in a fight to keep his year’s soybean crop after the local grain elevator went bankrupt. What happened next? Well, that’s a story for another day