The Utah Cooperator;

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"-'•  B.  ROBINS
3141 S.  2750 EAST
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CITY,  UTAH
VOL. 18; NO. 6
ANYONE CAN BUY — EVERYONE SAVES
Dec, 1967-Jan., 1968
A Tribute To Ernest R. Behling
THIS PICTURE taken of Mr. and Mrs. Behling prior to their
deaths hung in the Smithsonian Institute at Washington, D.C.
during October as a part of the celebration of Co-op month.
Dr. Geddes Honored at USU
At the annual Utah State University Distinguished Awards Banquet on October 13th, Dr. Joseph
A. Geddes, one of the founders of
Utah Cooperative Association, was
presented a Distinguished Service
Award by President Daryl Chase.
W. B. Robins, UCA's general
manager and a member of the
Board of Trustees of Utah State
University, read the following citation:
"Yours has been the wise philosophy that people become great
by participating in great experiences. And you have put this philosophy into action by organizing
programs that have encouraged and
enabled people to participate in
such experiences.
"You were, for instance, founder
of the Utah Cooperative Association, and through the years have
been a stalwart in the cooperative
movement.
"Likewise, you were a chief
sponsor of Utah's state library,
and for many years have toiled to
make this library and other regional and school libraries richer
store houses of knowledge, better
able to serve persons in their efforts at self-improvement.
"Constantly you have urged rural people to "hook up with the
machine age", and to help them do
so you have promoted farm cooperatives and bookmobiles.
"You not only have been a scholar but a doer. You have demonstrated your conviction that the
University and its faculty members should not be withdrawn from
human affairs, but "rather should
actively help build a progressive
society.
"You have been a social conscience of the people, and have
given voice and direction to our
deeper aspirations for a better
world.
"For this, Utah Stae University
is pleased to confer upon you, Dr.
Joseph A. Geddes, the Distinguished Service Award."
Dr. Geddes was head of the Sociology Department at Utah State
University from 1928 to 1950, retiring as professor emeritus in 1950.
He also taught at Brigham Young
College from 1925 to 1928. He was
director of Consumers Cooperative
Association from 1937 to 1948 and
of the National Cooperative League
from 1949 to 1960.
Dr. Geddes is a former executive committee member of the
National Association of Schools of
Social Administration. In 1958 he
was elected president of the Utah
Academy of Sciences, Arts and
Letters. He has represented Utah
Cooperative Association on the
Cooperative League of the U.S.A.
board of directors and has been
board chairman of the Cache Valley Cooperative.
(Taken from the Funeral Address
by W. B. Robins)
How does one reflect the spirit
of this man, his philosophy, his
dedicated belief in cooperatives —
and his absolute faith in people?
Someone calculated that his service
in all of the cooperatives, as director or officer, total well over one
hundred years.
He was a servant of the people.
He worked for cooperatives, cooperatives owned democratically by
the people of this country and by
the people of Utah for more than
thirty years — essentially without
pay. I know this to be a fact. He
was one of God's rare children
who served throughout his life
without any thought whatever of
personal gain. The idea of pay for
service simply did not occur to
him.
Month after month, year after
year, he would come to meetings
faithfully. He would attend meetings sometimes when his orchard
hung heavy with fruit, with no
market, or after the frost had
wiped out his crop for another
year. He would take time out, as
he put it "to help take care of the
peoples' business".
As he presided at our board
meetings in Salt Lake, I recall his
statement,   "I never worry about
this business so long as we all
have our say and say what we
think".
He had a faithful partner who
shared his work and his hopes and
his aspirations, his wonderful wife
Mildred Behling. All of you know,
they were inseparable. She worked
side by side with him. They attended meetings together.
A week ago yesterday President
Behling visited my office. He chatted with the employees, the clerks,
the typists, the warehousemen, the
drivers. We went to lunch together.
I explained to him that this picture
(above) of him and Mrs. Behling
had been enlarged to a giant 60" x
40" and is now hanging in the great
Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He said, "It's a pretty
good picture of me, but it doesn't
do justice to my wife".
This picture was judged by a
competent board of experts as one
of the best in the nation to portray
faith and dedication to an ideal. I
can assure you this: It is not the
technical quality of the photograph
which makes this photo superior.
It is the radiance of these two people, the devotion they feel, the
character they display, the stern
power of facial expression.
In the Smithsonian, the picture
will hang with an inscription which
says that E. R. Behling reached
into his own pocket for $20 change
for the till to open the business of
Davis Farm Co-op in the mid 1930's.
In all ways, Ernest R. Behling
was vital and disciplined. As each
day dawned, he saw it as an opportunity to give more fully of himself than was expected in order to
answer the needs of others. Always
he was humble and cheerful.
President Behling worked all his
life. He believed that to be idle is
to become a stranger to the seasons
and to step out of life's procession.
He believed, "When you work you
fulfill a part of earth's furthest
dream, and in keeping yourself with
labour you are in truth loving life,
and to love life through labour is
to be intimate with life's inmost
secret". Ernest Behling worked that
he might keep pace with the earth
and the soul of the earth. He demonstrated that "work is love made
visible". In work he marched nobly,
vitally, yet in proud submission to
the infinite. His feet are now set
upon the road which leads to his
true Home.
In bringing this tribute to a close,
we know in our souls that he would
smile and rejoice with us as we
say of his passing
"Lo, the Winter is past,
the rain is over and gone;
The flowers will appeaton. the.
earth
And the time of the singing of
birds will come".
Clark Wall New UCA President
DR. JOSEPH A. GEDDES receives Distinguished Service Award
from USU President Daryl Chase.
WALLACE W. HOLMAN retires as UCA President after
10 years.
B.  R.  Ellison
Named To
Fertilizer Post
B. R. Ellison, director of research
for UCA and the PAX Company,
was named a member of the board
of directors of the Pacific Northwest Plant Food Association at the
group's 18th annual convention in
October. He is also a member of the
Soil Improvement Committee for
♦He   Association.
Officers for the 1967-68 year
were also selected at Salishan
Lodge, Gleneden Beach, Oregon.
President for the year will be Gene
Flynn, Quincy, Washington. Vice-
president is Royal Tarter of Salem,
Oregon, and Russ Hayes of Portland, Oregon, was retained as secretary-manager. Retiring president
Lyman Judson of Lynden, Washington, received a gift in recognition of his service to the Association
during the past year.
CLARK J. WALL takes reins.
At the annual stockholders'
meeting of UCA held last month,
President W. Wallace Holman stepped down, because of his health,
as president of Utah Cooperative
Association, a post which he has
held since 1958. Clark J. Wall of
Venice, Utah, vice-president for
the past two years, was elected to
replace Mr. Holman as president
for the coming year. Mr. Holman
was appointed president emeritus.
Mr. A. W. Chambers of Smith-
field, Utah, became UCA's new
vice-president. W. B. Robins was
retained as secretary-general manager, John G. Carr as treasurer
and Mary A. Bolliger as assistant
secretary.
Mr. Holman will long be remembered for his years of service to
cooperatives and for the contributions he has made to Utah agriculture. In addition to his service
on UCA's board of directors, Mr.
Holman has served for many years
as president of both the West Millard Co-op at Delta and the Oasis
Seed Co-op at Oasis.
A   W.   CHAMBERS   becomes
Vice  President of  UCA.
Mr. Wall operates a 400 acre
irrigated and non-irrigated farm,
raising alfalfa, beets, corn and
grain. Livestock and sheep feeding
is his biggest operation. He feeds
approximately 6,000 lambs a year.
Mr. Wall has been on the board
of directors of the Sevier Valley
Co-op in Richfield since 1951 and
secretary since 1953. He has been
a member of UCA's board of directors since 1956 and a member
of the executive committee ind
vice-president for three years.
Mr. Chambers has been a dairy
farmer all of his life. At the present time, with his sons, he operates
a Grade A as well as a manufacturing milk dairy farm.
At present he is secretary of
Cache Valley Dairy Association, a
member of local co-op of Utah Cooperative Association. He has been
a member of the board of directors
and executive committee of UCA
since 1960.