Published on Father day.
From the Stockton Record, Wednesday, April 25, 1990, by Anne Gonzales. There was the little obituary in the newspaper I wrote, but this was an article writted by assignment from the 'Record'.
When a slick salesman would visit a San Joaquin county dairy, Granville Hutton asked the hard questions.
Hutton, 66 San Joaquin County's dairy farm adviser since 1963, died at his home Saturday night. He will be remembered by those in the dairy and farm industry for his forthright, hand-on approach to helping the county's dairies.
"Say there was a fast-talking salesman with gimmicks, if Granville was there, he would ask hard questions and keep us straight," said Adam Van Exel, a Lodi dairy operator who knew Hutton since he became the dairy adviser for the Stockton office of the University of California cooperative Extension.
Van Exel remembers a salesman coming to his ranch selling a high-mineral feed mix.
"Hutton said, 'What's in it? What minerals?'" Van Exel recalled. "He said we didn't need those high-priced fancy feed mixes, just stick with the basics. When things got complicated, he had a way of keeping them simple and direct."
Hutton's longtime commitment to the local dairy industry was honored by the county Board of Supervisors last year, when it named the new milking parlor at the fairgrounds after him. The parlor will give the public a chance to view milking.
Hutton believed in doing rather than lecturing.
"If a dairy man had a problem on the farm, he came out," said Laura Rothlin, who runs a Manteca dairy with her husband, Arnold Rothlin, "He was good at checking equipment."
As a boy growing up on a dairy farm in Kirk, Colo., Hutton milked cows by hand.
The dairy industry changed immensely since then, but Hutton always was on the technological cutting edge.
He designed milking equipment, including pipelines, vacuums and cleaning equipment. In the last few years of his life, he taught dairy operators how to manage their herds by computer.
"He had tireless energy for understanding computers," said Gary Johnson, county executive director of the UC Cooperative extension office.
"He would say the only way to learn something is to actually do it and he would spend any amount of time to teach and share. Many people in the county are computer literate because of Granville."
Hutton became a farm adviser with the Colorado agricultural Extension in 1948.
In 1954, he got a job with the Shasta County Extension Service and moved his family to California. He served as the 4-H adviser in Shasta County until moving to the San Joaquin County extension office in Stockton.
In 1963, he became the dairy adviser for San Joaquin County. Health problems forced Hutton to retire in 1989.
Hutton is survived by his wife Judith Hutton of Stockton; two sons, Duane Hutton of Modesto and Gary Hutton of Utah; a sister, Burnetta Langendoefer of Idalia, Colo.; a brother, Ronald Hutton of Kirk, color.; and five grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held Thursday at 11 a.m. at DeYoung Memorial Chapel, with Rev. Steve Burkum officiating.
Donations may be made to "The Granville Hutton Milking Parlor," care of San Joaquin County Dairy Herd Improvement Association.
2 comments:
Wow, my father had accomplished a great many things in his life.
Now take another look at this picture of Granville. His shirt pocket always had a pocket slide rule.
He taught me how to use the slide rule. I still have the one purchsed for me.
When you go to California the end of June, you should go to the milk parlor named after Papa and take a picture.
If you don't, then Cami and I better...
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