Voices of Rural Wisconsin Part One: The Call of the Land
Randy Cutler
As author Ben Logan wrote, "Once you have lived on the land, been a partner with its moods, secrets, and seasons, you cannot leave." So it has been for Randy Cutler. He lives in Milladore, about twenty miles northwest of Stevens Point, on the family farm where he grew up. Cutler attended a one-room elementary school next door, where his mother was the teacher. He is a farmer, business operator, and rural entrepreneur. Although his wife Sally was raised on a dairy farm near Spooner, she has always worked off the farm, holding professional jobs that bring with them health insurance and other benefits for the family. Randy's mother and step-father live directly west, where the schoolhouse used to be. A daughter and her family live on Cutler land, within eyeshot to the northwest of the Cutler Farm.
We chat in the kitchen of the farmhouse, looking out on the weathered barn where he has worked countless hours. Randy and I met in the 1970s, at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, where we were students and chums. He was advocating for the family farm in those days. He says he was teaching agriculture in Taylor and Lake Holcumbe in northwest Wisconsin when the land called him back.
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