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The nine members of our Board of Directors: Treasurer: Robert Tompkins About our board members: Oliver Schaefer and a group of men talking tractors and doing a little dreaming came up with the idea of building a museum. "Something I have always wanted to do," Schaefer said. He has always wanted to preserve the old equipment and save it from the scrap yard. He feels it is important to educate the younger generations and to show how America got to where it is today. "There are just so many things we can teach the younger generation with the things out here today," Schaefer said. Demonstrations using the old machines are of interest to all generations. The museum group plans a lot of different demonstration from all walks of heritage life during the shows and will continue to do so after the museum is open to the public on a daily basis. Oliver serves as president of the American Farm Heritage Museum Board of Directors. Ollie, as he is known, grew up amongst the Oliver dealership of his father in Granite City, involved with tractor pulling sleds for twenty plus years, the owner of a trucking company and Oliver equipment salvage yard. Dale Schaufelberger is the Executive Director of Advancement for the American Farm Heritage Museum. His job is to contact and meet with co-operatives who might be interested in giving a grant to the museum. He comes to the AFHM with a background of dairy and farming. He also held a position with Mid-America Dairymen where he helped with consolidation and served as marketing and sales manager. Dale's interest in the museum comes from being a part of the farming sector since child hood as he was raised on the farm. He and his wife feel it is important to preserve the heritage of farming. Farming is an ever changing occupation and today's generations need to know how farming was done in the past. With a museum, people can actually see the equipment used and follow it through the years as to how it has progressed. Contact Dale at (618) 664-3338. His mailing address is 1442 Highway 140, Greenville, IL 62246. Troy Walker has lived in Bond County all of his life on his family's farm. While going to college, he worked at Bond Equipment, a dealership for Oliver and later White farming equipment. In the1970’s, he and two of his brothers bought the business. They ran it until the late 1990’s. Since then he has been with Greenville Airport as the manager. Troy got involved with the American Farm Heritage Museum because he thought it was something that needed to be done. He feels it is important to educate the youth of today as well as their parents and the future generations of what life was like in the early years of rural America. Ed Heisner is from Fairview Heights, Ill. and grew up on a farm in Southern Illinois. He was drafted into the military, but when he was done there, he returned home to the farm. The opportunity for work was not very good around home and he headed off to the city and went to work for Union Electric. Now that he is retired from Union Electric, he gets his farm fix by helping a neighbor with his farming. He also does some repair work and painting on tractors for friends and their friends. Ed never lost his love of farming. He collects farm tractors, equipment and other memoribilia. He met Ollie through tractor collecting. When Ollie began talking about the farm museum, Ed knew he wanted to be a part of it. Ed is also a member of the Heartland Oliver Club. David Kessinger, from Greenville, Ill., brings to the museum a special interest in trains. He is the president of the Railroad Division for the museum. His main interest in the museum is to preserve the integral part that the RR played and continues to play in our Farm Heritage. His main focus now is getting the Grand Scale Railroad (which includes a MTC G-16 and Wagner built Atlantic class Steam Locomotive) built and operating for the museum. This will prove to be a major asset for the museum to be able to draw thousands of people to the museum grounds over the years. He has always wanted to share with Greenville the wonderful experience of Grand Scale Railroading and the educational benefit it brings to all involved whether just riding or helping to build. When he is not working on train track, engines and cars, he can be found at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville where he is the Assistant Director of Admissions for Recruitment and Mailing. He also keeps their computers up and running. Clarence Keiser, from Witt, Ill., is a retired truck driver, a semi-retired farmer and tractor collector. He especially likes the Massey Tractors and belongs to the Mid State Collectors Club. He is the treasurer of Massey Collectors of Illinois and also a member of the MCA which is the National Massey Organization. "Ollie came to a Mid State Collectors meeting and talked about starting up the American Farm Heritage Museum and I had to get involved," Keiser said. Clarence grew up with a lot of older pieces of agriculture equipment and feels very strongly that we should preserve some of what is left. “I feel there is a need to preserve the older equipment for future generations to see.” If the older generation does not do this it will be lost. The knowledge of the older generation will be gone when we pass, so we need to try to teach the younger generations.
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