Perils in Paradise

Farm life in the Wisconsin countryside is hedged with hazards for children. Rasmussen Oil helps make their lives a little safer.

"Our gravity boxes weren't that big, so I didn't worry about it," says Jim Ebert. "I just opened the door but then all the kids started hollering. I didn't hear what they were hollering because the elevator was going, but it didn't sound right so I shut the door quick. And then they told me, 'Jake's caught.'"

Ebert is one of the opening speakers at the first Farm Safety Day Camp in Sparta, a quintessential Wisconsin farming town (population 7788) where flags adorn Main Street and an overhead banner proclaims the upcoming Butterfest. Sparta is also the home of Rasmussen Oil Co. Inc., the force behind bringing Ebert to the crowd of children and parents who hang on his story.

Sucking in the innocent

Most of the crowd knows that a gravity box is the high-sided, open-topped grain wagon that follows combines through the fields, and that you empty a box by opening the door at the bottom. What many of them may not know is that grain doesn't pour like water from the bottom Ð it flows from the top, creating a vortex that immediately sucks in anything sitting there. And it was Ebert's son Jake who was sitting up there. Almost before he could blink, the boy was up to his chest in corn, inches from suffocation.

"I actually couldn't pull him out," Ebert continues. "If I opened the door to let more corn out, he'd sink farther in. Finally, I crawled in with him and held onto him while the kids opened the door. When I got sucked in, I was tall enough to touch the bottom, so I could stand up and hold Jake up too. And that's how we unloaded the wagon. If that wagon had been bigger, both of us would have got sucked in."

Jake Ebert came within seconds of becoming another casualty in a surprisingly dangerous industry.

Each year, dozens of children are killed or maimed in farming accidents. In September of 1990, Progressive Farmer profiled nearly 100 farm safety accident victims showing how tragedies could have been prevented, but the statistics continued to climb. In 1995, the magazine took a hands-on approach and sponsored 19 farm safety workshops across the South and Midwest. By the season's end, many more communities had requested a workshop, and the Progressive Farmer Farm Safety Day Camp program was born.

Almost immediately, Shell entered the picture as a major corporate sponsor. "Shell is one of our major funders," says Susan Reynolds, the program coordinator. "This year we'll reach 40,000 kids through 255 camps. We could not have grown this fast without Shell's contribution. They also give us 'Farther Down the Road' cassette tapes for all the kids, which they love."

In 1998, Shell got involved in a new way: Rasmussen Oil became the first Shell distributor to organize a camp, one of the first three in Wisconsin.

A year of preparation

"Shell asked us to look into this program at the National Sales Meeting in 1997," says Dan Rasmussen, who operates the business with his brother James. "A lot of farm-related accidents happen around here every year, and this seemed like a real good fit. We said, 'Why not?' We gave the ball to Gail Raddatz, our office manager, and she really took the bull by the horns."

For Gail, the idea of spearheading a farm safety program was a natural – she herself had been a casualty: "I got pulled under a drag when I was two," she says. (A drag is a heavy plate with prongs, pulled behind a tractor as the final pass after plowing and disking.) "I was pretty bloody. If it had been a disk instead of a drag, that would have been it. So when Dan came back from the meeting with the idea for a Safety Day Camp, I thought, 'We've got to do it!'"

It has taken more than a year to make it happen. First there was the process of getting approved by Progressive Farmer, which provides the T-shirts and "goodie bags" for the kids, plus insurance coverage for the sponsor, campers and volunteers.

Then there was training. In December of 1997, Gail attended a two-day seminar sponsored by Progressive Farmer in Lexington, KY, to brainstorm about programs. The magazine provides support and suggests possible classes, but leaves the specific program content up to the local sponsor.

And then there were volunteers to organize and money to raise.

"Everybody I talked to said, 'Gail, what do you want, what can I do to help?' I'd go to buy something for the Camp, and they wouldn't let me pay for it," she says.

By the time the children assemble on this weekend in May, more than 75 volunteers have contributed to the effort, including radio stations, farm implement dealers, the county hospital, the local McDonald's, the National Guard and dozens of concerned citizens. It has become a community undertaking.

"He was lucky he had old clothes on"

Inspired by Ebert's story to think seriously about potential hazards, Camp attendees disperse in five groups to areas highlighting different aspects of farm safety: chemical, electrical, PTO (the power take-off from a tractor), fire and first aid.

Just as the day started with a story, so it continues. Out in a field with a tractor and PTO, Bill Wissestad talks about the dangers of working around equipment with loose clothing:

"There was a guy unloading corn from a gravity box into a corn crib using a PTO to run the elevator. He had a loose-fitting vest on, and he was bending down by the gravity box like we always have to do to get that last corn out, and the wind blew the back of his jacket vest up against the PTO shaft, and the pin stuck out a little too far and caught that, and he could start to feel it pulling. He couldn't stop it, even though the tractor was just idling and the PTO wasn't turning at 540 like it normally would. He went around that shaft about 4 times and was finally able to get his feet out to brace himself, and that PTO took every bit of clothing off him except his underwear. He was in the hospital about 10 days with broken ribs, really scraped up. I saw him there, and there wasn't a part of his body that wasn't black and blue. They said he was lucky he had old clothes on – if he'd had a denim jacket on, he'd be dead, even though the PTO was going slowly. At 540 he would never have had a chance to react at all, and they'd have just found him spinning. Usually if you get caught, the chance of survival is zero, but he was lucky. That was my own brother-in-law, and that's a fact."

The kids absorb stories, demonstrations and advice during three sessions in the morning. Then they break for hot dogs, chips and – what else in Wisconsin? – milk. In the afternoon, they attend the remaining two sessions and polish off the day with – naturally – ice cream. And finally, after scribbling thank-you notes to sponsors, they pick up their safety goodie bags and head home, tired but wiser.

"I'm happy," says Gail. "It went really well, and I think the kids enjoyed it. And I've already got some ideas for next year!"

"Every year it seems there's a child in a tragic farming accident," says Dan Rasmussen. "It hits the whole community hard. If we can keep that from happening, it's a great accomplishment."

For information on how you can sponsor a Farm Safety Day Camp in your community, call Progressive Farmer toll-free at 1-888-257-3529. As Bill Lucas, Shell area manager in Wisconsin, says, "This is what a Shell distributor is all about, paying back to the community and showing concern for the kids."

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Rasmussen Oil Co. Inc., a community leader

Ask the hotel clerk at The Country Inn where Rasmussen Oil is, and she can tell you. Chances are everyone in town knows the Rasmussens because the family has been involved in the community for three generations.

Grandfather Alvin Rasmussen started the business in 1930 as a two-pump Shell station selling ethyl and regular gasoline. As the Second World War loomed and a military base took root nearby, Rasmussen Oil expanded with a sleek new building once touted as the largest all-glass building in the United states. (Yes, those solid walls in the picture are really glass.) In addition to Shell products, the new building was home to General Electric appliances, Goodyear tires, Nash and Pontiac cars, International trucks, and even a small restaurant.

Of course there were lean years too. Shirley Rasmussen, mother of Dan and James recalls that there was a time when the business shrank back to an operation run out of her house. "It got down to a home delivery service for fuel oil and gasoline," she says. "But then the boys got involved, and they had all this energy, and Shell provided so many great opportunities, and it just snowballed."

When their father, Jim, passed away in 1990, James and Dan took over and moved into lubricants. Today Rasmussen Oil provides Shell lubricants for agriculture, trucking, industry and aviation customers in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa; owns and operates two convenience stores (one of which opened only days before the Farm Safety Day Camp); and services three other C-stores. Two years ago, the company centralized operations in a new facility in Sparta that follows the family tradition of innovation: Inside the building are three custom-built square bulk tanks that provide a total of 30,000 gallons of storage: one 10,000-gal tank dedicated to Rotella® T 15W-40; a five-compartment, 10,000-gal tank for other engine oils; and a four-compartment, 10,000-gal tank for hydraulic fluids. "It's too cold in winter to keep lubricants outdoors," says Dan, "The way we designed these tanks, they take up only about half the space of regular round tanks."

In spite of all the growth and change, Rasmussen Oil continues to offer the same product it did 67 years ago – Shell Oil. "It's the best product out there," says James. "With the quality of the product and the reputation, we've never seen a need to offer other brands."