Achievements honor his father
Nov 18, 2009 9:48 AM, By Elton Robinson, Farm Press Editorial Staff
By mid-May, the planting rush was over for Kris, and on May 19, he graduated from Riverside High School, allowing him to give full attention to his cotton crop for the summer.
Then two days later, on a Sunday morning, Donnie grabbed his rod and reel and left the house for a day of fishing at Big Lake, near Manila, Ark. That afternoon, they found him on the gravel road. He was already dead from a heart attack by the time Kris arrived on the scene. He was 57.
Quick as a lock of cotton snatched off a boll, Kris’s mentor and best friend had perished, without any warning. At the tender age of 18, there was so much he could have rebelled against from that day forward — the pain left by the sudden void or the unexpected wrecking of his adolescence. Instead he took an unwavering step forward into manhood, and the result still surprises to this day.
After mourning his father’s death, Kris plowed ahead to fulfill every dream his father had for him, and more. “I was motivated. I wanted to succeed for him. I pushed myself really hard that year. I would have lost my mind if I hadn’t been farming.”
Kris finished the cotton crop out that year, and harvested almost a 4-bale yield off one field. He inherited his father’s seat on the board of directors at the Black Oak Gin and two months after Donnie’s death, he was seated at his first board meeting, a 18-year old among men two and three times his age, soaking up what he could.
He has gained a great deal of respect and admiration from those who run Black Oak Gin, the new manager, Larry Teague, among them. “I wasn’t sure what Kris would think about me since I took his father’s place at the gin,” Teague said. “But he didn’t treat me any differently than anyone else, and I respected that. We’ve become good friends since then.”
Kris soon focused on another of his father’s dreams for him. The fall after his father’s death, he enrolled full-time at Arkansas Northeastern College in Blytheville, Ark. Two years later, he enrolled at Arkansas State University, in Jonesboro, Ark., majoring in ag business.
In his second year of farming, Kris increased his cotton crop to 200 acres and purchased his first tractor. Last year, his farm grew to 300 acres.
This year, at 21, he’s still juggling a full schedule of classes as a junior at ASU while farming around 150 acres of cotton, 120 acres of soybeans and 220 acres of corn. He also works as a hand for Dennis Finch, essentially another full-time job.
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