Ed and Imogene Yarborough
Ed and Imogene Yarborough started ranching in Seminole County in 1954 on 8,000 acres—land that had been in Ed’s family for generations. They called the place Yarborough Ranch and spent 46 years raising cattle and children there, until Ed’s death in 2000. Over the years Ed and Imogene became well-known leaders in the agricultural community. Teaching young people about agriculture and promoting the industry were special areas of focus from early on.
Ed was born in 1931 into an old Florida cattle-ranching family and started learning the business from his uncle at the age of four. He grew up on a horse amid the saw palmettos and mosquitoes, rattlesnakes and muck. In those days, most of Florida was still open range. In fact, Ed’s family was one of the first in the state to fence large tracts of their land. They were also among the first to plant improved pastures and to improve their herds of scrub cattle through crossbreeding with the beefier Brahman.
Together, Ed and Imogene continued the family’s tradition of improving pastures and herd quality. They kept their children involved in the day-to-day running of the ranch, teaching them to work cattle when they were no older than five or six. Ed and Imogene were excellent teachers and the kids made good cowhands—so good that the family was able to run the sprawling ranch with the help of only one outside employee.
The Yarboroughs were always good stewards of their land. In 1997 they negotiated with the St. Johns River Water Management District to create a 3,400-acre conservation easement on Yarborough Ranch. This agreement protects seven miles of the Econlockhatchee River and two miles of the St. Johns River. It also allowed for the building of a public canoe landing and park.
The ranch demanded time and attention, but the Yarboroughs still managed to give back generously to their community and their industry. Ed served on the Seminole County Soil and Water Conservation Board and on the board of directors of the Seminole County Farm Bureau. For eight years he was a Seminole County Commissioner. Imogene has been president of the Seminole County Farm Bureau since 1996 and serves on the Seminole County Agriculture Advisory Committee. She is a leader in her church and volunteers her time to numerous charitable projects.
Both Ed and Imogene were actively involved in the county, state, and national cattlemen’s and cattlewomen’s associations. Ed was president of the Seminole County Cattlemen for 12 years, and in 1999 the Florida Cattlemen made him an honorary director. Imogene was on the Florida Cattlewomen’s board of directors for 12 years, and in 1984 she was elected president. Imogene has long been a member of the National Cattlewomen’s Association and has been active in planning and organizing the National Beef Cook-off.
Promoting agriculture was a priority for the couple from the beginning. To encourage better understanding between farmers and urban residents, they opened the ranch for tours every year during Farm-City Week. School kids came to the ranch, too, for field trips, getting hands-on experience with farm animals and machinery. For years Imogene had a booth at the Florida State Fair with displays promoting Florida’s cattle industry.
Teaching is a passion for Imogene, and she educates young people about agriculture through 4-H, the Girl Scouts, and Ag in the Classroom. Many years ago she started going into classrooms to teach about all the useful products that come from cattle. To improve her communication with the students, she created lots of kid-friendly teaching tools (including a wooden cow named Beef An’) and even went to clown school. In 1983 Imogene was honored with a National Farm-City Award for her efforts to educate children about the importance of agriculture in their daily lives. In 1995 the Girl Scouts of Citrus Council named her a Woman of Distinction in Lifetime Achievement.
Preserving the history of Florida’s cattle industry was important to the couple. Imogene is a founding member of the Florida Agricultural Museum and is active in the Geneva Historical Society. Ed and Imogene worked together to help organize the Great Florida Cattle Drive of 1995, which celebrated Florida’s 150th year of statehood, and its ranching heritage. Seven hundred riders and 100 horse-drawn wagons moved a thousand head of native Florida cattle 70 miles along the historic Peavine Trail in south-central Florida. The drive took six days. Participants dressed in period costumes, and at night they camped under the stars. Ed and his sons rode horseback, while his daughters drove teams of draft horses pulling wagonloads of family and friends.
Ed will be remembered as one of Florida’s last true cowmen. He instilled his love of the land and the ranching way of life in his children. Today, his sons run Yarborough Ranch, under the watchful eye of Imogene, who remains one of agriculture’s most effective ambassadors.
Bill Boardman was a hands-on dairy farmer and a visionary leader who became synonymous with Florida’s dairy industry through his many years of service. He tirelessly promoted the industry’s products and fought its legislative battles. As his friends and admirers noted, his efforts set a high-water mark for other leaders to follow.
Boardman was born in Cordova, Illinois, in 1922 and attended the University of Illinois and Iowa State College. During World War II he served as a fighter pilot with the Army Air Corps and was awarded several medals for distinguished service. After the war he came back home to Illinois to start his own dairy operation. In 1951 he moved to California where he ran a dairy and cattle ranch and became active in the American Dairy Association of California.
In 1958 Boardman relocated to the Sunshine State to help Florida’s dairy farmers organize the American Dairy Association of Florida. The purpose of the ADA was to increase milk and dairy sales via advertising, education, and public relations, with dairy farmers paying for the promotion of their products. In those days, dairy farmers were sprinkled all across the state and many were members of small local cooperatives. Boardman went from farm to farm asking for support and signing up members.
A born salesman, Boardman quickly succeeded in organizing farmers into a statewide promotion program. But he still wasn’t satisfied. He believed milk promotions and dairy lobbying efforts should be handled by single organization. Dairy Farmers Inc. was soon created by the merger of the Florida Dairy Farmers Federation and the American Dairy Association of Florida. Boardman was named executive vice president, a position he held until his retirement in 1997.
Few in agriculture wore so many hats. In legislative circles Boardman was considered the dean of agriculture lobbyists, with lobbying skills that were revered by his friends and feared by his enemies.
In Tallahassee, Boardman did all he could to defend and protect Florida’s dairy industry. But in order for the state’s dairy farmers to stay in business, he believed, they couldn’t just make milk; they had to sell it. Boardman understood the power of the media and used it to educate the public and correct misconceptions about dairy products. He advanced the art of generic commodity promotion, developing advertising campaigns that rivaled the most savvy brand marketing efforts.
Boardman encouraged Florida’s dairy industry to provide nutrition education materials to schools around the state. To his way of thinking, this was both a public service and an investment in the future of the industry. Through classroom and cafeteria programs, he was training the next generation of consumers.
Despite the demands of his work, Boardman was generous with his time and talents, lending his leadership skills to a wide array of industry groups and dairy-related professional organizations. He served on the board of the Florida Agricultural Tax Council, the Florida Agricultural Labor Ad Hoc Committee, and the Agriculture Strategic Society. He was chairman of the Agribusiness Institute of Florida and treasurer of the Florida Agriculture Council.
Boardman’s years of service to the dairy industry brought him many awards and honors, including the Agribusiness Institute of Florida’s White Hat Award in 1987 and induction into the Florida Dairy Hall of Fame. He was an honorary member of the University of Florida Alumni Association and won Special Recognition from the Florida Commission on Human Relations.
Bill Boardman passed away in April 2001, and his wife, Marjorie, died in 2006. They are survived by their three sons, Mark, Reed, and Hollis.
Albert Greenberg was the founder of Florida’s $60 million aquaculture industry, the first person to successfully open and operate a tropical fish farm and aquatic plant nursery in the state. He was the first in Florida to raise tropical fish in dirt ponds and aquatic plants in concrete vats. Thanks to these innovations, an industry was born.
Greenberg is remembered for his pioneering creativity, his extraordinary drive to succeed, and his generous philanthropy. He mentored many young aquaculturists, offering wise advice—and free fish and plants to help them get started.
Albert Greenberg came into the world in 1896 aboard a British ship in the Black Sea and was registered as a U.S. citizen at the American Consulate in Odessa, Ukraine. He was raised in a family of avid gardeners, and his father was a fish farmer. He attended public school in Chicago. When World War I broke out, Albert dropped out of the University of Illinois to enlist in the Navy. After the war he became a traveling salesman, which led him to Florida.
He figured that with its mild climate and abundant water, Florida would be the perfect place to raise fish and plants for the burgeoning aquarium industry. Greenberg went hunting around Tampa for property and discovered just the spot to start a tropical fish farm: 80 acres with 11 crystal-clear, free-flowing springs to serve as his water source. He called the place Eureka Springs.
By 1930 he had opened Everglades Aquatic Nurseries at Eureka Springs and was digging fishponds by hand. He saved up his money and soon bought a mule to help him dig ponds. And he built greenhouses with concrete tanks to house both plants and fish. In his outdoor ponds, he raised blue, black, red, and gold platies; green and gold swordtails; paradisefish; rosy barbs; and black mollies, among others. His indoor tanks included Buenos Aires tetras, Siamese fighting fish, and dwarf and thick-lipped gouramis. He traveled around the world collecting beautiful and unusual aquatic plants to propagate and sell: Amazon swords, Madagascar lace plants, eel plants, and many species of Cryptocoryne.
Greenberg had an innate talent for marketing and used it to drum up demand for fish and aquarium plants in the northern states—and he made it known that Florida was the place to purchase these items. Until Greenberg started his nursery, the aquarium industry was supplied nearly entirely by fish and plants imported from the Tropics.
Greenberg introduced many new varieties of aquatic plants to the aquarium hobby, including hybrids he developed on his own farm. In addition, he developed new, more efficient shipping procedures for aquaculture products.
Greenberg’s collection of rare fish and plants drew botanists and ichthyologists from around the country; they found the nursery to be an ideal laboratory. He even built a special guest house on the property to accommodate the scientists during extended visits.
Greenberg never married or had children, but he loved his employees like family. When he retired, he gave his business and a large portion of his property to five of his longtime employees, fish and plant specialists who had been with him for decades.
He donated another portion of his land, 31 acres including the 11 springs, to Hillsborough County for a public park and botanical garden. Over the years he had filled this area with exotic plants, creating a beautiful, rainforest-like garden for his own enjoyment. Today, Eureka Springs Park remains a haven for unusual flora. It boasts the largest public collection of ferns in the state, rare varieties of bromeliads and orchids, an extensive trail system, and a 1,700-foot boardwalk.
Albert Greenberg died in 1993, leaving no descendents but an entire industry to remember him. He was the first person inducted to the Florida Tropical Fish Farms Association Hall of Fame, and many plant varieties are named for him.
Wayne Hawkins dedicated his long career to helping Florida fruit and vegetable growers unite to survive and thrive in an increasingly competitive environment. Farmers are generally an independent bunch, but when times are tough they look for leadership—and Hawkins provided that. He understood that what is impossible for a single grower can be accomplished by a group of like-minded people willing to work together.
Hawkins is considered by many to be the father of the modern agricultural cooperative exchange. For 40 years he worked to organize Florida growers, fostering cooperative efforts to standardize packaging, marketing, production methods, and post-harvest handling. Thanks to his strong leadership, growers were able to pull together to control supply while building demand for their products.
Wayne Hawkins was born in 1932 in Oakland Park, Florida, and graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in agricultural economics. In 1962 he organized the Florida Sweet Corn Exchange and the South Florida Vegetable Exchange, a pole bean cooperative. A few years later he established the Zellwood Sweet Corn Exchange, the Leaf and Radish Exchange, and the North Florida Vegetable Growers Exchange (for potato growers). These organizations allowed members to establish prices for their products, approve standard packaging and marketing policies, and pass some of their production and handling costs on to buyers.
In 1974 Hawkins became manager of the Florida Tomato Committee. During his 25-year tenure, he helped guide the Florida tomato industry through a time of extreme transition driven by intense foreign competition and unprecedented domestic consolidation. The number of commercial tomato growers in Florida dropped precipitously during the 1980s. To combat further erosion, Hawkins encouraged cooperative action, organizing the first Florida Tomato Growers Exchange in 1989. The exchange gave member growers the ability to discuss pricing together and establish “floor” pricing and “trigger” pricing, which led to more orderly marketing. Significant progress over the years was the direct result of his efforts to organize and encourage the tomato industry to work collaboratively.
Hawkins fought for the Florida tomato industry tooth and nail. He traveled to Washington many times, speaking out for fair trade and against what he believed to be unnecessary and burdensome government regulations on farmers. He was a strong advocate for country of origin labeling.
Hawkins was also a savvy PR man, working tirelessly with the media to gain positive exposure for his industry and enhance its public image. He was an enthusiastic supporter of agricultural research, and under his guidance, the Florida Tomato Committee developed a strong working relationship with the state’s universities.
Despite the demands of his job, Hawkins still found the time and energy to give back to his community. He worked with Future Farmers of America, 4-H, and other youth groups to encourage young people to enter into careers in agriculture. In the late 1990s he convinced the Florida Tomato Exchange to contribute $100,000 to the University of South Florida to establish a scholarship fund for children of migrant farm workers. Upon his retirement in 1999, he established the Wayne Hawkins Agricultural Scholarship Fund at the University of Florida for students majoring in food and resource economics.
Hawkins' leadership in the agricultural community earned him many awards and honors. In 1984 he was selected by the National Academy of Sciences to represent the U.S. tomato industry on a 16-day goodwill mission to China. During the trip he helped teach Chinese tomato farmers better growing, handling, and marketing practices. Florida Agriculture Commissioner Bob Crawford presented him with a Distinguished Leadership Award in 1999. That same year, he was given a Classic Award by the Florida Strawberry Growers’ Association in recognition of his efforts to promote the industry.
Wayne and his wife Carole live in Orlando. They have three sons, Derryl, David and Drew.
Buster Longino lives by a strong code of ethics. He believes in doing the right thing by other people, by other living creatures, and by the land itself. Longino is a cattleman, a citrus grower, a forester, and a conservationist. Throughout his long career, he has demonstrated that agriculture and natural resource conservation are not opposed to one another, but instead go hand in hand.
Born in Jacksonville in 1926, Longino grew up in Bradenton. He received an early introduction to agriculture, spending his childhood turpentining with his father and grandfather. Working among the pines, he developed an interest in trees that would stay with him all his life. After serving in the Navy during World War II, Buster returned to his home state and earned a degree in forestry at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
In 1950 Longino began a small cow/calf operation on his father’s old turpentine land in Sarasota County—8,000 acres of upland and wetland forest. He started with 200 head of cattle and a few horses, but he soon realized that he would need to diversify if he wanted the business to stay viable over the long haul. Today, Longino Ranch produces cattle, citrus, sod, and timber, with a portion of the property set aside for wildlife management.
Longino is deserving of recognition simply on the basis of his demonstrated land stewardship. Because of his progressive management techniques, his agricultural operations leave a minimal footprint on the landscape.
Longino’s citrus grove is irrigated by miles of underground pipe that deliver water directly to the trees’ roots using microjet sprinklers. This method reduces water loss by evaporation and improves the efficiency of water use by the trees. Instead of building a retention pond to accommodate runoff from the grove, Buster reestablished a natural wetland that had been drained decades before.
Longino limits his use of chemical fertilizers and relies on a three-year rotational control burn to rejuvenate his native pastures. His timber operation is a model of sustainability. Always progressive and open-minded, Longino was an early adopter of silviculture best management practices, including controlled burns, seed trees, and selective cutting. Longino not only uses BMPs on his own land, but worked with the University of Florida and other agencies to help research and develop these environmentally friendly techniques.
In 2002 Longino negotiated a conservation easement on approximately 4,000 acres of Longino Ranch. The agreement permanently protects the land from development and ensures that it will remain in agricultural use for generations to come. In 2005 Longino Ranch became the site of the first mitigation bank in the Myakka River Watershed. Conservation easements and mitigation banks demonstrate the potential for farmers and ranchers to earn money from the environmental services their land provides, and Longino hopes his projects will serve as an inspiration to other ranchers looking to protect their land from development.
Longino is an agriculture and conservation leader who is well known for a lifetime of service to his industry, the environment, and his community. He is a member of the Florida Farm Bureau and a past president of the Florida Forestry Council and the Sarasota Cattlemen’s Association. He has served on Sarasota County’s Environmentally Sensitive Lands Advisory Committee, the New College Environmental Education Advisory Committee, and the Sarasota Air and Water Pollution Control Board. He was a Sarasota County Commissioner and is a founding member of the Myakka Conservancy, a land trust dedicated to the conservation of the Myakka River Watershed.
As a member of the Manasota Basin Board and the Southwest Florida Water Management District, Longino has been a staunch yet diplomatic advocate of regional water management. He helped establish the Peace River/Manasota Regional Water Supply Authority and initiated support for the first Aquifer Storage and Recovery Well in the Southwest Florida Water Management District. His efforts helped set prudent standards for balancing water supply and demand while avoiding the strife that has polarized other rapidly growing urban regions.
In a state where agricultural lands are disappearing at an alarming rate, Longino often acts as a liaison between farmers, environmental groups, and developers. By serving on agriculture and conservation boards and committees and being involved in local government and business leadership, he has fostered cooperation, rather than enmity, between all these separate interests.
Longino has received many awards and honors. In 1983 he was named Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year by the Florida Forestry Association and received the Sarasota County Farm Bureau’s Distinguished Service Award. He received a 4-H Lifetime Service Award and a Goodyear/National Association of Conservation Districts Conservation Award in 1995. In 1998 he was honored with the Commissioner’s Agricultural Environmental Leadership Award from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Longino retired from daily ranch management in 2005, but he continues to live on the ranch with his wife Jane. Buster and Jane have three grown children, Sarah, Rebecca, and Jack.
