Orville Swenson

After graduation, I attended NDSU and received a bachelor’s degree in Mechanized Agriculture. I returned to the Lemmon area and farmed north of town (not too far from Bentley). I married my college sweetheart, Renee, in 1975 and we were blessed with two children, Nathan and Melissa. In 1985 we decided to quit farming and I returned to NDSU to get a masters degree in Crop and Weed Science. After graduation, I worked at NDSU as a research technician for a year and then went to work for AGSCO Inc, a regional crop protection company, in Grand Forks, ND. I was the Research Director at AGSCO for 18 years until February of 2007 when the company was purchased by UAP, a national retail and wholesale crop protection company. I am currently the UAP/Loveland Tech Service Rep for Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana. Still doing pretty much what I did before but with more travel. We were informed this past December that a Canadian company, Agrium, is now purchasing UAP so will have to wait and see what the future holds. I have seriously thought about retiring but don’t have enough money or a Harley so will have to put that on hold for a while.

Our children and grandson have brought us great joy. Melissa is an elementary school teacher and lives in Fargo so we get to see her fairly often. She enjoys photographing historic sites in the area. Her apartment walls are covered with her work. Nathan married his wife, Stella, in the Redwood Forest in Northern California which was a very memorable experience. Nathan is working on his master’s degree in soils at Humboldt State. They have a 3 year old son, Tobias Dacotah, and are expecting a second child in August. They live on a ranch near Eureka, CA which is a very beautiful area but way to far away from Grandma and Grandpa. We are really looking forward to meeting them at Disneyland this week.