Update from Cole Wright

Hello all, 
 
My name is Cole Wright and I am a renewable scholarship recipient for 2019-2020 school year. I am a junior at Iowa State University majoring in Agronomy and working towards a minor in Animal Science.  
 
I was going to complete my two day internship at Michlig Grain in Bradford over my spring break. But Illinois was shut down as soon as I got home for break. My internship wasn’t in Illinois, but I figured that this was a close second! 
 
I started working for Henderson Farms as soon as I transferred to Iowa State last fall. I help with the grain side of their operation, and choring cattle and hogs occasionally.  Luckily Clint, my boss came to my rescue when Illinois shut down for COVID 19. He has an excavator and bucket that picks up corn that has been piled outside during the fall at local elevators throughout central Iowa. Usually he picks up close to 4 million, this year we will push close to 8 million. We were recently hired to pick up corn for ADM in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. During my spring break, instead of interning at Michlig Grain, he asked to tag along and help with the pile in Cedar Rapids. I ran the skid loader pushing corn from the center of the pile to feed the excavator. ADM had two piles (1 is still left) each with 1.83 million bushels of corn! We picked the one pile in seven days! Averaging 300,000 bushel in a 14 hour shift, or roughly 21,500 bushels an hour! It was a long 7 days, we had to run from noon until 2am to limit fighting the incoming trucks hauling outside corn during ADM’s normal receiving hours.  
 
I was very thankful to be asked to go along and help Lucas (excavator operator) pick up that pile. I look forward to picking up the last one in May. Seeing everyone come together during these tough times showed me how united we are as an agricultural community to keep providing feed, food, and fuel to the country.  
 
Thank you for your continuing support. 
Sincerely,
​Cole Wright