Jon Wilson cultivates the next generation of farmers
by Jim McCarty | jmccarty@ruralmissouri.coop
He ran 100 miles. He’s well on his way to a doctorate. He wrangles cattle in the hills of the Ozarks with his wife, April. He advocates for vocational agriculture. He’s known for having the best mustache in the 8th Congressional District. He has a day named for him at Gainesville High School and sings its school closings. He’s also an “Idiot.”
That last one might need some explaining: Jon Wilson was out running one day with his friend David Murphy when they crossed paths with a skunk. The two quickly realized they didn’t have to outrun the skunk — just the person next to them.
Thus began the first Skunk Run put on by a “dumb little club” called the Idiots Running Club, an online social media group Jon helped start. Today the group numbers more than 7,000 Idiots — Jon included — and is devoted more to helping its members succeed in life than it is about actually running.
Helping others succeed pretty much sums up Jon’s mission in life. When he’s not farming, lobbying, running or adding a few more hairs to a mustache that’s been dubbed “magnificent,” Jon can be found teaching agriculture to students at Gainesville High School.
He’s also the advisor to the school’s FFA chapter. That means arriving at the school at 6:15 a.m. to coach FFA teams because there just isn’t enough time in the day for students involved in many other activities. It also requires giving up weekends to lead blue-jacketed youth to contests, field trips and conferences.
“I’m a late bloomer,” Jon says of his entry into ag education. He started college aiming for a career in conservation, something of a family tradition for this White River Valley Electric Cooperative member. But along the way Jon saw fellow students graduating but not finding jobs. “I didn’t want to get an education and not have anything to show for it,” he says. “So, I dropped out and started working for Tindle Mills in Springfield.”
It took a few years for Jon to get the itch to continue his education. In talking to his college advisor, he realized there were two things that were most important to him: working with youth and agriculture.
“I switched majors,” he says. “I jumped back in and finished it up.”
Hired to teach agriculture at Gainesville High School in 2000, Jon set his sights on a new goal. He wanted to help reverse an alarming trend in agriculture. As he pointed out in a guest column for Rural Missouri in 2015, the average age of farmers is on the rise. “Who will replace our retiring farmers?” he asked in the column.
The answer to that question lies in the 361 agriculture education programs in Missouri’s schools, career centers and community colleges, and with ag education teachers like Jon who serve as advisors for the state’s FFA chapters. According to Missouri FFA, ag education programs in Missouri reach 31,575 students. In a typical year more than 5,000 of these students will graduate with 60% pursuing a career in agriculture.
“My goal is to make class fun, to make the learning fun,” Jon says. “I want it to be something that draws them into agriculture instead of pushing them away. I’ve seen kids who lived on a farm all of their life. They’ve had to work it. They’ve had to do it and they get out, they aren’t farming any more. My goal is to make it to where they want to come back.”
As a weeknight and weekend rancher on a farm south of Ava, Jon knows all too well the difficulty involved with entering agriculture for the first time. “The startup cost of a farm right now is just tremendous,” he says. “If you are starting from nothing, you own no cattle, you own no land, you own no equipment — the debt is astronomical. The kids look at that and they are like, ‘I can’t afford that.’ ”
That’s where a formal education in agriculture can help. Jon’s students will be immersed in every aspect of agriculture, including horticulture, conservation, forestry, mechanics and welding. They will put those ideas into practice in the community, with his 66 students earning more than $70,000 in 2024 through raising livestock or from their own ag-related businesses.
Gainesville’s students learn from a teacher determined to help them succeed with a tenacity that never quits. Take his reluctant entry into long-distance running, for example. At the same time he was training for a 100-mile race, he was also working on his doctorate.
“I had no intention of ever running a race whatsoever,” Jon admits. “I just wanted to fit in my clothes. It turned into one of those things where you read Runner’s World, and they’d have all those things you are supposed to do. And me and David were doing the opposite. Well, you’re an idiot for doing that. And so we were like, ‘Hey, we’re the Idiots Running Club.’ ”
Armed with T-shirts designed by one of Jon’s students, the two started selling the shirts from the trunks of their cars at running events. The club grew quickly, and became a group devoted to encouraging the overweight runner who completed their first mile as much as congratulating those who finished an ultramarathon or beat cancer.
Jon began pacing his friend David, who had his sights set on going the ultimate distance for runners, 100 miles. Jon would complete a 50-mile run, then pace David for another 20 miles or so. Before long he found himself toeing the starting line for the Mark Twain 100 ultramarathon held on the Berryman Trail near Steelville.
His rationale for entering the race? Finishers received a belt buckle, with an awesome mustache on it.
Halfway through the ultramarathon, Jon tripped and fell — mustache first — into the rocky trail. Bleeding, and with every breath painful, he had a decision to make. “I woke up that morning with the intention of running 100 miles, not 75,” he wrote in a blog on the Idiots Running Club website. “I told my wife that if I quit and went to the doctor, he would just say my ribs were broke, bruised or cracked and send me home. I could hurt on the trail for a few more hours and go home with a buckle or go home now and hurt the same empty-handed.”
He continued, completed the race and later learned he ran with separated ribs.
His running days are behind him and he’s put the doctorate on hold, but Jon basks in the knowledge that his efforts are paying off for his students. His two sons are both involved in agriculture, one as a teacher and the other as a farm equipment mechanic.
Jon sees former students at Gainesville’s Hootin and Hollarin Festival. “I get to visit with them and see where they are at,” he says. “Not everyone goes into agriculture, but a big chunk do involve themselves in some way.”
You can learn more about Missouri FFA at missouriffa.org. The Idiots Running Club can be found online at www.idiotsrunningclub.com and on Facebook.