My father was always quoting Judge George Henry’s address to an NHS graduating class. “Education may not be the most important thing in your life, but it is right up there with breathing!”

In talking to my NHS 1958 classmates as we plan our 50th reunion, teachers are a major topic. Andy Jack Hager, a retired attorney in Mount Vernon who is now a judge, began to wax poetic about his first grade teacher at Field School, Mrs. Lentz. Andy was having trouble learning to read. He exclaimed that he very much wanted to read. He told her he had Captain Marvel comic books and he wanted to be able to read them.
“Bring them to school!” she told him. While the rest of us were suffering through the Dick and Jane readers, Andy was working on comic books. He told me the first word he learned was “Shazam!” He said if it had not been for Mrs. Lentz, no telling when he might have learned to read.

Yes, reading also is right up there with breathing. Education is not only of primary importance to an individual, but it should be a community’s top priority. If I were to address the graduates this year, I would give them their deserved congratulations, but then I would have to say, “You have only done what was expected of you by your family and the taxpayers who have provided the facilities and teachers to obtain your diplomas. Furthermore, we expect you to provide for the following generations. That will be your patriotism in action. I recommend that every graduate read ‘The World is Flat.’ That will alert you to the fact that the rest of the world wants the American standard of living and foreign students are not lazy about pursuing this goal.”

That was the theme of the address former Crowder President Dr. Kent Farnsworth gave in March at the Neosho R-5 Charitable Foundation banquet. I was glad to hear him drive home the point that as a community we must decide that education is our primary goal.

I was especially impressed that Moark is leading the charge in providing support of this community’s educational needs. As I sat listening to the speakers in the new high-tech George Washington Carver Elementary School, a serious sense of reflection set in.
Neosho has made quantum leaps in community support for education in the past 25 years. But we do not want to become complacent. There is still room for improvement and leadership.

I see leadership and education support happening in the Neosho business community.
Perhaps this is due to the quantum leaps made by some of our industries too, namely Moark. Moark picked up the check for that evening’s banquet so that all the tickets purchased became an instant contribution to the Foundation. This constituted a gift of $5,000. La-Z-Boy also gave the Foundation a check for $10,000. This is corporate leadership.

But my story here is related to the history of the egg business in Southwest Missouri.
The Moark statistics are pretty impressive. Producing 800 million eggs per year from chickens that eat 223 million pounds of feed which include 156 million pounds of corn, 100 percent of which is grown and purchased within this four county area. Additionally, 55 local farmers produce eggs for Moark. Moark was established in 1968, or 40 years ago.

As I listened to these amazing figures being read, I thought ‘what a wonderful thing to be a part of.” The next thought was that perhaps my Dad might have been a catalyst for this growth. My memory of the egg business goes back to 1947.

I recall that in the winter, some businessmen from Chicago came to visit us. I remember it was winter because our hilltop home out by the limekiln had a steep, snow-packed driveway and we had to walk up it. In the living room by the fireplace, these men talked to my dad while one of the wives asked my mother for needle and cloth and thread and she proceeded to make tiny little doll clothes for a rubber baby doll I had. I still remember leaning on the arm of the chair watching this “miracle.”

The men and my father struck a deal that Haas Cold Storage would build a building for breaking and storing egg yolks and whites. The building for breaking the eggs would be rented to them for a dollar a year, but Haas Cold Storage would take over after the eggs were broken, separated and dropped into cans. The shells were to be used as fertilizer. I recall seeing big tanker trucks parked outside the storage plant with eggs being pumped out from inside.

The new “egg breaking plant” was known as the Ovson Egg Company, owned by the “Ovson boys of Chicago.”

Sometime later, Kraft Foods took over the operation. Daddy said the tanker trucks took the liquid eggs to Texas where Kraft made mayonnaise. The next evolution was Moark and Haas Warehousing making a deal and Classic Egg was born. Later, as business continued to grow, a new arrangement was made. Moark still provides the eggs and Haas still rents out the building, but now the egg plant is run by Golden Oval. For all you word lovers, isn’t it fun that another word for egg is ovum and the whole thing started with people named Ovson and had morphed into Golden Oval.

I used to delight seeing tanker trucks from Classic Egg delivering egg whites to bakeries in Kansas City. It was like a “note from home” to be able to buy Egg-Land’s Best eggs at the grocery store in Pennsylvania because the label read “Moark, Neosho, Mo.” If you have ever bought Egg-Land’s Best eggs, you know they are stamped with an EB in a circle. Home from college one weekend, my daughter Rebecca opened the refrigerator door and exclaimed, “Mom, you have designer eggs!
Are they from Eddie Bauer?”