By Sirrina Martinez

Bob and Gail worth have been sweethearts since their teenage years, growing up together in the Lake Benton area and starting a family of their own after getting married in 1972.

“I married my high school sweetheart,” he said. “We went together for five years before we married. I met her when I was 14 years old.”

The couple had two children, John and Kim. Gail worked for an accounting office in Lake Benton for some time, and after that, at the Farm Service Agency in Ivanhoe.

Bob’s father William, was originally from Lake Benton but moved to the Balaton area when he married his wife who was a Balaton area native. However, the couple moved back to Lake Benton in 1955 when Bob was two years old.

Worth graduated high school in 1970 and began farming with his father under the family farm name of Worth and Son. When he was farming with his father, the two raised livestock including cattle and hogs, and farmed wheat, corn, flax and oats. In the later 70’s, Worth said, they began to raise soybeans. During that time he also served in the Minnesota Army National Guard as an infantryman based out of the Pipestone armory. He achieved the rank of staff sergeant, and enjoyed the time he had with his soldiers.

When his father semi-retired in 1981, Worth bought the farm and that same year, he and Gail moved onto the farm site where he grew up on one mile east of Lake Benton. In the 90’s, Worth’s son John started farming with him and the family operation became Worth Farms. Now, he and his son have land near the farm site, as far south as the road to Ward, west around two miles from the South Dakota border, north of Lake Benton almost up to Arco, and up to about three miles east of Lake Benton.

Although he has not retired from farming, he and Gail enjoy traveling often, Worth said.

“Gail and I do travel in the winter time when we get all the grain hauled and everything is in place for next year, Gail and I will go south for about two months,” he said. “We go see our daughter in California and then we also spend some time in Texas. Georgia, Florida, we don’t own a place we just travel and see the sites.”

The couple enjoy spending time with their grand children, especially in the summer time.

“Our grandkids from California come up here for two months in the summer to spend time with us,” he said. “We have all the grandkids, the two in Lake Benton and the three in California around for two months in the summer. It’s very fun and very exciting.”

While Gail has always enjoyed caring for the home, their children and now their grandchildren, Bob has enjoyed being involved in the community. For many years, he was involved with the Opera House in Lake Benton for over 20 years, performing on stage despite starting out as a shy person, he said.

“I was a shy guy,” he said. “When I first got married I wouldn’t even get up in front of the church. I think the opera house took that out of me. I love singing and I love acting in comedy. I did not want to be serious. I had to stop eventually because I couldn’t remember my lines! They would say ‘Come back tomorrow and you’ll see an entirely different show because he’s gonna say a whole bunch of different lines!’”

Worth also sang in a gospel quartet called “The Heritage Four.” He also served in the Lake Benton American Legion in many officer positions, and has been commander multiple times. He has served on many boards, including the one for the township and the old elevator in Lake Benton.

“I like being involved with organizations and try to do better things,” he said. “I love this town of Lake Benton with all my heart.”

Worth also served on the city council of Lake Benton, and then as mayor of the city for two terms. In 2002, he became involved with the Lincoln County chapter of the Minnesota Soybean Association (MSA). Since then, Worth has served in many positions with the organization at the state level including secretary, treasurer, vice president and president of the MSA. Worth is the only person to have served as president for two different terms, he said.

He has also served at the national level for the American Soybean Association, as one of six directors representing the state of Minnesota, and as vice president. Recently, Worth completed another term as president for the MSA, and will not be returning to the American Soybean Association as a director for the state. On Tuesdays mornings, you can listen in on his agricultural themed radio show on KLOH with Bill Van Hoecke, “For What it’s Worth.”

While he and Gail moved into Lake Benton around 16 years ago and his son John and his wife Shanna moved out to the family farm, Worth continues to go to work everyday on the land that he was raised on.

Sirrina Martinez
Multimedia reporter
smartinez@pipestonestar.com

In August of this year, the family of Mike and Teresa Drietz was recognized as the 2024 Farm Family of the Year for Lincoln County. The Drietz farm sits approximately 11 miles southwest of Canby.
Originally, the farm was purchased in the early 1960’s by Mike’s parents, Donald and Evelyn Drietz. The pair farmed the land, raised pigs, chickens and dairy cows.

Mike and Teresa were married at St. John Centius Catholic Church in Wilno in January of 1995, and the couple moved to Dodge City, Kan., shortly after their wedding, Teresa said.

“Mike at the time was rodeoing, he was a bull rider and he worked at Winter Livestock,” she said. “At the time it was the world’s largest independently owned livestock auction. I had graduated from nursing school at SDSU, so I got a job at the hospital down there. We went south so he could rodeo more because the weather allows for it more year round. We lived there for almost a year when we got a phone call from his dad that he was going to sell the farm.”

The rest of Mike’s siblings were not interested in buying the farm, Teresa said, so in 1996, the couple returned to southwest Minnesota to the farm that Mike had grown up on to continue the operation.
“We just jumped into the milking from there,” she said.

Teresa has been nursing for 29 years, and has had the opportunity to work in many facets of the profession.

“It has a lot of rewards and I’ve done about everything,” she said. “You work in a small town you do everything that’s just how small town hospitals are. Surgery was my passion I was a surgery manager for awhile and worked in Canby and Marshall and Hendricks too. You definitely have your  challenging days, probably more challenging on your emotions than anything.”

Currently, Teresa works full-time from home for a company called Noridian Healthcare Solutions, a medicare administrative contractor. She also works as needed at the hospital in Canby, picking up various shifts.

Sometime after Mike and Teresa took over the family farm they changed the name of the operation to MyTee Dairy, a name that represents the entire family, Teresa said. The M is for Mike, the T for Teresa, the E’s are for their son Weston’s middle name Lee and their daughter Emylee, and the other children have a Y in their name, Teresa said.

Over the past 29 years, the Drietz’s have continued to milk cows, shifting from raising Grade to Registered Holsteins, and in 2010, they started a small herd of beef cattle. Since 2013, they have expanded their operation, constructing a loafing barn, remodeling the dairy barn and building a monoslope. With these changes, they are now custom feeding cattle.  The family has occasionally raised some pigs, and they have chickens on the farm for their grandchildren to raise for 4-H. All together they have seven grandchildren.

Some of the best family memories, Teresa said, have been made in the milking barn.

“Mike always says that the best timesare when everybody is home and everybody is in the barn,” she said. “It’s kind of a like a little party. One time I looked out the window - we have a picture window in front of the barn and I can see in, especially at night when the lights are on in the barn - and I could see my son-in-law walking around with a radio on his shoulder, a boom box. I just thought in my mind ‘Aw man I can just imagine what kind of party they’re having out there.’ For him, [Mike] it was his time to have conversations with the kids.

One of our daughters got asked to prom in the barn. One of the boys came out and wrote on the cow “will you go to prom with me?” Things like that. So for him [Mike] it was that time that he had with them and they could talk and have conversations. They made it fun.”

Having the opportunity to raise her children on the farm has come with lessons for her and the family that she values, Teresa said, because the lesson in the value of hard work has helped them in their lives off the farm.

“When they’ve applied for jobs people would say to me ‘I hired your daughter because I know they knew how to work because they were raised on a dairy farm,” she said. “One thing we always told the kids, they weren’t always happy that they had chores to do or that they had to be home to help with milking, depending on what they were doing they were in school activities and sports. Some of them had jobs in high school and they were not always happy they had to be home to do chores. My husband one day said to one of the girls, ‘I know you don’t always like it, but someday when I’m not here, I want to know that you know how to take care of yourself, and you’re going to be able to do that.’”

Although there is nothing wrong with being raised in town, Teresa believes that farm life teaches children the value of hard work and discipline.
“They (the kids) also learned that if you want to get somewhere they need to get home and get to the barn to get it done so they could get to where they wanted to be,” she said. “I know when they’re in those years they don’t see it but I know our oldest daughter has said many times that she is very thankful that she was raised here and learned what they did. It comes around when they get older, they figure it out.”

“When we got the phone call from Lincoln County and they asked if we would accept it I said ‘Let me talk to Mike when he comes in and I’ll call you back,”’ she said. “He said ‘What for? We don’t do anything special.’ My second oldest daughter was here and she said, ‘Dad you need to take it, it’s just some recognition for all the hard work you’ve done.’ He said ‘Well yeah I guess,’ but to him we don’t do anything special. I think it is an honor. It’s nice to tell people what you do because there are a lot of people, especially people who don’t live in the country, who don’t know about where food comes from, where milk comes from.”

Together, the couple have seven children. Weston, who graduated from South Dakota State University and is co-owner of Lemke’s Bar and Grill in Aurora, S.D., where he lives with his children, Roman and Rylan. Cheyenne, who graduated from Sisseton Wahpeton Community College and lives in Canby with her three children, Leanna, Jaxon and Jerrah. Morgyn, who graduated from North Dakota State University and is married to Levi Citrowske. The couple live near Dawson with their sons, Atley and Isaiah. Morgyn owns her own beef cattle and some dairy cattle that stay on her parents’ farm, and that she shares with her sister, Caitey. Caitey graduated from SDSU and currently teaches in Watertown, S.D. but returns home when possible to help with milking and cleaning the barn.

Coltyn, who graduated from Lake Area Technical College and is serving in the Minnesota Army National Guard, often returns home to help with chores, fixing things around the farm like tractors and other odd jobs. Emylee, who is currently working on a degree in nursing at Minnesota West Community and Technical College in Pipestone, also returns to the farm when she can to help with milking and feeding calves. Clayton, who is a senior at Canby High School, of course spends a lot of time helping with milking, feeding calves, scraping barns and throwing hay.

All together, the family has a 25-year history of being involved in Lincoln County 4-H. Teresa previously served as the Marble Alta-Vista Club leader for approximately 20 years and is still serving on the Marble Township Board as the clerk.

Mike served on the Lincoln County Extension Committee and is currently the chairman for the Lincoln County Dairy Association. Morgan is currently serving as the dairy superintendent and her and her sisters Cheyenne, Caitey and Emylee have all been Lincoln County Dairy Princesses. The family remains members of the church in Wilno where Mike and Teresa were married.