Jack Laurie’s ascent up Farm Bureau’s leadership ladder began in the early 1960’s when he was drafted into a new Community Farm Bureau Group. By 1965 he was membership chair and vice president of the Tuscola County Farm Bureau, and enrolled in MSU’s Kellogg Young Farmer program for up-and-coming ag leaders.
After his MFB Regional Representative saw Laurie’s potential and asked him to speak at a Young Farmer conference, pressure mounted on him to keep climbing. Retiring District 6 Director (and past state president) Ward Hodge’s suggestion that he vie for the seat he’d soon vacate fell on deaf ears, though. Committed to his family dairy outside Cass City, Laurie wasn’t having it. Then-president Elton Smith dropped by to echo Hodge’s suggestion and fared little better — but Smith had a card up his sleeve: urging Laurie to consult his college mentor, MSU Ag Economics Chair Larry Boger.
“I knew then I’d been set up,” Laurie remembered. “Larry went through this whole business of ‘You have this responsibility’ and ‘You really have to get off the farm so you can grow beyond your own little circle’ and all that stuff — stuff I would use in later years to encourage people to grow.”
Boger’s push tipped the scale; Laurie launched his campaign and won the board seat at age 26. Four years later he was elected third member of the board’s executive committee, then vice president in 1977.
And in December 1986, Laurie stepped into the biggest pair of boots Michigan Farm Bureau had ever cobbled, succeeding Elton R. Smith’s legendary 22-year tenure as president.
Laurie had been an active, high-profile vice president and merged smoothly into his new role, leaning into building new enthusiasm about agriculture and Farm Bureau.
In his first year, an evaluation of Farm Bureau programs revealed a need to forge stronger unity between MFB and its affiliates — improved synchrony among the “family” of companies operating under the common Farm Bureau banner. The study committee’s findings supported Laurie’s own conviction that the affiliates and their parent could achieve greater goals working collaboratively than as separate entities.
Laurie proved a steadying presence in 1989 when misinformation about pesticide residue on apples erupted into near hysteria among consumers, despite the dramatic decline in Alar use and shaky evidence of its harmful properties. The resulting industry rally set a new precedent for Farm Bureau’s role as a collaborative uniter and focal point for public-information campaigning — vital experience that serves it well to this day.
Another public-facing campaign later that same year strove to buttress industry support for Michigan State University’s role as the state’s premier land-grant institution, designed from the ground up to bolster farmers and agriculture across the board. Never before, Laurie advised members, had the continued prosperity of Michigan agriculture relied so directly on university-based research projects relating to water use and quality, judicious use of chemical inputs, marketplace innovation and consumer education.
MFB’s “Land Grant — Don’t Take It For Granted” campaign urged members to support initiatives to boost funding for ag-related research, state-of-the-art facilities and payroll for research and teaching staff.
An ulterior motive of the campaign helped remind the university itself of its core mission to support agriculture. Putting a spotlight on the 75th anniversary that year of MSU Extension — the fertile soil in which Farm Bureau’s roots were bedded — helped further underscore the importance of the school’s original land-grant mission.
In the meantime, the close MFB-MSU partnership continued. At the 1989 annual meeting, Laurie presented $100,000 to MSU Dean of Agriculture and Natural Resources James Anderson, marking the end of a three-year $1.2 million drive to establish the Elton R. Smith Endowed Chair for the Study of Food and Agricultural Policy.
One consistent thread running throughout Laurie’s career was his devotion to the Community Group program, where his own leadership journey began.
“If you need to come to grips with an important issue, the best strategy is to sit down with your friends and neighbors and talk about it — regardless of your occupation, where you live, or what the issue might be,” he said. “Discussion and sharing of ideas will always harvest the best solutions.”
Laurie also brought an equally strong priority on Farm Bureau’s role as a coordinating leader among the increasingly fragmented landscape of specialized, commodity-specific associations.
“My goal was to keep Farm Bureau out in front,” he said. “I know you have to listen to what your opponents say. You have to be strong and stand strong for your position.”
Indeed the rise of deep-pocketed commodity groups — well-funded by checkoffs Farm Bureau supported — posed something of an existential challenge to a general farm organization underwritten primarily by voluntary membership dues.
Key to the organization’s survival, Laurie insists, is unwavering focus and strong member advocacy dialed in on the bigger-picture issues littering the common ground all producers share: land and water use, preserving Right To Farm, funding research, conservation, and evergreen concerns about securing an adequate, skilled labor force:
“We still need to be on the front line.”
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