Mark Twain once said, “Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other.”
Growing up on a farm as one of seven brothers was full of adventures, some good and others not so good. A few certainties that I learned:
As a teen, I had no plans of returning to the farm. I was willing to go wherever life took me. After high school, I headed off to Virginia Tech to study engineering. I loved the new challenge. I met a girl from a dairy farm in West Virginia. She had no intentions of living on a farm either. With career aspirations of being an engineer, something happened that I cannot put a finger on. I started seeing the farm in a different light. Upon graduation from Virginia Tech, I immediately returned to the farm and I married my college sweetheart a year later.
Today life is similar to growing up. I live in the same house I grew up in and I have never received a paycheck from anyone who was not a Saunders. But thank goodness, life is minus the milking of the cows. I am now General Manager for the company and still get to practice my engineering skills in the ever-expanding business. We have five kids and are beginning to see grandchildren. They are starting to scatter but they seem to find their way back home often. We try to do what is right just like my grandfather and his brothers did when they formed Saunders Brothers over 100 years ago. We still stand on their principles of honesty, morality, and integrity which gratify most and astound a few.