Lionel Harris presided over many changes at Scottsbluff experimental station

By David Ostdiek
Communications Specialist
Panhandle Research and Extension Center

Lionel Harris presided over some big changes in the agricultural experiment

station near Scottsbluff during the more than three decades that he served as superintendent.

In the 1930s Harris steered the station, then a U.S. Department of Agriculture facility, toward more cooperation with the University of Nebraska. In about 1948, UNL took over administration of the station from the federal government.

Harris was still superintendent in 1956, when the research station moved into a modern, large Administration and Laboratory Building, replacing a primitive, small office-dormitory on the grounds east of Mitchell. (Shortly after Harris retired, the station moved to its current location at Scottsbluff.)

When Harris arrived in 1930, he was the only employee besides then-superintendent James Holden. By the time he retired in 1971, the staff numbered around a dozen members, not including the many UNL faculty members in Lincoln who came 400 miles to Scottsbluff to conduct research.
The Scottsbluff Experimental Substation was established east of Mitchell by the USDA in 1910. Harris was in charge from 1935 until 1971, the first four years as acting superintendent. During those 36 years, the USDA’s substation expanded and evolved into the University of Nebraska Panhandle Station. Today it is known as the UNL Panhandle Research and Extension Center, and will celebrate its centennial in 2010 with an open house on July 24.

Born in 1906 in Utah, Harris received a bachelor of science degree in agronomy from Brigham Young University in 1929 and a master’s degree in 1930 from Utah State. Later that year he received a federal civil service appointment as junior agronomist at the Scotts Bluff Experiment Station.
Harris was the station’s third superintendent. The first, Fritz Knorr, served from 1910-16. The second, Holden, served from 1917-34. Holden died suddenly in December 1934, and Harris, the only other staff member, took over as acting superintendent. In 1938 his ap

pointment was made permanent. Since Harris, the directors have included John Weihing, Bob Fritschen, Chuck Hibberd and Linda Boeckner.

By the time Harris retired on June 30, 1971, he had received numerous awards and was author or co-author of 27 technical publications, according to an Omaha World-Herald article at his retirement. Later that year the Administration and Laboratory Building constructed in 1956 was renamed the Lionel Harris Building.

After retiring, Harris farmed in Scotts Bluff County for a few years before his death in 1975. Harris and his wife, Lea, had one daughter, Lorraine Andre of Boise, Idaho, who survives.

It was Harris who opened the doors to cooperation with the university, according to “College of Agriculture of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln: The First Century,” a history written by Elvin F. Frolik and Ralston J. Graham, published in 1987 by the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources and College of Agriculture Alumni Association.

“Harris was most receptive to and promoted maximum cooperation with the staff located on the East Campus,” according to the book. “He and his wife, Lea, were gracious hosts to all of the East Campus staff visiting or working at the Substation. Harris also initiated and pursued, to the fullest, cooperation with Extension.”

Under Harris’s watch, the station’s research mission began to integrate with UNL Extension, according to the book. The new building provided several offices for Extension personnel, making the Panhandle Station the first outstate station in Nebraska to do so. The first joint faculty appointments at the station were made in 1964. Today, almost all the faculty at the Panhandle Research and Extension Center have joint appointments in research and Extension.

In a 1974 interview with George S. Round, former professor of Ag Communications at UNL, Harris said the substation included 160 acres of land and improvements when he arrived, and research consisted mostly of lamb feeding and crop rotation. Harris told Round he conducted vegetable variety tests, and shortly after, a canning industry was established in Scottsbluff. The canning industry lasted about 20 or 25 years, he said.

In the interview, Harris reflected on some of the changes and progress in agriculture in western Nebraska during his time. In 1930, corn yields were typically about 50 to 60 bushels an acre. By the 1970s, thanks largely to hybrid seed, yields of 100 to 150 bushels were common in the valley.
By the 1970s, sugarbeets had been an important crop for decades, and Harris expected them to continue to be a staple crop. Acreage had held steady at around 60,000 for years. At the time, a coop (of which Harris was a member) was trying to buy the processing plants from Great Western Sugar. Almost 30 years and several owners later, a grower cooperative purchased the company in 2002 and operates it today.

Farm size had been increasing for years. Harris said the typical family farm had been 60 to 80 acres of land and a team of horses. In 1974, he noted that his 160-acre place was not considered a big farm.

“I think this trend, which is in existence now, the bigger operations, more efficient operations from the standpoint of economics. I think it will take over,” the retired superintendent told Round. “I don’t see any other way. If a more efficient system is found, economically this is the one that will prevail.”

Lamb feeding had been a major part of the valley’s ag sector. Harris told Round that at one time there were half a million head of lambs on feed, but lamb feeding declined due to competition with cattle feeding and the requirement of bigger operations to make it efficient. A similar fate met the dairy farms that were once scattered around the North Platte Valley.

In Harris’s time, the station conducted a lot of research on feeding sugarbeet tops to lambs, and found that they were an excellent feed, equal or superior to corn silage. Beet tops also were found to be good for fattening cattle and being fed to dairy cows. Harris also noted that the station conducted important research related to potatoes, safflower (once considered a viable alternative crop to wheat) and irrigation, including peak water-use periods for crops.

Harris was interviewed several years after he had retired and a year before his death. At the time, he was farming 160 acres near Minatare. He and Round, the interviewer, both commented on the dry conditions in May 1974.

In an observation that every farmer before or since can identify with, Harris quipped, “In my whole experience out here, … I can say that the climate has no concern or regard for human objectives.”