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Glynn Mebane is a "chip off the old block", carved from the same finely grained, farm-seasoned base, and bearing the same values and many of the same earthy gifts, as his father, the late Virgel Glynn Mebane, Sr..

Born May 21, 1953 in the Macedonia community off McKenzie's eastern border, Glynn was in little-boy heaven helping his dad farm. He had begun learning to drive the tractor from the time he was old enough to sit in his father's lap. "That's what I loved, was just being with my dad and farming," Glynn muses with a smile.

Glynn's mother, Margaret Sparks Mebane, still lives in the same farmhouse in which she and her husband raised Glynn and his two older sisters, Sarah and Martha Sue. Margaret taught first through fourth grades in the little country schoolhouse while Ms. Sloan taught grades five through eight on the other side of the door that separated the two levels.

Glynn accompanied his mother to school some days even before he reached school age, when he recalls that going out to bring in scuttles of coal for the pot-bellied stove was "one of the fun things to do."

"And how many times did she put you in the cloak room?" Glynn's wife, Joan, asks quietly. "I don't want to go into that," Glynn says, his words falling neatly behind hers in one sentence.

He explains one of the things that was not fun was being sent to the cloakroom to pay for some misdeed while the other children enjoyed recess outdoors. The cloakroom was the school's small library that doubled as a place to keep personal items. "You wanted to go there during school time to talk with friends but you didn't want to go there instead of going out to play," he says with raised eyebrows.

Outdoors, games like "ante over" and "kick the can" were being played. In ante over, Glynn says, one side of the house was "ante" and the other side was "over". As one team stood on either side of the house, the first team would call, "ante over" and the other team called out "ready." If the second team caught the ball when it was thrown over the house, that gave them the right to run around the house and throw the ball into the team on the other side. Whoever was hit had to join the opposite team until no one was left on one side.

"It was tough when you played it with a baseball!" Glynn nodded with a knowing smile.

Glynn's mother wisely recognized a little boy's education deals with more than book learning, allowing without protest Glynn's "field trip" with his father to watch bulldozers raze the ground in preparation for the building of a new city school.

With more and more country children commuting to the city schools, the country school reverted to a one-teacher school after Glynn's fourth year, and he began his fifth-grade studies in McKenzie.

At home, the Mebane's diversified farm supported row crops like cotton, corn, and soybeans; beef cattle and a "pretty good-size hog operation back in those days."

"Daddy farmed probably 400 to 500 acres with three small tractors and farm help," Glynn says.

It was a big job that Glynn's father tackled with resolute purpose tempered by real caring for those who helped get the job done.

"When planting season came Daddy was ready to go by 7:00," Glynn says. "We'd get up early and get ready... Mom always cooked a big breakfast. We would be gassed up, hitched to the proper equipment and ready to roll before help arrived. Dad could always get plenty of help because he treated them very fair."

Farmers in the community pitched in together to get the job done, each helping the others when his own farming was done. Glynn's father garnered special favor among those helping on his farm by a simple act of kindness in providing cokes and candy bars every morning and afternoon.

It's a trait Joan says Glynn carried over from his father. "To this day Glynn always gets them something to drink and something to eat," she says regarding anyone assisting Glynn in his endeavors.

His father bought one of the first cotton pickers in Carroll County, a one-row picker that is a far cry from the massive machinery in operation in modern-day cotton fields. As he began trying it out, a neighboring farmer cried, "Oh, mercy, it's leaving all the cotton!"

Glynn's father handed him a bag and told him to pick behind the machine. "That fellow picked and picked and picked and never did get enough to show for his work," Glynn recalls. "It doesn't leave as much as you think it does."

In Glynn's youth, when the farming was done, the Mebane family was making music. "I was raised in music," Glynn says of his country and southern gospel roots. "Daddy could play the guitar, banjo, harmonica, and fiddle. Mother played the piano; she's 80 years old and still plays the piano at Shiloh (church)."

By the time Glynn was ready to graduate from high school, his father's health was in decline as diabetes took its toll. Disabled since 1968 or 69, Virgel managed the farm from the house and Glynn helped work it until he graduated from high school in 1971.

"In the summer of '71, I had to make decision," Glynn recalls. "I could continue farming or go to college; I couldn't very well do both."

He chose to continue his education at the University of Tennessee at Martin, where he earned a degree in agriculture business. "I thought I wanted to stay in farming or something to do with farming, not knowing I would land here," says the country boy who became the Carroll County Farm Bureau Agency Manager almost three years ago.

He put himself through college using the musical talents he had learned from his father, who had taught him to play the guitar when he was between 10 and 12 years old. During his first few years of college, he spent summers working part-time at the Carroll Lake Golf Club as well.

"I had some really good friends who played music with me," says Glynn regarding the members of the popular band "Authority" that was made up of John Waddle, Steve McCadams, and Kenny Melton along with Glynn.

He approached his college career as a cooperative between college and work, sometimes suspending his studies until he had earned enough for another quarter. "It took a little longer but when I got through I had it paid," he says modestly.

Following his graduation in 1976, he went to work for Doug McCadams' International Harvester dealer in McKenzie for a year before accepting an offer from Mr. Roy Tarwater to sell insurance for Farm Bureau.

"I was an insurance agent for 24 years and became agency manager here on January 1, 2000," says Glynn, who stresses Farm Bureau is much more than a source of insurance for rural communities.

Known as "the voice of agriculture", Farm Bureau is a service organization - over five million members strong - that represents farmers, politically and through various programs, at the local, state, national and international levels. Glynn breaks it down more simply into correct morals and standing for what's right for families and rural people. "And all of us in McKenzie and Huntingdon have a little rural background in us," he says.

Glynn's work with "family farms and rural people" lets him stay close to his roots while being able to be around farming and the people helped by the services Farm Bureau provides. "When I came on we had 1,400 members and today we have 4,700," he says proudly, regarding local members participating the organization, "That's family members with the average family size being three."

"One of the things I get to do is go out with farmers to help keep me up with farming," he says with fresh enthusiasm. "Robert and Ricky Chandler, Jerry White, and Glynn Tippet, who farm thousands of acres, let me get on a tractor and ride with them sometimes."

Last week, when Glynn took a ride on Robert and Ricky Chandler's six-row cotton picker, the time-saving machinery picked six long rows of cotton in about five minutes, an awesome testimony of the progress made since Glynn's father and previous generations broke their backs and cut their fingers while manually harvesting their crops.

The eagerness Glynn displays for his work is mirrored by a general zest for living that shines through in all his pursuits, and he lumps them all together in expressing thanks for each one.

"My love for family and rural people, being raised in that, and being able to be around the business and being married to this lady right here," he says, his voice breaking and tears welling in his eyes as he struggles for composure, "is what keeps me going," he continues, smiling through his emotions.

"I thank God every day for this man," Joan says, echoing the sentiment expressed in words and eye contact between the couple who celebrated their 15th anniversary October 10.

"We married at Shiloh; we wanted a little country wedding," says Joan, who shares Glynn's rural roots, her father farming in Weakley and Obion counties during her youth.

After moving to McKenzie in 1969, Joan says, "I knew this was home; this was where I wanted to live and I've always loved McKenzie. My church family has been my family for 30 years."

Both Glynn and Joan were members of the McKenzie Church of Christ long before common interests joined their families in marriage. The couple are the parents of two sons from Joan's former marriage: Darrell and Michael Taylor; and one daughter from Glynn's former marriage: Kaci Mebane, though Glynn and Joan simply announce that they have three children, and add that Darrell's wife, Kim, "is just like a daughter to us."

Their joy has been the growing years of their grandchildren, Kayla and Justin, who with daughter Kaci, are all within two years of each other. Kayla and Justin are students at McKenzie High School and Kaci is a student at the University of Tennessee at Martin.

The children and grandchildren as well as Joan and Glynn are active members of the Church of Christ youth and missions programs. Each year the children paint homes for the less fortunate and help reach other children in summer youth camps. "They're just so involved, all three of them," says Joan, "They just put God first in their lives. As parents and grandparents we're just so proud of them."

Kaci has been able to participate with Joan and Glynn in mission trips to the Honduras for the past four years where their focus has been on rebuilding homes devastated by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, providing medical assistance and offering food and clothing while promoting Christ.

"We don't really know how lucky we are here until we go there. They're a loving bunch of people but they don't have much," Joan says quietly.

Glynn grows quiet as she details the extent of his humanitarian efforts through his work, church and civic activities. "He likes taking his time and giving back to the community," she says. "He took off work for 15 years for a week to do the fifth grade play and donates his time to the David Johnson Chorus."

"I would not be able to do the things I do if I didn't have someone to help me like her," Glynn says tenderly. His conversation is peppered with thanks for everything from his upbringing to his friends, and his every asset from talents to opportunities he attributes to those around him.

The Chorus, both Glynn and Joan explain, brings culture to rural communities while also performing for groups like Lebonheur Children's Medical Center and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis and the Shriners Burn Hospital and Easter Seals Child Development Center in St. Louis.

Glynn operates as sound technician for the group, an activity he says "keeps the music in me."

After Authority disbanded in 1975, Glynn played with the group "Phoenix" for ten years. That group was composed of Glynn, Thomas Oakley, Ted Brush, Dale Dodd, and Buddy Wiggleton.

In more recent years, more as a hobby than a money-maker, Glynn played country and bluegrass music with Danny and Bonnie Martin, Randy McCadams, Jimmy King, and David Johnson in the Danny Martin Band.

"We played Hee-haw shows, bank parties, and church parties," Glynn says, describing the differences from his former musical endeavors. He characterizes the band members as "my main friends; they're my buddies."

"We've already got with them and their wives and we're going to the same retirement center," he grins.

Another favorite hobby Glynn inherited from his father is his love for hunting, especially duck and goose hunting. He recently returned from an annual duck and goose hunting expedition to Canada where the birds fill the skies and waterways in the fall of the year.

He enjoys golfing and is a St. Louis Cardinal baseball fan, in former years loading the children up "five or six times a year" to travel to the baseball stadium. University of Tennessee Vols football is another enjoyable pastime, but all may pale in comparison with his newest love, motorcycling, a sport that combines the thrill of freedom with the scenic beauty of trips to the mountains with other couples and visits to motorcycle shows with the guys.

The Mebanes have also been able to travel extensively outside the perimeters of the continental United States, a privilege that is a direct result of Glynn's hard work and Farm Bureau's family-oriented value system.

"I feel blessed Glynn works so hard," says Joan, "We've gone places we'd never gotten to go if not for Farm Bureau."

Glynn's rewards have taken the couple to Switzerland, Spain, Ireland, Alaska, and Mexico and have provided Kaci, Justin and Kayla with birthday trips to remember.

"They each got to go to their dream place," Joan says, "It just so happened to hit on the year each of them turned 13. Justin got to go snow skiing in the Swiss Alps and he just ate that up. Kayla went to the Caribbean, and Kaci had a Hawaiian cruise. It was really, really special to all three of them."

The Mebanes are also content to sit on the deck of their beautiful home in rural McKenzie and watch the corn and soybeans grow in the fields around them. "We enjoy sitting on the deck and watching it grow," Joan says of the crops farmed by the Crutchfield family while another 20 to 25 acres of the small farm are left undisturbed to provide a near-by hunting ground for the children and grandchildren.

Joan shares that she has heard her husband say the three most precious words he has ever heard are Sweetheart, Daddy and Daddy Glynn.

Glynn smiles, counting his blessings. "I was born and raised on a farm and am lucky enough to work around rural families and people in an organization that's one of the best I could ever imagine to be a part of," he says. "I do feel deep down inside that God has blessed me to have health and work in a business that always provides for my family and to be able to give back to the community."

"If you just look for it, God blesses you every way you turn," Joan agrees.

"That's for sure," Glynn smiles.

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