“I helped my grandfather and grandmother on their farm when I was young,” he recalls. “I farmed part time while I was a student at the University of Tennessee. I graduated from there in 1976 with a degree in plant and soil science, and started farming full time that same year.”

He also recalls that when he first started farming, he raised crops on 300 acres and hogs in one barn.

“Back then, I probably made more money than I do now,” he says with a chuckle. “Farming profits have narrowed in recent years and it takes a lot of volume to make a good living in farming now.”

During his early years of farming, he enrolled in the Rapid Adjustment Program, sponsored by Tennessee Extension and the Tennessee Valley Authority. This introduced Ray and others to recordkeeping, farm management and financial planning.

“We used to finish a lot of hogs on our farm,” he recalls. At peak production, Ray raised about 2,500 hogs per year. “Over the years, I raised 70,000 to 80,000 hogs,” he says.

The only hogs he raised in recent years were custom fed for the roaster pig market. This involved raising 50-pound pigs to 100 pounds each when they were sold to consumers in South Florida.

Ray and his wife Barbara have two children. Son Christopher works at the Jack Daniels distillery in nearby Lynchburg, Tenn., and daughter Jacqueline is in college majoring in elementary education.

One of his profitable ventures in recent years involved baling wheat straw.

“I put up 15,000 square bales of straw,” he says. “I can sell a 40-pound bale of wheat straw for $3. We figure that selling wheat for grain pays for the expenses, and what we get from straw is the profit on wheat.”

He has also invested in a hay bale accumulator that allows him to collect and stack the hay and straw bales without physically touching them.

Ray is on the local Farm Bureau’s board of directors and is also secretary on the board of a local cooperative. He has also served on the local board of the USDA’s Farm Service Agency.

“I enjoy serving on these boards because doing so helped me keep up with farm programs and the deadlines for signing up,” he says.

“I always wanted to farm,” he says, “and I’ve never worked for anyone else in my life. I also enjoy giving back to the community.”

His most visible community service project involves hosting first grade school children every year on his farm where the main attraction is an animal petting zoo.

“Kids just love to touch our animals,” says Ray.