I have as much in common with Vince Lombardi as ketchup on cottage cheese. Still, I thought of the late Hall of Fame football coach the past few weeks while traversing around Iowa.

“Perfection is not attainable,” Lombardi once said. “But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”

I saw much of Lombardi’s spirit in the winners of this year’s Iowa Master Farmer award, which Growmark sponsors. Obviously, perfection is impossible. Excellence, though, is. There’s no finer example of excellence than the 2024 Iowa Master Farmer winners that include:

Also, Elwynn Taylor, the retired Iowa State University Extension climatologist, will receive this year’s Iowa Master Farmer Exceptional Service Award.

I was familiar with the program, having worked for our parent company, Farm Progress, for 13 years in the Dakotas and Minnesota. My former bosses and co-workers at Wallaces Farmer — Monte Sesker, Frank Holdmeyer, John Otte and Rod Swoboda — spoke fondly about the Iowa Master Farmer program. Yet, I never knew how much this honor means until becoming personally involved in it. Some of my observations include:

Coming from humble beginnings. Winners started small and built their farms over decades. This was the case for Hemmes, who came home and started farming under the tutelage of her father and grandfather. The Carlsons started renting 200 crop and 50 pasture acres from Roger’s uncle. And the Schmitts built their dairy herd starting with 27 cows on pasture. Through time, patience and lessons learned, farms such as these grew and prospered.

Making little things matter. My mother often told me about a farmer in her neighborhood who would remark, “There’s a weed,” and stop his vehicle to get out and pull it. This reminded me of the plucky determination that the McCoys have when they load up their all-terrain vehicle to spray and cut weeds and invasive trees. Little matters add up to excellence.

Telling your story. Hemmes has given multiple tours of her farm, such as one she hosted for congressional ag staffers last year. She took them on a hayride to see filter strips lining a creek and pollinator strips lining corn and soybean fields. She showed them John Deere’s See & Spray system, which targets chemicals at weeds and nothing else.

Hemmes also happened to have her 50,000-bushel capacity bin empty. “I thought, ‘How many people get to see inside them?’ ” she says. So, she setup a PowerPoint demonstration inside the bin for the staffers. “One young congressional staffer from Connecticut told me he always tried to put himself in the person’s position for whom he wrote bills,” she says. “He said this tour helped him see things even better.”

Being persistent. Fourteen years ago, Hemmes approached Kelvin Leibold and asked why his marketing group just met in the mornings. “I’m always getting kids ready for school or doing chores,” she asked. “Could you get a women’s group together?”

So, the ISU Extension farm management specialist and Hemmes formed a marketing group of about 20 women — some of whom travel over an hour to attend. “We talk markets, we get slides from Chad Hart [ISU Extension marketing specialist], and we meet from November through April,” she says.

Side benefits have resulted from these meetings. “One lady had just lost her husband,” Hemmes recalls. “She told us we had almost been family to her, because she could count on us.”

It’s also a savvy group. “We have had guest speakers come in and try to ‘dumb’ it down for our group,” Hemmes says. “I tell them, ‘Go ahead and try.’ If they do, they walk out battered and bruised with questions they never thought they would get. They tell me, ‘I didn’t know they were so smart!’ ”

Learning about ball lightning. I heard of this, but never gave it much thought until I interviewed Elwynn Taylor. This phenomena, described on Page 41, was separately witnessed by Taylor and his wife.

Keeping family first. In striving for excellence, the award recipients always placed family first. Each winner spoke with pride about their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Many winners have wrestled with illnesses and family tragedy, and family bonds helped them persevere.