FP Next: Top agriculture stories of 2024FP Next: Top agriculture stories of 2024

Sarah McNaughton-Peterson of Bismarck, N.D., has been editor of Dakota Farmer since 2021. Before working at Farm Progress, she was an NDSU 4-H Extension agent in Cass County, N.D. Prior to that, she was a farm and ranch reporter at KFGO Radio in Fargo.

She is a graduate of North Dakota State University, with a bachelor’s degree in ag communications and a master’s in Extension education and youth development.

She is involved in agriculture in both her professional and personal life, as a member of North Dakota Agri-Women, Agriculture Communicators Network, Sigma Alpha Professional Agriculture Sorority Alumni and Professional Women in Agri-business. As a life-long 4-H’er, she is a regular volunteer for North Dakota 4-H programs and events.

In her free time, she and her husband are avid backpackers and hikers, and can be found most summer weekends at rodeos around the Midwest.

Curt Arens began writing about Nebraska’s farm families when he was in high school. Before joining Farm Progress first as a field editor in 2010, and then as editor of Nebraska Farmer in 2021, he had worked as a freelance farm writer for 27 years for newspapers and farm magazines, including Nebraska Farmer. His real full-time career during this period was farming his family’s fourth-generation land near Crofton, Neb. where his family raised corn, soybeans, wheat, oats, alfalfa, cattle, hogs and Christmas trees.

Curt and his wife Donna have four children, Lauren, Taylor, Zachary and Benjamin. They are active in their church and St. Rose School in Crofton, where Donna teaches. The family now rents out their crop ground to a neighbor, but still lives on the same farm first operated by Curt's great-grandparents, and they still run a few cows and other assorted 4-H and FFA critters.

Previously, the 1986 University of Nebraska animal science graduate wrote a weekly rural life column, developed a farm radio program and wrote books about farm life. He received media honors from the Nebraska Forest Service, Center for Rural Affairs, Nebraska Association of County Extension Boards and Nebraska Association of Natural Resources Districts.

He wrote about the spiritual side of farming in his 2008 book, “Down to Earth: Celebrating a Blessed Life on the Land,” garnering a Catholic Press Association award.