Howell Wheaton, at the remarkable age of 100, defies easy summary. However, if we were to capture his life, the word that resonates most is service.

Known as Missouri’s “Father of Fescue,” his work as the University of Missouri Extension state forage specialist from 1968 to 1985 helped beef producers use this forage to sustain cattle deep into the fall months.

At an early age, the Indiana farm boy knew he wanted to be a county Extension agent helping farmers. But that path took a detour in 1942, when he was called to serve his country.

Wheaton joined the Marines that year and later entered World War II.

In the line of fire

Wheaton started out in the rifle platoon, but when his captain’s runner was either wounded or killed on the beach in Saipan — he never learned which — he took the fallen soldier’s spot.

“You have to understand this was before all of the nice communication we have now,” he explains. “When we wanted a message to go to the next company commander or back to the battalions, he would send me to unroll rubber-coated wire for our telephones. I must have unrolled miles and miles of that wire.”

In addition to the Battle of Saipan, Wheaton also engaged in the Battles of Tinian and Okinawa, was part of the occupation at Nagasaki with the Second Marine Division and the 6th Regiment, and served as the squad leader in the Little Sixty Mortars.

“I’m a Harry Truman fan; you better believe it,” Wheaton says, sharing that it has always bothered him to hear people question the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Here’s why.

“We were boarding the ship for the invasion, and my company was to be in the first wave. They had already estimated our casualties would’ve been almost 75%,” he reflects. “I would have had much less than a 25% chance of sitting here talking to you now because I was in that first wave. That bomb saved a lot of lives, including mine. The Japanese fought until the very last man.”

Wheaton tells war stories, choosing to remember not only the horrors, but also a few moments of levity.

“We were on the frontlines one night, dug in close to each other because the Japanese [soldiers] would try to infiltrate. We kept the Sixty Mortars, of which I was one, armed with phosphorus flares on a parachute so we could keep the night lit up,” he recalls.

“We were dug in kind of in a horseshoe shape, and you didn’t dare fire your rifle at night because the muzzle flash would give your location away. Instead, we threw hand grenades, and you could tell the Japanese grenades from the American grenades from the sound,” he continues. “They got to throwing the hand grenades a little too close, and the guys were all complaining about it.”

His captain was really concerned. Then his radio man, who was from Texas, came on the radio with a “Condition Red” alert, which meant that there was a Japanese bomber coming over.

“That plane dropped a bomb behind where we were dug in and the concussion shook us,” Wheaton says. “There was silence and our ears were ringing. All of a sudden, a slow Texas drawl came across the radio and said, ‘Who in the hell threw that one?’ All the guys began to laugh, and Capt. Menconi said, ‘We’re gonna be alright now.’"

Wheaton made it back home from the war. He took a post guarding sailors in the Great Lakes to end his enlistment. But his service mindset did not stop.

For the love of ag

As a boy in the 1930s, Wheaton watched his dad work with the county agriculture Extension agent to improve the family farm. “I didn’t think then that I would end up advising county agents,” he says with a laugh.

Growing up on a hill farm near Evansville, Ind., forages played a vital role in producing feed for the livestock. That experience helped fuel his pursuit of a degree in animal science at Purdue University.

Then $25 decided how he would spend the rest of his life.

“By the time I was ready to get my master’s degree, I was married and had a little girl. Finances were tight,” he says. “The professor of agronomy and forages offered me a fellowship to work on a master's. The pay was $175 a month. The fellowship in the animal science department to study reproductive physiology, which is what I thought I wanted to do, paid $150.”

After his master’s degree, a doctorate in ruminant nutrition followed from the University of Kentucky.

“I was 40 years old when I went back to get that last damn piece of paper.” The words belie the pride in his voice as he shares the sacrifice and commitment of the achievement.

Wheaton found his way to MU in 1968.

“Missouri was fast becoming a cow state,” he says. “Elmer Kiehl, who was MU’s dean of agriculture at the time, was putting together a cross departmental team to work with the beef cow producers. Pasture management was part of that need, and so he hired me away from my dear, beloved Boilermakers.”

Those five members would help producers better manage and grow not only forage, but also beef herds across the state. Wheaton served as Missouri state forage specialist, advising farmers and Extension agents for 17 years until his retirement in 1985.

Always an educator

Today, Wheaton lives just outside of Columbia in the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it town of Woodlandville.

Down a long lane lined with the forages he spent his life’s work studying and improving, you’ll find him still on the ranch. He focuses on a few registered Black Angus cows, managing all of the registration work for these cows, whose lineage he can trace.

While he may be retired, Wheaton is still serving and educating cattle producers by writing a monthly column — "Hay, Cows, Chaff and Stuff" — for the Missouri Angus Newsletter.

Reflecting, Wheaton shares that when he thinks of his life in the military, at the university and on the farm, the word that best summarizes it is “blessed.”

Handke writes from Easton, Kan.