Versatile
tale makes good reading
this document web
posted: Thursday November 27, 2003
The engine on the
Versatile swather back at the ranch had a low, humming, thrumming sound. You
could hear it even if you couldn't see it.
The table and reel made
it front heavy, so the single back wheel would occasionally bounce off the
ground in the rough spots. Many a time I'd spot Dad or one of my sisters, riding
that swather like a jockey, thrumming their way through haying or harvest.
I don't recall what
model it was but it looked very like one of the swathers on the cover of the
book Versatile Tractors, A Farm Boy's Dream, which landed on the desk last week.
It's a picture of none
other than Peter Pakosh, founder of Versatile, who appears to be wearing a suit
and fedora while piloting said swather through an alfalfa crop.
Nostalgia made me open
the book, but content made me read it through - even though I don't ordinarily
hold farm equipment books to the bosom.
It's the story of
Pakosh, an imaginative and industrious Saskatchewan farm boy who founded a
company and manufactured equipment well known and used by farmers. His is the
company now known as Buhler Versatile Inc., based in Winnipeg.
There are many
"prairie boy makes good" stories, but few are told in books with such
rich benefits from memoirs, photos and the personal touch of the author, who is
Pakosh's grandson Jarrod Pakosh.
The elder Pakosh, who
died in 1999, tells much of his own story through memoirs that are woven into
almost every page.
Some of it is pioneer
lore about growing up on the farm using on-the-hoof horsepower. Some of it
reflects well on the good old days, when bankers took a chance on people instead
of on spreadsheets.
And much of it
engenders plain old admiration for the grit of a Mikado, Sask., farm boy who
manufactured augers from his Toronto basement and built a multimillion-dollar
partnership based on a handshake.
Through the company
Pakosh founded with his brother-in-law, Roy Robinson, they invented and
manufactured various lines of augers, sprayers, swathers, discers, cultivators,
combines and tractors. John Deere, Agco and Hesston are all said to have coveted
the company.
By Barb Glen - The Western Producer