Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/853324
10 IGSA | 2017 2017 YEARBOOK As a young man freshly graduated from Rexburg's Madison High, Kevin Webster still wasn't completely sure what career path he wanted to pursue. He had grown up on the family farm on the Rexburg Bench and enjoyed the lifestyle such an occupation offered. He knew the family history and deeply appreciated all his forebears had endured to turn the windy foothill country into the rich, abundant farmland it had become. But he had also developed an affinity for mechanical drawing and started classes at his hometown Ricks College in the fall of 1970 with one eye on becoming an architect. When Webster's father, Bert, tragically died in an accident on the farm that fall, however, the decision of what to do with his life became…Well, "easier" is not the right word; how could it be? But Kevin Webster stepped up and filled in for his family and their farm with a maturity that belied his age. "That winter I really got thrown into farming. A lot of people were there to help me and go through that with me," says this year's IGSA Russet Aristocrat from his office at Webster Potato Company in Rigby, Idaho. "I'd never really driven the Caterpillar, but the next spring we needed someone to plant potatoes. So they stuck me on that tractor pulling a four-row Acme planter. I had to learn to drive that Caterpillar straight. That was my introduction to real farming." story & photos by tyrell MarChant