Sugar 'beeters' save the day

Sugar 'beeters' save the day — by Brenda McDonald, MSU Communications Services

Jim Krall and his sugar beets

photo by Jeannine Lintner

It was October 1942. America was at war in Europe and the Pacific, and Montana State College students were needed to help save Montana's sugar beet crop.

The war had closed U.S. borders, so the Mexican nationals who were usually recruited for the sugar beet harvest were not available. Sugar beets were the only cash crop for many Montana farmers, and the harvest was critical to the state's economy.

Montana Gov. Sam Ford called on state university officials to assist in the crisis.

For the first time in the college's history, classes were suspended and male students were asked to volunteer to travel to the Billings and Sidney areas to cut the tops off sugar beets. President William Cobleigh even appointed a special committee of faculty members, who had students going off to the beet fields, to provide the necessary tutoring so students could complete their required class work in spite of their time away. Also, all classes with men in them would receive no new assignments until Nov. 2, the expected date for students to return to class.

"Every student who works in the beet fields will be doing a great public and patriotic service," said O.V. Crumbaker, who was manager of the local United States Employment office in 1943. Students were provided transportation to the field, accommodations and were paid a wage for their work. Ultimately, nearly 800 men from MSC volunteered in the sugar beet fields. Three faculty members also joined the students: Lou Howard, leader of the Bobcat band, went to Sidney with the Kappa Sigma fraternity, Charles Nagel, '33 PE, of the physical education department also went to Sidney and was in charge of the "M" Club volunteers and W.E. Booth of the science faculty went to Edgar.

It wasn't just college students who helped out in the harvesting. Junior high and high school boys and girls from the affected communities worked the fields, businesses sent all available workers and women were venturing to the fields as well.

Jim Krall, '43 Agron, of Bozeman, of the MSC football team, said that football coach Brick Breeden called the players together to tell them that the football season was over and instead they were going to harvest sugar beets throughout Montana.

"He put me in charge," Krall said. The students got on the train in Bozeman and went as far as Glendive and then took a bus to Sidney. There they were lodged in the high school gym and slept on cots. "There were two home demonstration ladies who cooked for us and charged each of us 95 cents a day. They did a good job," he said.

Krall was from a dry land wheat farm near Lewistown and had never seen a beet field, much less harvested one. Six rows of beets were pulled by machinery and placed in wind rows (piles.) The students were shown how to hold the topping knife in one hand and chop the top off the beet. They were paid 72 cents a ton. "We worked all day and didn't get much done. There were five of us and we were pretty clumsy. A worker finally came over and showed us how to do it right. That first day we went in the hole and lost three cents. We finally got pretty good at the work by the time we left."

Krall thought his group was going home at the end of two weeks, but there were fields left to harvest, so the growers said they needed to stay for another week. "We worked from daylight to dark with part of Saturday and all of Sunday off." Handling the topping knife could get dangerous. "If the knife slipped off the beet it would go into your knee. I've got scars from that."

"That topping knife was a wicked looking thing," said Bob Crecelius, '47 ChE, '49M, of Polson, a "sugar beeter" near Billings.

Leland Walker, '44 ChE, HonDoc '83, of Great Falls did his sugar beet topping between Hardin and Big Horn Canyon. "It rained most of the time, so it was slow going because of the wet weather."

Walker said that the stoop labor was hard on his six-foot-two-inch frame and gave him a new appreciation for getting an education. "But I was glad to do it because it was a way to help the war effort."

When Krall returned to classes, his economics professor, Roland Renne, later MSC's president, told the entire class what a valuable service the students had provided in the sugar beet fields.

"It was just the honorable thing to do. That's why we stayed on the job." Krall said.

Now, more than 60 years later, Krall is organizing a second reunion celebration of that sugar beet experience--the first reunion of the "sugar beeters" was in 1992. This spring Krall planted 30 sugar beet seedlings in his home garden in Bozeman. He hopes to harvest the beets in October in time for Homecoming. "I've planted enough to dress up a float with enough left over to demonstrate how sugar beets were topped."