A Hale County dairy farmer, Laird Cole, was named Alabama’s 2001 Outstanding Young Farm Family (OYFF) during the Alabama Farmers Federation 80th annual meeting.A fourth-generation dairyman, Cole, 26, got his first taste of farming as a boy when he helped his father, Henry, put up silage. Then, in 1985, economic pressures forced Henry to sell the dairy and take a job in west Alabama’s emerging catfish industry. The younger Cole, however, never gave up on the idea of owning a dairy, and in 1996, he purchased 90 cows and a small milking parlor from a neighbor. Today, Cole’s Foundation Farms near the Newbern community includes 250 milk cows as well as 90 bred heifers.”When I got started, I had a few cattle and a few acres of catfish ponds; I did custom hay baling, and I had a public job,” Cole recalled. “I decided all of those would be
the ‘foundation’ for my success.”Cole advanced to the final OYFF selection process when he was named the state’s Outstanding Young Farm Family for the dairy division earlier this year. As the 2001 Outstanding Young Farm Family, he received the use of a 2002 Chevrolet TrailBlazer for one year, an IBM personal computer and software package sponsored by Valcom Business Centers of Alabama. Cole also will serve on the Federation’s State Young Farmers Committee.