DR. JAMES B AND HARRIET BEARD— PARTNERS IN AN AMAZING JOURNEY

By Suz Trusty Forming the Partnership

Jim and Harriet Beard can’t determine exactly when they met. Tey grew up on adjacent farms near Bradford, Ohio, but didn’t go to school together because the district split between the farms. Teir families attended the same church and Jim remembers they participated in confirmation classes and joined the church at the same time, when they were 11 or 12 years old. Harriet says, “I just tell people he had his eye on me at 11.”

Emerald Valley Turf Nurseries President Robert Daymon and Farm Manager Dick Garrell welcome county agents and Michigan State University professors who led the Emerald Valley Field Day tour on July 12, 1967.

(Left to Right: Donald D.

Juchartz, Wayne County agriculture extension agent, Wayne, MI.; Dick Garrell; Robert Daymon; Dr. James B Beard; Duane Girbach, Livingston County agriculture extension agent, Howell, MI; Dr. K. T. Payne; Dr. Bob Lucas; and Dr. Paul Ricke.) Photo from TPI archives.

Nearly everyone in the turfgrass industry has heard of Dr. James B Beard. A renowned consultant and lecturer and prolific author of books, scientific research papers and technical articles, he’s typically referred to as the world’s leading authority on turfgrasses and turfgrass science. Dr. Beard is the president and chief scientist of the International Sports Turf Institute, which he founded in 1992, and a professor emeritus of Turfgrass Science at Texas A&M University. He earned an M.S. in Crop Ecology in 1959 and Ph.D. in Turfgrass Physiology in 1961, both from Purdue University. He held a research- teaching position at Michigan State University from 1961 to 1975. He was awarded a National Science Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of California– Riverside in 1969. He held a research-teaching position at Texas A&M from 1975 to 1992.

Many who know Dr. Jim also know his wife and behind-the-scenes business partner, Harriet. She has assisted in multiple non-paid roles in many University and turfgrass organization outreach efforts, accompanied him on his international travels—and typed every word he’s ever written.

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Teir first date was the day Jim graduated from high school. “He took me fishing and practiced his valedictorian speech on me,” states Harriet. “I should have known right then what was in store for us.” Tat fall, Jim headed to Te Ohio State University. Harriet reports she was not a straight A student so had no opportunity to attend college. She worked in a local bank. Jim was taking an entomology course so their dates when he was home on weekends were spent “collecting butterflies and bugs of all kinds and pinning them to a box.” Tat solidified their status as

a couple. Tey got engaged during his freshman year and married during spring break, on March 20, 1955—62 years ago.

Harriet’s dad had died when Jim was a freshman and she and her mom had moved from the farm to a two- bedroom house in town. She says, “I had a good job and knew nearly everyone in our small town. Tere was no decent place to live in Columbus at Ohio State within our budget, so I stayed put and Jim joined me on weekends and breaks until he graduated, Summa cum laude, in 1957.”

Ten Jim said, “I’d like to go to graduate school.” And Harriet says she responded, “What is that?” Jim reports he’d originally thought he’d get into farming but figured out the only way to do that would have been to marry a wealthy farmer’s daughter with 1,000 acres. “I told Harriet that rather than making $4,000 a year at the soil conservation service where I’d worked the past four summers, I could put in another four years of schooling and make $6,000 a year. So we headed for Purdue. My first research-teaching position at MSU in 1961 paid $8,000 a year.”

TPI Turf News March/April 2017