Nine SEI Family Farms Honored With Hoosier Homestead Awards

The awards were handed out at the Indiana State Fair last week.

A total of 88 family farms were honored with Hoosier Homestead Awards this past Friday at the Indiana State Fair. Photo provided. 

(Indianapolis, Ind.) – Nine southeastern Indiana family farms were recently honored at the Indiana State Fair.

Lt. Governor Suzanne Crouch, along with the Indiana State Department of Agriculture honored a total of 88 families on Friday for their longstanding commitment to Indiana agriculture.

To be named a Hoosier Homestead, farms must be owned by the same family for more than 100 consecutive years and consist of 20 acres or more in size or produce more than $1,000 in agriculture products per year.

Families are eligible for three different distinctions of the Hoosier Homestead Award, based on age of the farm. They are Centennial (100 years), Sesquicentennial (150 year) and Bicentennial (200 years).

Local recipients include:

• Hartman, Dearborn County, Centennial (1918)
• Burk, Franklin County, Centennial (1918)
• Obermeyer, Franklin County, Centennial (1891)
• Siefert, Franklin County, Centennial (1869)
• Stenger, Franklin County, Centennial (1901)
• Dennis, Ohio County, Sesquicentennial (1868)
• Sommer, Ohio County, Centennial (1918)
• Kegley, Ripley County, Sesquicentennial (1865)
• BrunsmanMoster, Ripley County, Centennial (1905)

“I want to congratulate all of the recipients of this prestigious award,” said Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, Indiana’s Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development. “Our state, economically and socially, depends on our farming families, and we owe a great deal to the work they do.”

Since the program's inception in 1976, more than 5,500 families have received the award.