Peanut Butter & Milk Festival/Sister City Member Stacy Hatcher Visits Litchfield

A long-time member of the Peanut Butter & Milk Festival/Sister City exchange program between Litchfield and Hartford, Alabama has been visiting Meeker County this past week. Stacy Hatcher of Hartford, a long-time FFA advisor at Geneva County High School, has been hosted by Roger & Janet Huhn on their farm, south of Darwin.

Hatcher says the Huhns visited him in Hartford a few months ago as they were traveling back from Florida and he asked them when it would be a good time to visit Minnesota to witness the corn harvest, and they suggested October, so he flew up a few days ago and will be returning to Alabama tomorrow. He says it’s been pretty wet this week, but he did get to see some corn harvesting and has admired the black soil of the fields that have been tilled.

Hatcher says he got involved in the exchange program between Litchfield and Hartford in 1982 when he became the FFA advisor in Hartford. He retired in 2012, but has continued to be involved in the program which was started in the fall of 1971 by Litchfield grocer Bruce Cottington and Paul Dean who was the FFA advisor at that time in Hartford, and he sees the program continuing for at least another half century.

Hatcher says he and his wife, Cary, and their daughters made numerous trips to Meeker County over the years as part of the exchange program, and they hosted several people from the Litchfield area over the years at their farm near Hartford. He says he was diagnosed with throat cancer two years ago, but it was caught early and he went through chemotherapy and radiation and then shortly after that, his wife – Cary – was traveling in Europe, had a medical emergency and passed away in France which was a nightmare.

Hatcher says his daughter, Casey, and her family live in Northern Alabama and his daughter, Anna, and her family live near Palm Springs, California so when he travels to see his four grandchildren, it’s either 4 and a half hours by car or 4 and a half hours by plane. He says Nathan Parker, who visited Litchfield last February, is the FFA advisor now in Hartford and the program is in good hands.