Video Features All Kentucky Farmers Singing 'Jingle Bells'

 

FRANKFORT, Ky. (Dec. 10, 2018) — The new Kentucky Proud video features people singing snippets of “Jingle Bells” while doing farm chores. The singers all have obvious singing chops, but they also happen to be Kentucky farmers.

“We are thrilled with the video,” Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles said. “This was a great opportunity to showcase Kentucky farmers, promote Kentucky Proud products, and have a little fun in the process. The singers approached their parts with great enthusiasm, and they all did a wonderful job.”

Wayne Grannis of Flemingsburg is the singer who hoists a bale of hay to another singer in the hayloft. “I laugh every time I see it [the video],” Grannis said. “It took an hour and a half to record my segment … and I’m on for about two seconds.”

Grannis is agency manager of the local Kentucky Farm Bureau (KFB) Insurance office. His mother has a 300-acre farm where the family raises cattle, corn, and tobacco. Grannis; his wife, Kim; and their sons, Josh and Jordan, have a 46-acre farm adjacent to the family farm where they raise cattle and hay and keep three horses.

“It’s fantastic,” Grannis said of the video. “I literally make my living because of Kentucky agriculture. Farm Bureau Insurance is closely tied to the agricultural community in Fleming County. I was born and raised on a farm. Dad raised cattle, tobacco and corn. Tobacco put me through college.”

Grannis said he sings at Flemingsburg Christian Church and participated in a quartet that competed in KFB’s gospel singing contest during the Kentucky State Fair.

Sheila Lewis of Winchester is seen in the video guiding a wheelbarrow through a garden. “I could have done better if the wheelbarrow hadn’t been that heavy,” she quipped.

“I couldn’t believe I had been chosen,” she said. “When I heard it, I had to scream. I couldn’t believe it.”

Lewis is an engineering technician for the city of Lexington. Her son, Tatum Desha Lewis, runs Ebonstone Farms in the Winchester city limits. Sheila Lewis said he raises alfalfa on the farm but started growing produce in May 2018 and aspires to make his farm a place where local residents can harvest produce and children can visit for educational opportunities. Sheila Lewis said she helps out on the farm, works with her son to manage the farm’s finances, and helps with grant writing.

Her son is a beginning farmer but comes from a long line of farmers, Lewis said.

“I enjoyed the singing. The music selection that was chosen was a good selection,” Lewis said of the video. “It was challenging. It was surprising. I enjoyed it very much.”

Lisa Osborne of Greenup County is the woman in the video who is setting up a farm market of Kentucky Proud products with two children. “I felt very honored to be chosen” to appear in the video, she said. “I’ll probably never sing ‘Jingle Bells’ again for having to sing it so many times!”

Osborne is secretary of her county Farm Bureau and serves on the KFB Women’s Advisory Committee. She and her husband, Terry, run a small cow-calf operation and grow hay on three small farms in Greenup County. Terry Osborne works off the farm as a millwright.
Osborne said she sings gospel music at various events and has sung at the Gold Star Luncheon at the KFB Annual Meeting for the past three years.

“I was proud to be the person doing the Kentucky Proud food” on the video, she said. “I work with a lot of kids in the county. We really try to push our kids into raising their own food. So it’s very important to me. I was honored to be chosen to do my part.”

The first voice you hear is that of Wyatt Wood, 21, of Paducah. He’s the young man in the cowboy hat turning a socket wrench.

“I’ve been dipped and dyed in agriculture, both the educational and the real-world side,” Wood said. His father, Michael, has taught agriculture education at McCracken County High School for more than 25 years, and his grandfather, Harold, taught agriculture education at Lone Oak High School for more than 40 years. His mother, Stephanie, is principal at Livingston Central High School.

Wood and his family own and operate Wood Brothers Sausage, which produces whole-hog sausage from hogs they raise on the family farm. The family also grows 50 acres of alfalfa.
Wood works for Climate FieldView and attends West Kentucky Community and Technical College in Paducah. He served as Kentucky FFA secretary in 2017-18. He and his three brothers perform music, and he said his family often plays music to pass the time.

“Showing up [at the video shoot] and seeing a major production crew with a director [shooting a video about] agriculture in Kentucky was really, really neat,” he said.

Videobred of Louisville shot the video at Foxhollow Farm and Harvest Home Dairy in Crestwood Nov. 1-2. Tom Brown was the producer. Kentucky State University and Kentucky Farm Bureau assisted in farmer recruitment for the video.

The video was funded by the Kentucky Agricultural Development Fund as a Kentucky Proud promotional project.