On-Farm Mr Fixit

On-Farm Mr Fixit

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
For over a half-century, farmers from Mountain Home to Burns to Riggins have called 83 year old on-farm, farm equipment repair man Russ Reco, when, and it’s usually during harvest, something breaks. “61 years or so ago, there was nothing but John Deere two cylinder tractors when I started.”

 

And the farmers, he remembers them all along with their families. “I have known about 400 farmers who have died and you know what, their kids are even dying here, they are all beating me. I guess it’s a race for life.” Reco worked for a couple of implement dealers for the first 40 years of his career and for the last two decades has operated his own shop, Emmett power equipment where John Deere is the king. “What’s a good one? 4020 John Deere is the ones that put the world at ease with their farming. John Deere pretty well copied that one from 60 to 95 and some of the components were the same exactly in that 35 years. That’s because they were good and you could depend on what was going on, he really could.” Just like repairman Reco, who after all these years, still places a sticker on each tractor he repairs. It reads attention: check and remove bird nests, can cause fire. “they cover it up and then the birds get in and burn the tractor up.”

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