Comet staff report

Burton The 2006 class of inductees into the Carroll County Ag Hall of Fame is Brad Burton, Dave Lambert and Larry Trapp, the youngest class ever.

The three men were honored at Monday night's annual Carroll County Pork Producers meeting and banquet at the 4H Community Building in Flora. Steve Nichols, retired extension educator, led the induction ceremony.

Over 150 people were served a pork meal, catered by Parrett's Meat Processing. A short business meeting followed before Monty Moss, president of the Indiana Pork Producers Association, spoke about the activities going on at the state level.

Indiana Packers Corporation was presented a special award for its continuous support of the needs of the Carroll County Pork Producers Association.

The 2005 scholarship winners, Deja Kendall and Woody Nichols, each received $500. The 2006 scholarship winners are Aaron Flora, a senior at Faith Christian in Lafayette, and Jordan Scott, a senior at Carroll Jr.-Sr. High School.

Profiles of the three Ag Hall of Fame inductees follow: Brad Burton

Trapp Brad Burton was born on Oct. 20, 1958, to Dean and Caren Burton of Madison Township. He graduated from Delphi Community High School in 1977, and attended the Purdue Short Course in 1978.

In 1979, he married his high school sweetheart, Gail Brosman, and they have three children; Blaine, an electrical engineer with Midwest ISO in Carmel; Grant, a junior at Purdue; and Mara, a sophomore at DCHS.

Burton is a partner and part-owner of a family farm that includes, his wife; his parents; and his brother and sister-in-law, Brian and Jayne. Their operation BDB, is a cash grain farm in five central Indiana counties. They also operate a 500 sow farrow to-finish operation marketing more than 8,000 finishing hogs. Their operation utilizes the most modern technologies available to be efficient in an extremely challenging industry. He is a third generation Carroll County farmer.

He and his wife are part owners of Brosman's IGA in Delphi.

Burton has always been a community-minded person and has been very involved in many groups and organizations. He began by being an advisor for the Jr. Leader program and then followed by serving 14 years as 4-H leader for Madison Township. He has been the swine superintendent at the Carroll County 4-H Fair for the past 10 years. Pork Producers have been a big part of Burton's life through his involvement in not only the Carroll County Pork Producers, where he served as president for three years, but also with the Indiana Pork Producers and some committees with the National Pork Producers by serving as a delegate to Pork Forum.

Lambert Burton received the Outstanding Young Pork Producer Award in 1995. He served on Steve Buyer's ag advisory board, was involved with the Delphi Jaycees, and is a past member of the Carroll County Gideon's. He is a reserve deputy with the Sheriff 's Department and has served on the Delphi MultiSchool Building Corporation Board.

Burton is very involved with Delphi United Methodist Church, where he is a youth and senior adult Sunday school teacher as well as the worship leader coordinator. He has served as a lay church speaker at various churches. Burton is a God fearing Christian who said he realizes his purpose on earth is to glorify God and serve others wherever he can. Larry Trapp

Larry Trapp was born on June 27, 1955, to Hershel (John) and Mary Trapp of Jackson Township. He attended Camden Elementary School and graduated from DCHS in 1973. He spent a year studying agriculture at Purdue University before returning to the home farm. He began farming with his father and uncle when he was 19 years old. Trapp returned to Purdue to attend the Winter Short Course in 1976.

The Trapp farming operation was a corn, soybean, wheat operation that later added popcorn as a specialty crop. The livestock operation was a farrow-to-finish operation that later changed to a contract finishing operation in the late 1990s. He also maintains a small herd of cows for 4-H projects. He is a proud third generation Carroll County farmer and a second generation Hall of Fame recipient.

Trapp has always been very involved in the community, and he took his father's and grandfather's advice to get involved and "make your world a little bit better than it was before you came into it." He has served on many local and national boards. He has served as president of the Carroll County Extension Board, the 4-H Exhibit Association and the Carroll County Pork Producers. He served a three-year term on the Indiana Pork Producers Executive Board as well as being on the National Federation Council. He has been very active with the Camden Little League baseball program as well as the Jackson Township Park Board and Camden Community Club.

He was instrumental in helping secure Indiana Packers Corporation to Carroll County through his involvement with the Carroll County Redevelopment Commission.

Trapp served on the 4-H Community Building Committee that helped get this facility constructed in the late 1970s.

He currently serves on the task force for the Leadership Carroll County program.

One of his best memories is the Carroll County relief effort he and a few others initiated for Warsaw, Ill., a small farming community that was overwhelmed by a flood in 1993. Trapp is a member of Delphi United Methodist Church and recently traveled with his family and three other members of his church to Gautier, Miss., to help rebuild homes that were devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Trapp and his wife, Susan, have been married for 18 years and have two children: Nathan, a junior at DCHS; and April, a sophomore. Susan is a first grade teacher at Camden Elementary School.

Trapp said he is most thankful for and proud of his family and doesn't know where he would be without them. David Lambert

David Lambert was born on March 27, 1965, to Wayne and Alice Lambert of Carrollton Township. He attended Carroll schools and graduated in 1983. He was a tremendous football player and was the first Carroll player to make the Indiana North/South AllStar Team and play in the all star game in Indianapolis. He passed up a full-ride scholarship to play football for Triton College in Chicago to go to work on a farm in hopes of starting his own one day.

He married Stephanie Brown in March of 1992, and they have two sons, John, 6, and Cason, 3.

During his high school years, Lambert worked for Jerry Hendress and following high school he went to work for Bill Pickart at Fairacre Farms and worked for him for 17 years. In 2000, Pickart retired from farming, and at the same time, Lambert and his wife decided to start farming. He said this was a difficult decision, since neither of their parents owned any farm ground and they were starting out on their own.

He was already of part of a wean-to-finish swine operation with Fairacre Farms, so Lambert kept it going on a contract with a local farmer. They preferred to begin small with the grain farming so they passed up several acres of ground including all of Fairacre Farms.

When they started, they had 60 acres that they had purchased in 1999, and an additional 175 they had been renting. Their first full year in business, they were farming 550 acres of ground. Presently, they are farming around 1,400 acres in addition to the wean-to-finish contract hogs. They are planning to construct a pair of quad finishing buildings during 2006, which will put them up to 12,000 hogs daily to manage.

Lambert has always been one to give back to his community, and he has been the main cog in the wheel of the Carroll County Pork Producers for several years. He has served the CCPP as president for six years, vice president for two years, and treasurer for one year. In addition, he has served on the Carroll County Exhibit Association and the board for the Family Health Clinic in Delphi. Besides the 16 years he has devoted to being an officer and board member of the Pork Producers, he finds time to be involved with Sharon Baptist Church.