Wuttke gets Hub Club's Service to Ag award

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Dick Wuttke had to walk two miles to school up hill both ways when he was young.

Dick Wuttke was too smart for kindergarten, but not smart enough for first grade.

One of Dick Wuttke's teachers told him to improve his vocabulary by telling him that if he saw a word and said it ten times a day, it would be his. The word was "Charlotte" and lo and behold, he got it in the form of his wife, who's dedication to Dick is a testimony to her sense of humor.

Dick Wuttke had a bumper sticker made up that said "Change is coming. You go first."

Dick Wuttke is bright. He has a brain like Einstein's -- it's been dead since 1955.

Dick Wuttke was treated to these and several other remarks, some of them clean, as friends, family and coworkers turned up at the Holiday Inn late Friday night to roast and toast Wuttke, who is the New Ulm Farm City Hub Club's 2001 Service to Agriculture Award winner.

Wuttke recently retired from AMPI after several years as the manager of its butter division in New Ulm. He takes nearly 40 years of farm co-operative experience with him.

Emcee Frank Stuckey invited all the former winners of the award who were in the audience to stand before he introduced Wuttke.

A native of Iowa, Wuttke's parents rented several different farms when he was a child. He started working on farms when he was in the sixth grade. He got a job at a grain elevator in Fredricksburg, Iowa, after he graduated from Fredricksburg High School in 1954, where he played basketball and baseball. He became the assistant manager of the elevator in 1960. He came to New Ulm in the 1980s to work for AMPI and was later promoted to manager of the butter division.

AMPI president Mark Furth credited Wuttke for doing a lot for New Ulm.

"The success of AMPI's butter division is a testimony to that," Furth said. "We owe him thanks and wish him good luck."

Once the roasting was finished, Wuttke took the stand in his own defense. He returned fire at all four people who moments earlier had roasted him, making some jokes not appropriate for this newspaper. In the end, he ended up showing his gratitude for the award.

"I feel honored and I'm truly surprised," he said.