After a year in California, grandmother decided to take Uncle Frank back to Iowa, to the Will farm which was still in family and at that time worked by Harold and Everet, under their father's guidance, of course. Those were tough years, I have no doubt, for grandpa: sometimes renting the Iowa farm, sometimes working it himself. But at the end of the year the Iowa farm was sold and the family went back to New Mexico for good. Ralph stayed out of school and helped on both farms. In 1916, Dad told me, he and his father attained notability as the cantaloupe kings of the Mesilla Valley. They shipped many carloads of the melons to Chicago, New York and other markets. But that was also the year that Uncle Frank died and that devastated Dad. Frank was only seventeen!

The following year an event took place that shocked the country ... Pancho Villa, the Mexican bandit, raided and shot up the town of Columbus, striking fear in the hearts of all those living in Southwestern New Mexico. Ralph, then a boy of eighteen, and his brothers were excited to say the least and wanted to enlist immediately in the National Guard and go after Villa. Everet and Harold did that. Ralph was in the ROTC program at New Mexico A & M College and when War broke out with Germany went into the Infantry as a recruit. After 90 days of intensive training he was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant and sent to Camp Perry, Ohio as an instructor in machine gun training. He never went overseas, much to his chagrin, but after the war remained in the Reserve and subsequently attained the rank of Captain.

The war over, Ralph returned to college and pursued a degree in Agriculture which he attained in 1921. He graduated Magna Cum Laude at the top of his class. He was the editor of his college newspaper and played football all during his college career. In 1921 he and his brother Everet played right and left tackle respectively on the Varsity at New Mexico A & M. The two were always proud of that; Everet a Freshman and Ralph a Senior that year and they won the Conference Championship!

With graduation approaching Ralph became interested in the "Extension Service" and its work with farm families through the State. Its work was fomented by the Federal Government and the program administered by the participating "Land Grant" colleges all across the United States. Young college graduates holding a degree in Agriculture or Animal Husbandry were employed as "County Extension Agents", whose job was to inform and assist rural people engaged in farming in the latest techniques and practices. Ralph was hired immediately upon graduation as "County Agent" for Roosevelt County, New Mexico. The county seat where he set up office was Portales, a small town in Eastern New Mexico.

From the very outset, Ralph was faced with the problem of convincing the "ole boys" in Roosevelt County that their ideas of the way to farm the land was outmoded and destructive. The young college graduate was begrudged his annual salary of $900 at taxpayers' expense! Some of the folks wanted to send him back and have nothing to do with such things as crop rotation and land terracing to prevent the soil's erosion. But there was a man among them, a Mr. Haselip, who befriended Ralph and actually sought his help and advice. Together they put all of Ralph's ideas to work and that year, when most of the farmers in that part of the country suffered crop failure due to drought, the Haselip farm produced substantial harvest. Gradually most of the. farmers around Portales were won over to the new way of thinking. The new County Agent was earning his keep.

When Ralph arrived in Portales he arranged for room and board in the home of Judge and Mrs. A. J. Goodwin. Mrs. Goodwin's daughter, Estelle, soon caught his eye. Over the ensuing months he courted the beautiful young lady and early in 1923 proposed marriage. These two