Eminent Farmer
County: Brookings
E. G. Sanderson was born Sept. 5, 1884, on the place he farms five miles east of Brookings on Highway 14. His parents, George and Ett M. Sanderson, homesteaded the farm in 1880.
He was graduated from Aurora High School in 1900 and South Dakota State College in 1904 with a B.S. degree in horticulture. After some nursery work, he filed for homestead in eastern Colorado in 1906, returning to his present farm in 1913.
Sanderson married Mary A. Johnson of Brookings on Sept. 22, 1908. The couple reared nine children. A tenth died in infancy.
Sanderson’s farm consists of 680 acres, all but 240 of which is farmed by his sons. Most of it is in cropland. Sanderson specializes in growing and marketing certified seed grain and hybrid seed corn. He also raises Shorthorn cattle and registered Poland China hogs.
Sanderson is well known for his participation in the South Dakota Crop Improvement Association. He became a member of the board of directors in 1941 and has served as president since 1944. He has represented the association in six sessions of the legislature and helped attain the pure seed law, the state weed law, establishment of the Seed Certification Board and appropriations for the agronomy seed house, the crops greenhouse and the State Weed Board.
He was president of the South Dakota Foundation Seed Corn Growers Association, later the South Dakota State College Foundation Seeds Stock Division. He is director of this group.
Sanderson saw the need for a farmers’ organization to grow commercial hybrid seed corn. He has been president of the resulting group, the Sokota Hybrid Producers’ Association, since its inception.
Sanderson is president of the State Weed Board, chairman of the Seed Certification Committee, and president of the Sioux Valley Electric Association.
Locally, Sanderson is a member of the Brookings County Agricultural Forum, the Brookings County Forestry Association, the local school board and has been active in Methodist Church work for nearly forty years.
He received the W. G. Skelly award for outstanding work in agriculture in 1944.