Rick Garnhart has spent much of his life talking. Talking fast, talking convincingly, talking people into things—and sometimes talking just enough to make something good happen.

It started right here at Forreston High School. Rick graduated in 1969 and still says those years were “the best seven years of my life”—a line that never fails to land before anyone does the math on four. Raised in nearby German Valley in a farm family, he grew up learning the rhythms of agricultural life and, apparently, how to work a room.

Soon after graduating, Rick found his way into the auction business. He’d been working around dairy auctions and cattle shows when someone asked him to help catch bids in the ring. For a young man who’d caught hell in school for talking too much, it was a natural fit. He attended auction school in Iowa, mastered the chant—bidding numbers laced with filler words that keep the pace rolling—and came home to start.

His very first sale was a household estate just north of his place. It rained all day. Everything got crammed inside the house and a shed. “It was real chaos,” he says, “but we did it.”

Nearly fifty years later, he’s still doing it. “I love the business,” he says. “I love the fun of it.” The job is theater, economics, and human psychology rolled together. “You've got to satisfy the seller and make the most money for the seller,” he explains. “So as I’m joking with you, I’m still trying to get in your back pocket.”

That same persuasive instinct shaped his biggest impact on Forreston.

Years ago, the district held a referendum to build a new school facility. Rick went to the courthouse, calculated the tax impact—$2,000 on his two farms—and showed up at the public meeting in German Valley. He was the last to speak. Board president Fred Wierholz said he already knew Rick was against the referendum. Rick told them the number. Then he played what he calls his trump card.

“I looked every board member right in the eyes,” he says. “We need agriculture back in this.”

The district had once had a strong vocational ag program and FFA. Both had disappeared years earlier. Rick believed the referendum would pass—he might even vote no—but he wanted a condition on the table where everyone could see it.

Weeks later, superintendent Dr. Sass called. The referendum had passed. They were going to bring ag back. What would it take? Rick went with the board to visit programs at Sycamore, DeKalb, and Dakota. “I was the Lone Ranger that went with them,” he says. The district hired Wendy Erbson as its first ag teacher—“talk about dynamic”—and the program was reborn.

Today, it serves more than a hundred students. “It’s tremendous to see these kids come out of this program and become leaders, speakers, doctors, lawyers,” Rick says. “It’s not all farmers.” FFA is now the largest youth organization in the United States, and Forreston’s chapter has become one of the strongest in the region.

When the program needed a greenhouse, Rick went to work. State representative Ron Lawfer secured a $25,000 grant. The wholesale cost was $51,000. Rick’s alumni and community members built it themselves. A concrete man everyone knew as Yogi poured the foundation—and when Dr. Sass asked for the bill, Yogi tore it in half. More than $10,000 in labor and materials, donated on the spot. An electrician volunteered. Alumni showed up on weekends.

Rick also launched the Forreston Toy Show, now in its thirty-sixth year. Vendors come from four states, up to a hundred tables fill the gym, and Eichmann’s Processing in Seward supplies five hundred pork chop sandwiches. In a good year, the show raises about $7,000 for the FFA Alumni.

And for decades, Rick has been the public-address voice at Forreston sporting events. It started when his son was in junior high, and nobody was announcing starting lineups. He volunteered—asked only for a bag of popcorn—and never stopped. He tried volleyball once. “You gotta be so quiet,” he says. “Not for me.”

For the tenth anniversary of the ag program’s rebirth, Rick brought in Orion Samuelson from WGN Radio. The old gym was packed. When Rick asked for the bill, Samuelson refused payment.

“Everybody’s got to help,” Rick says. “Everybody’s got to pitch in, and you've got to ask… you've got to ask for help.” He says that last part twice, because he means it. With five grandchildren now coming through Forreston—all show cattle, all involved in ag—he’s not done asking.