PEORIA MAGAZINE May 2022

Partners Emily and Rob taking callers

There was Cody Flint, an aerial applicator inMississippi who had a bad reaction to the COVID vaccine, to the point of compromising his crop-dusting business. There was Fran (Feekes) Magnussen of Iowa, who lost her scalp and ears in a farm accident and “didn’t hold anything back … to help people with farm safety issues.” There was Olympic high jumper Nathan Leeper, who went on the air with Sharkey in 2017 to talk about how he overcame his battles with the bottle with the help of friends and family in his small Kansas hometown. The show has taken them from rural violence in Africa towildfires in Australia to war in Ukraine. THE REAL DEAL “We’ve got the numbers. We know who’s listening,” said Rob. Evidently, rural America wants more than talk about input prices and crop yields, important as those are. “Rob is such a creative talent” who in many ways has become “the voice of the hard-working rural American” while Emily is “the driving force behind the show,” said their RFD producer, Deidre

Cischke. Part of the show’s allure is the humor, but the fact-based presentation also resonates, she said. “SharkFarmer is a wonderful family show and there’s never a dull moment. I’m looking forward to Season 5 and many more seasons to come.” Besides the entertainment, authentic ity is a big part of the Sharkey appeal, but in a modern environment where there can be a price for speaking your mind in unfettered fashion, especially with sponsors, there can be a temptation to self-censor. One slip of the tongue can invite no end of grief. It’s a balance. “We always try to keep it so if you have your family in the car … We’re pretty careful,” said Emily. A NEW CALLING The Sharkeys never started out with a mission, they were just trying tomake a living and kept walking through the open doors. But if a calling has emerged, it’s making the subject of farming more approachable and accessible to those who may get no closer to it than a grocery store.

To the degree there’s an urban-rural divide, the Sharkeys would like to help bridge it. Rob can talk “farmerese” with the best of them, but he likes the challenge of the PBS show’s wider, more diverse audience. “Farming is difficult,” said Sharkey, which is why many farmers look for ways to add value to their land, like the windmills that dot his property (“a no brainer,” he said). Today, the family’s media income is “bigger than the farm,” and it doesn’t seem to have peaked, said Rob. Though it looks to be a good year for the nation’s growers, between volatile input costs and fluctuating commodity prices, the future causes concern. “It’s nice to have something like this.” Their media efforts have earned them a level of celebrity. Hardly a week goes by that a fan doesn’t stop by, out of the blue. Meanwhile, in Bradford, said Emily, “We’re just the Sharkey family we’ve always been.”

Mike Bailey is editor in chief of Peoria Magazine.

MAY 2022 P EORIA MAGAZINE 43