Gene Hartman

Gene Hartman, age 83, longtime resident of Garden City, SD, died in the Sanford USC Medical Center in Sioux Falls on Monday evening, May 17, 2010. Funeral services will be held on Friday, May 21, 2010 at 1PM in the United Methodist Church at Garden City with the Reverend Warren Rhodes officiating. Burial will follow in the Garden City Cemetery. The staff of the Fay Wookey Memorial Assisted Living Center and all other friends and family should consider themselves as honorary casketbearers. The active casketbearers will be Jim, Matt, David and Bruce Paulson, Roger Shoup, Brad Van Winston, Dale Peterson and Stephanie and Bridgette Wookey. Music will be provided by Dorothy Fuller as organist with Stephanie and Bridgette Wookey singing. Visitation will be held on Thursday from 5-8PM with Masonic Rites at 7PM all in the Furness Funeral Home Chapel at Clark. Visitation will continue at the Church in Garden City on Friday after 11AM until service time. He was born on March 19, 1927 at Garden City, SD, one of six children of W.J. (Willis) and Esther (Minthorn) Hartman. He attended the Garden City school graduating from Garden City High School in 1945. His grandfather, John E. Hartman was one of the first certified seed potato growers in South Dakota, followed by Willis J. Hartman, Genes father and then Gene, three generations of South Dakotans dedicated to agriculture. Following his high school education, Gene entered the United States Army. Following his completion of military service in 1946, at the end of W.W.II, he attended South Dakota State University at Brookings where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture Economics in 1951. He was united in marriage to Marie Turner of Clark. To this union a daughter, Elaine Fay was born. The couple later divorced. Gene began his career in 1951 as a GI Agriculture Instructor in the Henry Public School. He purchased an International Harvester Dealership in Garden City in 1952 that came to be known as Hartman Implement. Virtually single handedly, he built the business up to a very successful enterprise. Over his lifetime, Gene invested his earnings wisely and accumulated farm land. In 1955 he entered the faming business that eventually became the 2600-acre potato and grain farming operation he still operated with Jim and Matt Paulson in Clark County. He was one of four original investors in the Potato Processing Plant in Clark called Fairfield Products which later became part of the McCain Food Corp. In 1985, Gene became a stockholder and Director of the First American State Bank (then First Madison Bank). His expertise in business and agriculture served him well in this capacity. In 1986, he and a business partner, C. E. Pahl, expanded farming operations to include a 4000 acre grain farming operation in West Sully County South Dakota near Pierre. Gene had a true love and respect for the South Dakota land he has spent his life farming, something he instilled in his daughter and now her son, his namesake Gene Hartman Hayes, a deep love for our state and all it has to offer. In 1999, Gene was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in the field of Agriculture. He thoroughly enjoyed his trips to the farm while he was a resident of the Fay Wookey Assisted Living Center in Clark with his chauffeurs Stephanie and Bridgette Wookey. He truly loved and was very proud of being a farmer. Gene was very active in the community affairs, whether it was Garden City or around the state, having served on the City Council, former Mayor from 1961-1964, Consolidation of Schools in Garden City in the 70s and was Past President of the Enemy Swim Lake Association at Waubay where he had a lake home. He was also a member of the Masonic Lodge since 1952 serving as Past Master in Garden City, the Yelduz Shrine in Aberdeen since 1957, the Scottish rite of Free Masonry, the Garden City American Legion Post 199, member and Past President of the SD Potato Growers Assn, a member of the National Potato Board, lifetime member of the Garden City Fire Department and a member of the NE Shrine Club at Watertown. He had been awarded the Outstanding Young Businessman by the Clark Jaycees in 1960. Gene was a member of the United Methodist Church at Garden City. Besides his love of the land, Gene began hunting pheasants, ducks, and geese at the age of 10 and still enjoyed the sport until just recently. He passed his love of hunting on to his daughter, son-in-law and grandson. The family spends as much time as possible during the fall at the farm in West Sully County hunting deer, geese, pheasants, and ducks. They also enjoy times at the home on Enemy Swim. Although Gene had many interests, his main love was agriculture. His character and integrity were above reproach, and he certainly was the benchmark for others in agriculture to measure up to. Gene had lived in his home in Garden City until moving to the Fay Wookey Memorial Assisted Living Center and then in December of 2009 becoming a resident of the Southridge Care Center in Sioux Falls. Preceding him in death were his parents, Elaines Mother, Marie Turner Hartman, brother-in-laws, Leonard Paulson and Lloyd Davis and his step-mother, Alta Hartman. Grateful for having shared in his life is his daughter, Elaine Hartman-Hayes and her husband Tom and a grandson, Gene Hartman Hayes all of Sioux Falls and siblings, Mary Jane (Wendell) Rea of Aberdeen, Grace Paulson of Watertown, Bonnie Jo Davis of Littleton, CO, Robert W. Hartman of Sioux Falls and Patricia (Paul) Bonfoey of Sioux Falls. He also leaves sisters, JoAnne (Dan) Norris of Laramie, WY, Judy (Ray) Rennich of White, SD and a brother, Alan (Linda) Hartman of Hartford, SD. Funeral arrangements are with the Furness Funeral Home in Clark where there is an on-line registry at www.furnessfuneralhome.com