John Radliff’s story is the story of agriculture. His voice was Schoharie County’s: sometimes gruff, always honest, and with a reputation that almost always preceded him, the bad-cop to fellow farmer Richard Ball’s good cop.
Mr. Radliff died unexpectedly last Tuesday.
He was 68.
His friends are already wondering who’ll tell that story now.
“It was pretty hard to hear,” Mr. Ball said Friday. “I’m still in shock.”
The two had just spent more than an hour on the phone, grumbling about their aches and pains and growing old, he said.
“Every farm has its story and John was so good at carrying that story wherever it needed to go,” Mr. Ball said.
“He was so passionate…We cared about each other a lot.”
The two men were maybe the unlikeliest of friends—or maybe not:
Now-State Ag Commissioner Ball was the Times-Journal Star in 2002. Mr. Radliff followed in 2009, which is when he joked about their friendship.
“We play up the good cop-bad cop thing. Guess who’s the bad cop? Richard says, ‘You can talk to me or you can talk to John.’ Works about every time.”
“Not wrong,” Mr. Ball said.
Both men were part of the mid-2000s Four Partners—local efforts to promote agricultural both here and in Albany.
Alicia Terry was another of the Four Partners.
She was always in awe, she said, over Mr. Radliff’s ability to communicate with fellow farmers states and even countries away.
“He wasn’t afraid to pick up the phone and call,” Ms. Terry said. “He didn’t email, but boy, he could use that phone.”
Mr. Radliff could be gruff; they didn’t always agree, Ms. Terry said. But he was always willing to consider other opinions and never afraid to change his mind or admit he was wrong.
“John always felt a high tide raises all boats when it comes to agriculture,” Mr. Terry said.
“He’d lay a charge down, but he was always willing to compromise if you could show him evidence to the contrary.”
Mr. Radliff was just a high school senior when he took over the family farm after his father was killed by a falling tree.
Friends said that’s why he was always so welcoming to young farmers. Ms. Terry’s son, William, who died unexpectedly in 2008 when he was just 13, was one of them.
For a long time, after his death, William’s hat hung in the last place he’d left it: Mr. Radliff’s barn.
“My husband and I will always be grateful for the care and nurturing John gave our son,” Ms. Terry said. “So much of his time and energy…”
Nick Kossmann is another one of those “kids” who grew up on the Radliff’s School Hill Farm, helping out between college and grad school and never really leaving.
“He was my agricultural role model,” Mr. Kossmann, now the county’s ag specialist, said.
Mr. Radliff joked—though it wasn’t really a joke--“Don’t tell people you know me,” he said.
Maybe because he just couldn’t beat around the bush.
“He did have a public reputation for and telling you exactly what he thought,” Mr. Kossmann said.
There was the time, he remembered, laughing, when Mr. Radliff walked into the break room at an equipment dealership they were at—and lit his ever-present cigarette on the toaster.
“A lot of people stopped there. His friends knew him better. He was just in a hurry to get things done. Whatever the day brought, John was ready to face it.”
“It leaves such a hole in our community,” said Schoharie County Farm Bureau President Steve Smith.
“He told me one time he’d wanted to be an ag teacher,” plans that changed after his father died. “I told him, John you are a teacher.”
The Radliff family plans to keep milking cows while they decide where they plan to go with their farm next.
Funeral services will be private.