MANHATTAN — Six couples will be honored on March 13 as the 2026 class of Kansas Master Farm Families in recognition of their leadership in agriculture, environmental stewardship and service to their communities.
The statewide awards program is in its 99th year and is sponsored by K-State Extension and Kansas Farmer Magazine.
This year’s honorees are:
• Dean and Marlene Davis, Maple Hill.
• David and Sheila Govert, Cunningham.
• Garry and Kathy Holloway, Kincaid.
• Caleb and Shanda Mattix, Colby.
• Keith and Connie Miller, Great Bend.
• Roger and Elizabeth Ploeger, Morrill.
The annual awards banquet will begin at 6 p.m. on Friday, March 13 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Manhattan.
AS SUCCESSFUL as they’ve been in their 46 years on the farm near Kincaid, Garry and Kathy Holloway have routinely embraced opportunities beyond the farm gate, investing in their local community and beyond in a variety of ways.
Both graduated from Crest High School in Colony. Garry went on to graduate from Northeast Oklahoma A&M, and after working as an agriculture equipment sales representative for a brief time, returned to the family farm in 1979, becoming part of the family farm that Garry’s great-grandfather Henry established in 1895.
Kathy attended Allen County Community College and embarked on a career in the social services field for more than 40 years. Garry and Kathy were married in 1980. They raised two sons on the farm, Benjamin and Westin.
OVER THE years, the Holloways built the operation up to its current state as Holloway Farms, LLC. On the crops side, corn, soybean, wheat and hay production are the mainstays. Holloway Farms won the Kansas Bankers Association soil conservation award in 1992, and Garry fully adopted conservation tillage cropping practices in 1994.
In partnership with son Westin, the operation now backgrounds several hundred stockers annually for placement on Flint Hills grass and then on to feedlots in western Kansas.
Garry was one of the original organizers of the East Kansas Agri-Energy ethanol plant in Garnett. Garry and Kathy have also invested in a soybean processing plant, a beef processing plant and soybean biodiesel plant.
