Denny Sickles retires after 54 years with Farmers Lumber

Farmers Lumber celebrated 101 years of existence in 2021, celebrating reaching the century mark a year late because of the pandemic. Denny Sickles has worked there for 54 of those years, which is an incredible feat of its own not many can boast.

Sickles, who turns 71 this month, was celebrated and appreciated with an open house Thursday, Dec. 30 at the lumber yard, complete with coffee and cookies. Co-workers, longtime customers and family members were all able to stop in and congratulate Sickles on a job well done.

“I’m gonna miss a lot of people because everybody you work with and have dealt with will be gone from the daily routine,” Sickles said. “I know it’s a long time. I’ve lived in Fontanelle all my life and that means a lot to me.”

Sickles started working at Farmers Lumber when he was a sophomore at Bridgewater-Fontanelle High School in 1967, the same year Aretha Franklin recorded her iconic hit “Respect,” the same year the first Boeing 737 took flight, the same year Elvis Prelsey was married and the same year the Big Mac was first introduced by McDonald’s.

Sickles began as a general laborer and has done about everything at Farmers Lumber over his time there. Most recently he was the counter secretary.

“They had a job training program where the government paid high school kids to have a job,” Sickles remembers, “and I took this one here. [Then manager] Bruce [Jensen] called me in on weekends and days off to come down here and work.”

One of Sickles’ first duties was unloading creosote posts, sacks of concrete and shingle materials off of railroad cars when the train still came through Fontanelle. The tracks were across Washington Street to the north of where the lumber yard is currently at.

Once Farmers Lumber had a forklift, Sickles would use it to unload lumber from the train. The lumber yard’s supplier, located in Cumberland, would come get the lumber in Fontanelle with a truck because they didn’t have a forklift big enough to handle the job.

“When I started, I said I would never make it because I hate to paint,” Sickles said. “I had to paint those darn flat tops that you took out in the pastures, you’d set them down and the sows would come eat out of them. I hated them, but I did them.”

Sickles wouldn’t have to paint for long. Eventually he transitioned into the fence crew at the lumber yard, building fences on area farms. He later spent a long while driving truck for Farmers Lumber.

Sickles joked that he knows where about anything is at Farmers Lumber until someone comes along and moves it.

The longtime fire chief in Fontanelle, Sickles plans to continue serving his community in that capacity for awhile longer. His son, Tyson, is the assistant chief. Denny, his wife Debbie, and the rest of their family remain heavily involved in the Fontanelle and greater Adair County community. Their daughter’s name is Teresa Husk.

Sickles is thankful for the outpouring of support upon his retirement.

“I decided I better get out of here because you might not get out of here and they might be hauling me out,” Sickles said. “I decided it was time to go.”