John & Sarah Halcomb
continued from our Team page
opportunities for internships in Washington, D.C., including one with U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell as well as the U.S. Trade representative in the agriculture division. After graduation, John lived in Taiwan for three months and promoted U.S. agricultural products through an internship with the USDA Foreign Agricultural Trade Service.
All of these experiences helped develop John’s love for international trade and the macroeconomics of agriculture, but he didn’t want to spend his days behind a desk, so he sought a position working in the production side of agribusiness.
In 2008, John went to work for the grain division of Bunge North America as a grain merchandiser. There he worked at a river barge loading facility and began to learn about river transportation systems in addition to buying grain and writing contracts.
After about a year with Bunge, John’s dad, Don, began working closely with Mendel Biotechnology, who was doing agronomic research on miscanthus as a source for cellulosic ethanol. John joined Mendel and helped manage research plots scattered throughout the United States, including the first pilot-scale planting of miscanthus, which was on Walnut Grove Farms.
It was during this time that John met Sarah. Sarah is originally from Pleasant Hill, Missouri, a small town just outside of Kansas City. Although she didn’t grow up in an agricultural family, her family has a long history in horticulture and greenhouse production of potted flowers and ivy. Sarah also graduated from the University of Missouri, but the two didn’t meet until 2009, when they were introduced by mutual friends at the Kentucky Derby.
Sarah had been working in human resources, specifically recruiting, for a privately held life insurance company in Kansas City. She and John married in 2012. The couple moved to Murray, Kentucky. Sarah worked in human resources at Murray State University until 2015, when the couple welcomed their first son, George.
They moved to Murray when John took a new position – this time working for Hutson as their Global Export Manager, and eventually as their Wholesale Manager. His job with Hutson took him all over the world as he sold equipment in South America, Israel, eastern Europe, parts of Africa, and many other countries.
In 2018, John came back to Walnut Grove Farms full-time, focusing on the trucking and logistics portion of the business. Sarah had been helping in the office at Walnut Grove Farms on a part-time basis since October of 2017, and gradually took on more responsibility in human resources. Their daughter Kate was also born in 2017.
Both George and Kate are part of the Walnut Grove Farms story, and are as immersed in the day-to-day life of running a farm and family business as their cousins, parents, aunt, uncle and grandmother.
Since 2018, John has helped grow the services side of Walnut Grove Farms, including WG Inc., a separate trucking company. He has also helped oversee the addition of two grain cleaners and the purchase and renovation of a rail transloading facility in Bowling Green.
Sarah currently handles all the human resources for Walnut Grove Farms, including payroll, employee benefits, and the many policies and procedures that go along with having a successful team. Although she would have never guessed that she would end up working on a farm, she finds all aspects of farming interesting, and appreciates the excitement and satisfaction of seeing where the products raised by Walnut Grove Farms end up.
Sarah is on the board of the Boy’s and Girl’s Club of Franklin-Simpson, Personnel Committee and Young Disciples Committee at Franklin Presbyterian Church, and is a Lifetime Member of the Girl Scouts.
John is an elder at the Franklin Presbyterian Church and serves on the Executive Committee for the Simpson County Democratic Party.