Ellsworth family to give Thanksgiving turkey to President Bush
Turkeys will travel from Ellsworth, to Washington, and then to Disneyland!By Lori Berglund — Daily Freeman-Journal Editor
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Officials at the White House have proposed several choices of names and are allowing the publc to vote on the names for the turkeys. Follow the link with this article to vote on the official names. However, The Daily Freeman-Journal has created its own poll with an alternative list of names. Please take part in our poll with this article, as well as on our homepage.
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Chose some 'alternate' names for the Thanksgiving turkeys:Article Links
» White House asks the public to help name the turkey.ELLSWORTH - Hubert Hill started raising turkeys at just about the same time President Harry Truman and national turkey growers revived a tradition of presenting a turkey to the sitting president as part of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Hill and his wife, Daisy, married 66 years, still live on the same farm near Ellsworth where they started with a flock of about 1,000 birds back in 1948.They didn't make any money on turkeys that year, according to their son Paul, but things turned around the next year and the family has been in the turkey business ever since.
That was one year after President Truman received a Thanksgiving turkey from the Poultry and Egg National Board in 1947. While turkeys had been presented to the president intermittently since the time of Lincoln, this time the tradition took hold and has remained an important part of the National Thanksgiving celebration ever since.
On Wednesday, four generations of the Hill family gathered for a send-off ceremony for this year's National Thanksgiving Turkey. The Hills were selected to present the Thanksgiving turkey to President Bush because Paul Hill serves as chairman of the National Turkey Federation.
The turkey destined for Washington was raised on a farm only about two miles south of where Hubert and Daisy started it all, and where their grandson and great grandsons, Nathan, Collin and Conner, have been keeping a close eye on the president's birds.
"It's a great event," said Paul Hill, who is also chairman of West Liberty Foods, the company that was critical in keeping turkey production on farms in the Ellsworth area when a packer closed in that community in 1996.
Wednesday's send-off celebration, and the events to come in Washington, D.C., next week are, in many ways, a grand celebration of the West Liberty success story. Threatened with the end of their turkey-producing days, Ellsworth farmers worked together to form West Liberty Foods. From about $15 million in business the first year, West Liberty has grown to a $150 million annual business. In the last year, about a dozen turkey producers in the Ellsworth area raised some 2.7 million heavy toms.
But very few of those were served as whole birds. Rather, West Liberty is a supplier of sliced meats and is a major supplier to Subway Foods.
In the pen next to the two turkeys that will be driven to President Bush next week are nearly a dozen alternates, who will be being processed at about the same time the president receives his Thanksgiving turkey from the Hills. While President Bush will pardon the turkeys he receives, Subway customers can look forward to enjoying a tasty turkey sandwich from those beautiful alternates.
The process began on July 9, when the tom turkeys were hatched. The Hills selected about 13 turkeys for consideration when they were at nine weeks of age. Those turkeys were then placed in a separate facility at the Nathan Hill farm. Nathan and his sons, Collin and Conner, then started working closely with the turkeys to determine which ones had the best personalities to meet the first family, and deal with the glare of the Washington Press Corps next week.
From those 13, the Hills then selected the two toms that will be driven to Washington next week.The turkeys will have free-range of the back of a specially equipped minivan, while the Hills fly out to Washington. The turkeys are even booked into a hotel across the street from the White House for the night before the presentation to President Bush.
In the send-off ceremony on Wednesday, the birds behaved beautifully as they were lifted on a table and got a few pats of well wishes from the Hill family. The Hills are hoping the birds perform with as much ease during the festivities in Washington. But even that won't be the end of the story.
If, as expected, President Bush pardons the turkeys, the Disney Corporation then takes over. From Washington, the turkeys and several members of the Hill family will be flown to Disneyland in California. The birds will be in special carriers and belted into first class seats on a United Airlines flight for the journey.
On Thanksgiving Day, the birds will serve as grand marshals of the Disneyland parade, and the Hills get to ride along in the parade just for the fun of it. After it's all said and done, the pardoned turkeys will live out their natural lives at Disney's Frontierland.
Asked what they were looking forward to the most, meeting President Bush or going to Disneyland, Collin and Connor Hill didn't think twice before answering meeting President Bush. After all, one can always go to Disneyland, but it's not every day that a turkey you have raised yourself gets a pardon from the leader of the free world.
But don't worry about the Bush family missing out on a turkey dinner for Thanksgiving. In addition to the two live turkeys, the National Turkey Federation will also present President Bush with two dressed birds.
Contact Lori Berglund at editor@freemanjournal.net
