Zach Lahn

And then my grandpa...

mowing a runway in the bean field and buying a 1942 Taylor craft and learning how to fly and Starting a career in aviation and his brother flew off aircraft carriers in the Pacific in the 40s like these are our stories of Our history and our culture and our people And in 2005 my family farm was sold my great-grandmother passed away and

And my grandma had called me at the time, and I was in college, and asked me if I wanted anything to do with the farm.

I didn't know what that would be, but I was out in Colorado at the time.

I was like, no, I'm gone.

But if you fast forward a number of years, I stopped in just to see the farm where I was going to visit a family over in eastern Iowa.

And I just told them, if you're ever going to sell this place, please let me know.

And then they called me a couple years later, and they said, hey, we're gonna sell.

Would you like to buy?

And before I could even think about it, I said, yes, 100%.

I want to buy this.

So in 2014, I bought the family farm back.

And then over the past 11 years, I've spent restoring that farm board by board using old pictures that I got from my great-grandmother's photo collection.

And during that time, I remember, you know, a story that...

People often ask me, why did I do that?

And what comes to me is that I really want my children to understand their story.

I want them to understand their history.

Like, who built them?

And that these generations before them toiled and suffered and jumped in to go to the Civil War when they didn't have to.

And like, to protect what we have.