Ag inventor Herb Stam still at work at the end

By Jo McCord
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815-432-3685

Herb Stam was on the job until the end, his son Cliff said Monday in a telephone interview from Stam's Hi-Pro Manufacturing building west of Watseka.

Herb was found dead at the factory Sunday. He was 87 but he had no apparent health problems and seemed eternally vital because of his good habits and lifestyle, Cliff said.

"It was basically old age," he said.

Herb had been at the Peoria Farm Show all week and was, of course, working when the end came. Herb was continually working on a new "knife" to inject liquid fertilizer into the soil.

The knives he and shop foreman Jerry McClaine designed over the past 10 years are used on fertilizer application rigs all over the country. "We've sold 650,000 knives since 1995," Herb said in a recent interview about the latest model of the model B33.

When the weather got drier, he was planning to test the knife and be interviewed about it by The Daily Journal.

"We have the best knives in the world. The B33 is the best buy. Companies buy from us and ship knives all over the world," Herb said recently.

The goal was to create a model that doesn't throw dirt as it carves into the soil between the rows. The plan was to use coverboards to catch the dirt, and put it back as an anhydrous ammonia trailer runs over the track.

Cliff said the work will go on.

Besides his son, Herb is survived by his wife, Irene, and their daughter, Judy Quick, who lives in Southern Illinois.

His obituary appeared on page B5.