1. Earl Lauer "Rusty" Butz was a United States government official who served as the secretary of agriculture under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
27 Facts About Earl Butz
1. 2.
Earl Butz's policies favored large-scale corporate farming and an end to New Deal programs.
3.
Earl Butz was the eldest of five children and worked on his parents' 160-acre farm while growing up.
4.
Earl Butz attended a one-room country school through eighth grade and graduated from high school in a class of seven.
5.
Earl Butz was an alumnus of Purdue University, where he was a member of Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity.
6.
Earl Butz received a Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture in 1932, and then a doctorate in agricultural economics in 1937.
7.
Earl Butz was the uncle of American football player Dave Butz.
8.
Earl Butz met the former Mary Emma Powell from North Carolina in 1930, at the National 4-H Camp in Washington, DC.
9.
In 1948, Earl Butz became vice president of the American Agricultural Economics Association, and three years later was named to the same post at the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers.
10.
Earl Butz left both of the aforementioned posts in 1957, when he became the Dean of Agriculture at his alma mater, Purdue University.
11.
Earl Butz was Assistant Secretary of Agriculture in Washington, DC, from 1954 to 1957 under President Dwight Eisenhower.
12.
Earl Butz was Secretary of Agriculture from 1971 to 1976 under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
13.
Earl Butz took over the Department of Agriculture during the most recent period in American history that food prices climbed high enough to generate political heat.
14.
Earl Butz had helped to arrange that sale in the hope of giving a boost to crop prices to bring restive farmers tempted to vote for George McGovern into the Republican fold.
15.
Earl Butz was featured in the documentary King Corn, recognized as the person who started the rise of corn production, large commercial farms, and the abundance of corn in American diets.
16.
In King Corn, Earl Butz argued that the corn subsidy had dramatically reduced the cost of food for all Americans by improving the efficiency of farming techniques.
17.
Earl Butz issued a statement saying that he had not "intended to impugn the motives or the integrity of any religious group, ethnic group or religious leader".
18.
Earl Butz started by telling a dirty joke involving intercourse between a dog and a skunk.
19.
Earl Butz returned to West Lafayette, Indiana, and was named dean emeritus of Purdue's School of Agriculture.
20.
In November 1977, Earl Butz debated writer Wendell Berry at Manchester University in Manchester, Indiana.
21.
On May 22,1981, Earl Butz pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion charges for having under-reported income he earned in 1978.
22.
Earl Butz was fined $10,000 and ordered to pay $61,183 in civil penalties.
23.
Earl Butz continued to serve on corporate boards and speak on agricultural policy.
24.
At an international conference in Geneva, Switzerland, sponsored by the Agri-Energy Roundtable on May 23,1983, Earl Butz warned his audience, concerning ethanol production and subsidies, "Those who ride the Tiger may find dismounting difficult".
25.
At age 98, Earl Butz died in his sleep on February 2,2008, in Kensington, Maryland.
26.
Earl Butz is buried at the Tippecanoe Memory Gardens in West Lafayette, Indiana.
27.
At his death, Earl Butz was the oldest living former Cabinet member from any administration.