Paul Harvey and the Dodge “God Made a Farmer” Super Bowl Commercial

During the Super Bowl, people talk during the game and during most of the commercials but at my house – when Paul Harvey’s voice came on for the Dodge “God Made a Farmer” commercial, everyone got quiet to listen.  This is why he was always one of my biggest heroes in radio. If you have a love for great storytelling this is a man you should look into. Personally, I always loved a segment he would do called, "The rest of the story." If you can find any of those old broadcasts, I can assure you , you will search for them all!

Paul Harvey just always had that effect on people. He was a radio broadcaster on the ABC radio networks with a listening audience estimated at 24 million people per week.  You could listen to Paul Harvey News on 1,200 radio stations, an additional 400 Armed Forces Network stations and read it in 300 newspapers (Wikipedia.org).

The Dodge commercial features Paul’s commentary:

“And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker.’ So God made a farmer.

God said, ‘I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.’ So God made a farmer.

God said, ‘I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year,' I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from an ash tree, shoe a horse with hunk of car tire, who can make a harness out hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. Who, during planting time and harvest season will finish his 40-hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from tractor back, put in another 72 hours.’ So God made the farmer.

God said, ‘I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales, yet gentle enough to yean lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-comb pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the leg of a meadowlark.’

It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed, and brake, and disk, and plow, and plant, and tie the fleece and strain the milk, . Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh, and then sigh and then reply with smiling eyes when his son says that he wants to spend his life doing what Dad does. ‘So God made a farmer.’