Lee Garrett
Family: Wife Monica, daughters Kylee and Paige.
In Town & Family: Lee Garrett, his wife, Monica and oldest daughter, Kylee, operate Dallas County Propane, located in Buffalo, Mo., and Lee has done so since 1984. His youngest daughter, Paige, will be a senior in high school this year.
“I do a little bit of everything around the office,” Lee explained. “Mostly helping customers, scheduling jobs and trying to keep things running smoothly.”
The business has branched out a little over the years and standby generators have become a staple of the business.
In the Country: For many years, Lee and his family had a 40-head cow-calf operation with Black Angus on their 175 acres in rural Dallas County.
“The truth is that the propane business became too time-consuming and I just didn’t feel like we were doing the cattle justice. We always enjoyed them but we sold out about three years ago. Today, we rent out about half of our land and wildlife has taken over the other half,” Lee said with a laugh.
The one thing Lee Garrett did not turn loose of, however, were his six antique Minneapolis-Moline tractors. His father, Lee Roy Garrett and his grandfather, Audren Garrett, always farmed in the Springfield area, with some of these very tractors, so Lee said, he “simply couldn’t give them up.”
He is the proud owner of a 1932 Twin City, a 1964 Jet Star 3, a 1967 G-900, a 1967 G-1000 Vista, a 1968 G-1000 Vista and a 1969 M-670.
“I used to take them out to a parade once in a while. I take a couple of them to the Dallas County Fair every year. Still, get one out to brush hog from time to time. Some of them, of course, belonged to Dad and Grandad so there are a lot of memories wrapped up with those old tractors.”
