Alum donates 80-acre farm to MSU

A Missouri State University alumna and her husband donated an 80-acre farm near Springfield-Branson National Airport to the school’s Darr College of Agriculture.

The farm southwest of the airport at 6675 W. State Highway 266 is MSU’s first cultivated crop farm, said Ron Del Vecchio, dean of the ag college. The farm owned by the Rev. Paula Kindrick Hartsfield, a 1976 MSU graduate, and her husband George Hartsfield has been in the Kindrick family for a century, he said.

“It opens a whole new door for us,” Del Vecchio said. “They currently were leasing it out and decided to make a donation to Missouri State for future generations to appreciate through education and research.”

Del Vecchio said the university signed a memorandum of understanding to accept the farm donation in January, and the executive committee of the MSU Foundation approved the resolution in February. The final hurdle will be tomorrow, when the MSU Board of Governors will decide whether to accept the donation during its March meeting in Kansas City.

According to the board’s agenda, the property, including a deteriorated residence, barn and storage shed, has an appraised value of $370,000. Of its 80 acres, 65 are cultivated and ready for crop production by MSU students. Del Vecchio said some of the crops would be sold depending on which are needed for research purposes.   

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