Where the corn grows tall in Iowa, almost everybody knows hearty, conscientiously corny Ray Anderson. In blizzards and blistering heat, through muck and manure, he has been rambling its countryside for 17 years, helping build for the Cedar Rapids Gazette a circulation of 45,000, for himself a 242-lb. girth and a reputation as a top U.S. newspaper farm page editor. This week 55-year-old Anderson moved to broader pastures. His new beat: the rural Midwest, as a roving editor of Farm Journal and Farmer's Wife (TIME, Jan. 17).
No armchair agronomist, Ray Anderson's talents range...