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Arthur Packard (1879-1970)

When Arthur Packard became president of the Vermont Farm Bureau in 1928, the organization had less than 1,000 members in just five counties. When he retired as president in 1953, the organization had more than 8,000 members in all 14 counties.

Packard was the driving force behind turning Vermont's farmers into a political force. "His belief in farm cooperatives was like a religion to him," wrote the Rutland Herald in an editorial upon Packard's death. "And in fact he had a speech on the cooperative movement that he used as a sermon which he regularly preached in the church pulpits of the state whenever he could get a hearing."

Deane Davis wrote that in the 1930s Packard "was perhaps the single most powerful political figure in the state." Davis told of one incident when he was legal counsel for the dairy cooperatives and received a phone call from Packard in the middle of the night about an attempt to derail efforts to form a super co-op.

After discussing the situation, Davis suggested a change in a law that would have solved the problem, but said he doubted it could be enacted in time. "

Then I watched the smoothest job of lobbying the Legislature I have ever seen," said Davis, detailing how Packard in that single day managed to have the bill introduced, passed by the House, passed by the Senate and signed into law the next day by the governor.