There are some stories that stay around longer than others. Not because they are loud or dramatic, but because they need to be told. This story is unfortunately one of those.
Kevin Goodman was a farmer. That should tell you almost everything you need to know right there. Early mornings, long days and quiet pride. The kind of man who doesn’t complain much because there is always something that needs to get done. The kind of man who carries more than anyone can see.
At his burial, his son Christian did something only a farm boy would think to do. He brought a cup of dirt from the pitcher’s mound at Iowa State, where his dad once threw baseballs as a young man. When they placed Kevin’s urn in the ground, the dirt from Ames went in first.
“From now on,” Christian said, “my dad will always be on the mound.”
It is a beautiful image. A man set back where he once stood tall, ready to throw one more pitch. It fits another story about a field of dreams out in Iowa. It sounds like a peaceful story about an Iowa farmer who played baseball in college, but the truth behind that moment is harder.
Kevin took his own life.
And like a lot of things in agriculture, it didn’t happen all at once. It built slowly, over time, under pressure that most people never saw.
The Goodman family farm was a fourth-generation operation. That word, generation carries weight in the farming world. It isn't just land. It is identity, it is legacy and it is responsibility handed down from one set of hands to the next.
When Kevin’s parents passed away, the farm was divided equally among their children. On paper, that sounds like a fair deal. In practice, it brought conflict to Kevin and his siblings. Kevin was the one farming the family land. The others were not. Yet every decision required agreement, and before long, agreement turned into a battle.
Plans were made to eventually sell the farm. Restrictions were put in place that made operating harder. Buyouts added debt as lawyers took over the conversations. Suddenly something that had been built over generations started to come apart.
Here is the part that hits close to home. Farmers and commodity brokers aren’t all that different. We get up early. We live by numbers and outcomes we don’t fully control. Weather for them, markets for us. Both turn out to be issues for both of us.
You can do everything right and still get blindsided. When that happens, there’s an instinct that kicks in... lower your shoulders, bow your neck, and push through it.
That instinct builds resilience, but it also builds silence.
Kevin kept working the farm and paying the bills. He took care of all the obligations. From the outside, everything looked like it was being handled. That is the dangerous part. Because the people who are the best at carrying the load are often the last ones to say it’s too heavy.
He had a warning moment with an attempt in December. His family urged him to get help, but the cost of treatment wasn’t covered. For a man already worried about finances, adding another bill felt impossible. So he did what he knew how to do. He went back to work.
That isn't weakness. That is old school conditioning built on faith and hard work. That is how a lot of people in the farming community are wired.
Christian now wonders if things could have been different. If stepping away might have changed the outcome. That is a heavy question for a son to carry, but this shouldn't have been his to solve alone.
There are lessons here, they aren’t complicated and they are hard. Equal shares isn’t always fair when it comes to a working farm. Silence is not strength when it replaces honest conversation. Legacy isn’t preserved by avoiding difficult decisions. It is protected by facing them head-on, early, and together. Not with lawyers, but as a family.
There is another lesson too, one that doesn’t get talked about enough.
It’s okay to say it’s too much.
In agriculture, in the markets, in the barn, on a trading desk and in life, there is a line where toughness stops being strength and starts becoming isolation. Knowing where that line is and having the courage to step across it and ask for help might be the most important skill of them all.
Kevin Goodman’s story doesn’t end with how he died. It lives in how he worked, how he showed up, and how deeply he cared about keeping something meaningful alive.
That is the final image worth holding onto.
A man on the pitcher's mound.
Not because the game was easy, but because he kept pitching the ball with everything he had.
Many of us have bills adding up on the kitchen table and less money in our pockets. Ask for help and remember the foundation is built on faith, family and friends.
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