Valentine’s Day – It’s a sweetheart of a day for agriculture

by Denny Banister

During my grade school years, I remember exchanging valentines with classmates. Some teachers had us decorate a shoe box with a slot in the lid and place the shoebox on our desks for incoming valentines.

I was always afraid I would not get any. In fact, some teachers prevented that from happening by requiring we each give a valentine to all classmates. While this ensured a shoebox full of valentines, it also diluted the importance of the valentines.

Our fourth grade teacher helped us create a post office for Valentine’s Day. A large corrugated box was divided into individual compartments, one compartment for each person in the class. One person was made the class postmaster (usually Mike Fischer, that lucky jerk). Ooops, sorry Mike – I thought I was over it.

Every kid in the class stood in line at the classroom post office where we “bought” colored stickers to stamp our valentines and give them to the postmaster who sorted the mail into the appropriate compartments.

Then another class member was placed in the role of being mailman – uh, I mean mail person – or maybe that’s postal person – or postal worker. Well, in the 1950s they were mailmen. The class mailman (lucky Jim Lippleman) delivered the valentine mail to our desk mailboxes – again shoeboxes with slots in the lids.

Our teacher was not only teaching us about Valentine’s Day, but also about the U.S. Post Office – uh, I mean the U.S. Postal Service – well, in the 1950s it was the U.S. Post Office. We learned how to go to the post office to mail our valentines, how the mail was sorted at the post office and then delivered by the mailman.

It worked in our classroom just like it works in real life – the class mailman delivered a dozen or so valentines to my desk mailbox, and most of them were actually addressed to me. After the mail arrived, we got up from our desks and took the improperly delivered valentines to the intended addressees. Like I said, it worked in our classroom just like it works in real life.

Valentine’s Day is not only a big day for greeting cards which, at about one billion cards exchanged is the second largest greeting card day next to Christmas, but it is also a big day for agriculture. Valentine’s Day generates sales of approximately 110 million roses, a product of agriculture.

When you give your valentine a heart-shaped box of chocolates, you are giving a gift produced by agriculture. U.S. confectionery sales in 2003 amounted to $25.8 billion, much of that generated as a result of Valentine’s Day. Common ingredients in confectionery products are sugar, milk, fruit, peanuts, almonds and other nuts, all produced by farmers.

Valentine’s Day – it’s a sweetheart of a day for agriculture.

(Denny Banister, of Jefferson City, Mo., is the assistant director of public affairs for the Missouri Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization.)