"Frankfort Faces" is a series that highlights people from within the Frankfort and Franklin County community. Each feature follows one of the city's most unique personalities and includes a story, photos and video, which can be found by clicking the TV icon attached to the story online at state-journal.com.

As he watches tobacco fade from fields around him, his deep-rooted love for the crop compels Roger Perkins, 54, to plow against the trend.

"It's a unique crop," Roger says. "It grows from a seed the size of a pinhead to a plant that's over your head in four months. It's amazing."

Roger and his father, Wilbert, 77, and his nephew, R.W. Eldridge, 25, grew 37 acres of burley tobacco on their land in Franklin and Owen counties this year. That's nearly 300,000 plants to set, harvest and strip.

Sometimes Roger pushes his hat back on his graying, buzzed head and considers whether he's making the right decisions. Maybe he should have moved on to other crops after the government buyout like most of the other farmers five years ago, yet, he always comes back to the same conclusion.

"I just enjoy growing tobacco "always have," Roger says. "And the money is still better than most anything we can grow around here."

Before the buyout, tobacco sold for $2 per pound, and now it sells for $1.50 per pound, but there are no restrictions on how much a farmer may grow.

The option after the buyout was get bigger or get out, Roger says.

"Many farms took the buyout and quit. We got bigger," he says. "A lot of those farms are growing other things now and maybe they were smarter."

They may be smarter, but perhaps Roger is happier. He loves growing tobacco " he's never smoked it " but he certainly loves growing it, from when they set it in perfect rows in May to when crews help with harvest at the end of summer to when it hangs in the barns to cure until they start stripping the leaves from the stalks through mid January.

"There are so many challenges," he says. "You'll have a wet year and then a dry year, and then you'll get a disease you've never seen before. Trying to work through those situations is challenging."
This year, about mid-summer, after several weeks without rain, Roger again began to think, "Maybe I ought to get out of this."

But, through good decision-making by the three farmers of Perkins Family Farm, all the tobacco was harvested. They hired nearly 15 farmhands at the peak who helped cut the tobacco and hang it in the barns to cure.

A lot of the decisions about the tobacco fields are left up to Roger, while R.W. focuses on the cattle side of their business, which has grown as large as 2,000 head per year. Roger's father, Wilbert, is affectionately called the "brains of the operation."

But that doesn't mean Wilbert does any sitting around. He works the farm every day. He was at the wheel of a tractor throughout the harvest and is currently bulldozing a new area to feed cattle.

"I just hit here and there, wherever they need me," Wilbert says, downplaying his actual role.

Wilbert and his late father, Herbert, started the Perkins Farm with 21 acres in Peaks Mill. They now own nearly 1,000 acres and farm 2,000 by renting from other farmers.

"It's pretty much a year "round thing," Roger says.

He and his wife, Lisa, still live in the same house on Perkins Lane where he grew up. He had the option of attending the University of Kentucky, but he declined in order to join Wilbert and Herbert in a three-way partnership right out of high school.

"It's pretty much what I always wanted to do," Roger says.

His two daughters have both married and left the farm, but as children they were a big part of the family operation. Every Perkins family member has worked in the tobacco fields.

The Perkins men never stop singing the praises of the Perkins women " their hard-working mothers and wives and daughters and sisters. And Wilbert's wife, Patsy, is set on an especially high pedestal. "She's done a lot of work through the years," Roger says.

"It's very important when you pick a spouse as a farmer, you've got to find someone who will put up with it," Roger said. "I thank God he gave me someone who will put up with me."

Lisa laughs when she hears her husband talk about her that way, and she admits she had no idea just how much work it would be and just how little she would see her husband. She says the night before their wedding should have given her a clue " they spent the evening hauling water. And come to think of it, she says, quite a few of their dates were "working dates."

"Roger's never home, and he's never been home," Lisa said.

One day, Roger says, he hopes to consistently quit before dark. But for now, he works until the job is done. Some days that's supper time, some days he gets back home to catch the 10 o'clock news; midnight is not out of the question.

But he knows from his grandfather and father, "If you don't want to work a lot of hours, get into something else."

Of course, there's little time for hobbies. Aside from farm and family, Roger is active in the work at Peaks Mill Christian Church, where he serves as an elder.

"It seems to me that to be a farmer you need strong faith in God and a family who supports and helps you," Lisa said.

But even without the backup, "he's not one to see the downside," Lisa says.

The one "hard spot" Lisa remembers is when Roger started thinking about what would ultimately happen to the family farm with no sons to take it over. But since his nephew, R.W., quit his job in Lexington to become a full-time farmer and partner, Roger can now plan for years ahead " though as a farmer you can't plan too far ahead.

When he's not working with tobacco, Roger is mowing hay, fixing up the farm or buying and selling cattle. He genuinely loves his job.

"There's a lot to be said for being satisfied with what you're doing," he says. "I thank God everyday. I know I'm not going to make a lot of money. You're not going to have the extra cars and boats that your neighbors have, but I enjoy what I do."

To learn more about why Roger's nephew, R.W. Eldridge, decided to leave his city job and return to farming, read next week's Frankfort Face.