Albert Emil Rovey
Parker - La Paz County
Inducted in 2013
Albert Emil Rovey’s grandparents came to Arizona from Illinois for his grandmother's health. She had given birth to premature twins, Art and Arnold. After the boys were born, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Her doctor told her that the warmer climate of Arizona was what she needed to speed up her recovery. The coupe temporarily left the twins with her twin sister, got on a train, and headed west, arriving at the old Alhambra train station about halfway between Glendale and Phoenix. Albert knew how to milk cows. He got a job with the father of future Arizona governor Paul Fannin, who owned a dairy farm in the area. Eventually, he bought his place on 19th Avenue and Bethany Homes Rd, across from what would become Christown Mall (Phoenix), and started farming. Albert E. Rovey was born in 1942. In 1943, Emil bought the farm at Northern and 75th Ave., where Albert and his siblings grew up.
From a young age, Albert enjoyed tinkering with machinery. During his school years, he was active in FFA and 4-H. When reportedly on his exhibit at the state 4-H Round-up in 1956, the Arizona Republic took note of the young man's "natural gift for taking things apart and putting them back together." When he was a senior in high school, he won the farm welding contest, reconstructing a wrecked farm pickup at his entry. Today, that truck is the focal point at the shop on his farm.
When Albert was in high school, Emil bought a ranch at Bloody Basin. Albert spent several summers and other times up there, working cattle, building fences and stock tanks, and making other improvements at the property. After graduating high school in Glendale, Albert attended the University of Arizona and Cal Poly in Samuel Luis Obispo, California. While still in college, he took flying lessons at Mercury Aviation in Tucson, earning his pilot license. Albert went on to earn his commercial and flight instructor certification from Mercury Aviation in Phoenix, then went to work for the company as the chief flight instructor. He was proud that one of the planes he flew is now in the Smithsonian Museum. "I flew copilot for Mike Mitchell Sky Harbor Air Services," Albert said. He had a Beach 18, now in the Udvar-Hazy Museum in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., at Dulles airport."
Albert probably would have stayed in the aviation field had it not been for his dad. Albert had married Patrice Klutz in 1968, and when Pat was expecting Nathan Emil, he came to him and said he wanted him to go back into farming. Emil was thinking about leasing Colorado River Indian land at Parker. Albert remarked that that sounded interesting, and the next thing he knew, he was assembling a farm. It was a struggle at first, but with Emil's help, they got their first crop of cotton. "Those first cotton crops were painful," Albert remembers. They were nowhere close to six bales. Most of them were close to one bale. Through good farming and conservation methods, his firm has become a model of what can be done when converting poorly cultivated land into productive farmland.
A shop was one of the first buildings he erected on the new farm. "The old part of the shop buildings rafters came out of the old original Ford garage in Glendale," he said. The dealership started as Ed Rudolph's Ford in 1928. When Ford changed the Model T to the Model A, Rudolph didn't have cars to sell, so he went to Phoenix and got a Chevy dealership. Madison bought the dealership but eventually sold it to Don Sanderson in 1955. "Pat's dad was working for Sanderson building buildings, so he was taking down this old building, the original Ford dealership. My dad came by there." The men knew each other from church, so Emil asked what they would do with the rafters. He was told the rafters would probably go to the dump. Emil said he would bring the truck over and pick them up. "They sat on the old flatbed trailer at Emil's farm for quite a few years until we came here, and we needed some kind of shop building. "Those rafters are hundreds of years old," he said.
Albert's shop is one of the most well-known buildings on the farm. It is where he taught his sons to weld and repair machinery and where he created anything needed on the farm or any of his brothers' or neighbors' farms. According to his brother, Ronald Rovey, "Visitors are always impressed with the elaborate shop and vast array of welders tools, parts, and other equipment they find."
When Albert couldn't get his cotton gin in the Parker Valley because that ginner was a co-op and he had to haul it to Blythe, which he considered a greater distance, he bought and moved the old Arizona Gin. He put it up and learned how to gin, which was an experience. "They're a critter all their own," he said. They could get seven or eight bales daily when it is all tuned up. Today, Albert is chairman of the board of Modern Gin in Blythe, where they turn out 1,400 bales daily between the two gins.
One of Alberts's many innovations was the "Big Tooth," a slip plow used to convert his thousand 500 acre farm along the Colorado River and two productive farmland. The ground in the area is a mixture of heavy clay, sand, and silt, but through hard work, he has converted it into a land where he grows cotton, alfalfa wheat, and some form of grass.
Albert and his wife Pat have hosted 100 farm training students. These young farm students have come from 15 or more countries in Scandinavia, Europe, Africa, Central America, and South America.
He is a self-taught Bible scholar. Albert is a member and elder of Our Savior Lutheran Church in Lake Havasu City. For the years, he has often substituted when the pastor has been away. He is also a professional photographer with a small studio at the farm. He loves taking pictures of his six grandchildren.
Albert and Pat have lived at the farm for over 45 years. Their son Nathan lives nearby with his wife, Nicole, and their two daughters. Nathan is the farmer, and their son Matthew is a music professor in Nashville, where he lives with his family.
Affiliations
Arizona’s FFA - Agriculturist of the Year (1993)
FFA - First Vice President
Arizona Cotton Growers - Board Member
Arizona Cotton Research and Protection Council - Founding Member
Arizona Boll Weevil Program - Founding Member
La Paz County Farm Bureau - Past President and Vice President
Chief Pilot Flight Instructor
Federal Aviation Administration Pilot Examiner - youngest in the nation at that time
Board of Elders of Our Savior Lutheran Church - Member and Chairman (1982)
Mission Board for the Evangelical Lutheran Synod
Former Lutheran Congregation - Past President and Vice President
Modern Ginning Company - Chairman (Blythe CA)
Awards
Farm Welding Contest - Senior Year of High School
FFA Public Speaking Contest (1960)
