David Garst, former president of the Garst Seed Company, Coon Rapids, Iowa died at St. Anthony Regional Hospital in Carroll, Iowa on January 9, 2006. A Celebration of Life will be held at 11:00 A.M. on Saturday, February 4, 2006 at the Methodist Church in Coon Rapids with Rev. Lynn Gunderson officiating. Burial will be in the Coon Rapids Cemetery near Coon Rapids. Funeral arrangements are under the arrangement of Dahn and Woodhouse Funeral Home in Glidden.

Born in 1926, David Garst was the son of seed corn pioneer Roswell Garst and his wife Elizabeth. He overcame childhood dyslexia to become a gifted writer and speaker. Though his college career was interrupted by two years of service in the U.S. Army, in 1949 Garst graduated from Stanford University, married his college sweetheart, Georgeanne “Jo” Orenstein in her native Hilo, Hawaii, and returned to Coon Rapids where he raised his family and pursued a long and illustrious career in agriculture.

By the late 1950’s Garst turned over their farming partnership to his brother Stephen, and devoted his energies full time to the Garst & Thomas Hybrid Corn Company. He assumed the duties of Sales and Marketing Manager from his father in 1961 and became President and Director of Sales and Marketing in 1982 when the Pioneer Hybrid Seed Company ended its relationship with Garst & Thomas. David was instrumental in having the Garst family buy out its Thomas family partners and in founding the Garst Seed Company.

Under his leadership, Garst Seed achieved universal awareness among the nation’s farmers, expanded its marketing area fivefold and regained the sales volume lost by the split. For these achievements David Garst became the nation’s best known seedsman and in 1987 was awarded its highest award – The National Agricultural Marketer of the Year – by the National Agricultural Marketing Association (NAMA).

Garst played an important role in international relations. He helped open United States trade with Russia, Romania, and Hungary in 1956. In 1958 he became the first American since 1948 to visit Bulgaria and was credited with reestablishing diplomatic relations between Bulgaria and the United States. The relationships formed in these years led eventually to his being invited by the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture and Food in 1990 to visit their country to study their problems and advise them on how to privatize their farms. He was also committed to helping Romania achieve Most Favored Nation status.

A lifelong member, activist and fund raiser for the Democratic Party, in the 1976 Iowa caucuses, Garst was an active promoter of then little-known Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter. In 1978, President Carter appointed Garst to the Board of International Food and Agriculture Development and also to his Presidential Mission on Agricultural Development in Central America and the Caribbean. This mission provided the underlying basis for the Caribbean Basin Initiative, the USA’s first free trade agreement in the Western Hemisphere.

Throughout his career, Garst was active in the National Corn Growers Association and was instrumental in starting chapters in Missouri, Colorado and South Dakota. He became a Director of the US Feed Grain Council in 1962 and served with distinction until his retirement in 1991. He was a founding member and member of the Board of Governors of the American Society of Agricultural Consultants; on the Board of Governors of the Agricultural Hall of Fame, a founding member of the Iowa and Nebraska NAMA chapters, and a lifetime member of the American Legion.

In recent years Garst continued his consulting work on agricultural issues and as an activist in the Democratic Party. He campaigned vigorously for peace and was proud of his contribution to and appearance in the 2004 anti-war documentary “Rush to War” by Robert Taicher.

Survivors include his wife Marilyn of Glidden, sons: Sam Garst and his wife Chris of Lacey, Washington; Jim Garst of Imlay, Nevada; daughter Sallee Haerr and her husband Richard Haerr of Fairfield; 17 grandchildren and great grandchildren; and his step-children. Also surviving are sisters Jane Kamps of California, Antonia Lee and her husband Harold of London, England; and a sister Mary Garst of California; and many nieces, nephews and friends. David Garst was preceded in death by his parents, a son Stuart in 1961, his first wife ‘Jo’ in 1984, his brother Stephen in 2004 and his first cousin John Chrystal in 2000.