Farmer Flanagan lauded at Nash Farm Orchard ceremony in Grapevine

For more than a decade, volunteer Bob Flanagan has planted and grown crops at Nash Farm — one of the city’s most cherished historical sites.

Nash Farm is the oldest operating farmstead in Tarrant County. It aims to educate about the history and importance of the Grape Vine Prairie and Grapevine’s role in the development of North Texas.

Flanagan, 82, grew up farming on the Grape Vine Prairie occupied today by Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.

He is a lifelong aficionado of farming and working outdoors. Crops he enjoys planting include beans, corn, cotton, kale, okra, onions, peas, peppers, pumpkins, squash, tomatoes and wheat.

So over the past 11 years, he has planted many of those crops at Nash Farm.

In gratitude, Nash Farm supporters and city leaders recently dedicated the Nash Farm Orchard in honor of his being a “volunteer curatorial farmer” and in appreciation of “his love of farming.”

“I was so honored,” Flanagan said. “I love being a farmer. “I love to see plants grow. And I love giving veggies from Nash Farm away to people who need them.”

Wife Nancy was equally humbled by the recognition and huge turnout.

“We had a lot of family and friends there,” she said.

Flanagan was presented with a framed print of a working farmer by local artist Tony Eubanks.

Mayor William D. Tate called Flanagan a man who has “a heart so big and a love so strong that he can dig the grave of a friend in the middle of the night, then the next day tuck him in and sigh and say ‘what a great man’ and then cover him with a blanket of flowers from all his friends, knowing full well that soon they will wilt and blow away in the wind. So God created Bob Flanagan.”

He lauded his longtime friend who was born, reared and educated in the community.

He called him a genuine, sincere man who loves his wife and family and knows how to operate and fix machinery and dig graves and potatoes.

“We honor him for what he and his family have meant to the agrarian way of life on the Grape Vine Prairie, a way of life that now has been reduced to this historic example of what once was the life blood of our community and the primary occupation of our founding fathers,” Tate said.

The April 16 dedication to the “caretaker of Nash Farm” was summed up by the mayor saying, “One day God looked down on the wonders of His creation and said, ‘Someday I am going to need a special man for a special job, so God made a farmer.’

“Thanks God for Bobby Flanagan.”

Flanagan said when the mayor read the speech, he “cried and cried.”

“Then I got a copy and came home and sat in my easy chair and cried again,” the farmer said.

This story was originally published May 18, 2016 at 2:57 PM with the headline "Farmer Flanagan lauded at Nash Farm Orchard ceremony in Grapevine."