Lyle Bjornestad, 68, who served on the Western Sugar Cooperatives board for nine years, died Monday following a beet digging accident. In the midst of the tragedy his fellow beet farmers determined Lyle’s work would still be done.

Bear May has known Lyle as far back as he can remember, he even attended school with Lyle’s children. When Bjornestad and his son-in-law John Brence began farming beets together, May pitched in to work the fields. When May heard that a friend and a father figure had passed he thought of the harvest that needed to be done and Bjornestad’s grieving family.

“I thought, ‘I’m gonna get those beets out so he [John] didn’t have to worry about it,’” May said.

He finished one field with his own equipment when Dan Shumway and fellow farmers began to take notice.

“I went over and was starting to dig and Dan Shumway came over and said he and some others wanted to help out,” May said. 

By 6 p.m. that evening, work had begun on all of the remaining crop. The work continued at 8 a.m. Tuesday and was completed by 2 p.m. It took 27 trucks, two extra defoliators and 78 loads of beets to finish the remaining harvest, which was just over 60 acres.

“I can’t thank the community enough and the family is grateful for them too,” May said. “They want to thank everybody for what happened.”

Rowdy Briggs, a friend of Bjornestad’s, was equally thankful for the community and those who came to finish his old friend’s crop.

Briggs said the collaboration of farmers came together in only 12 hours. 

How do you explain Lyle?

During the harvest, friends of Bjornestad’s remembered the kind and hard working nature of their friend. 

“How do you explain Lyle? He’s a great, great guy. I used to farm. He helped me. I work for the county. I’d take my vacation and I’d come help him,” Rowdy said. “He’s a great, great guy the whole family, John Brence, the whole thing. Couldn’t ask for any better family to come help, I know he’s helped everybody that’s here.”

Roger Beslanowitch would help Bjornestad once a year with the crop even though he’s retired. He remembered that his friend didn’t have to work either but he wanted to.

Beslanowitch remembered how much Bjornestad loved his family.

“He was such a family man. We shut down earlier the other day. I thought it was  because the beets were warm,” Beslanowitch said. “No, because [Bjornestad and Brence] wanted to go watch their granddaughters and daughters compete in a high school swim meet.”

Ryno Kunneka remembered Bjornestad as a teacher.

“He taught us a lot. I’ve only been here two years. But the stuff that he taught us is things that I’ll never forget,” Kunneka said. “And he was one of those guys that you always work until you get done with it. And it doesn’t matter how much of a bad day you had, he always put a smile on your face at the end of the day.”

Kunneka smiled when he remembered Bjornestad’s coffee cup that he was never without, except for when he would frequently misplace it. 

“He’d leave it on the digger and we’d go down the field and it would still be on the digger, it didn’t get run over or pulled in or anything,” Ryno said. “We drove about 2 miles down the road into another field and it was still on there and we jumped out and got it for him.”

If you ask those who knew Lyle to describe him, he was a man who loved what he did and loved his family and community very much.

“Four or five days ago, we got done in the evening time, and we’re tired, standing there waiting for the last truck,” Beslanowitch said. “I told Lyle, I said,  ‘I don’t know why I do this. I don’t have to. But I love it.’ He goes, ‘That’s why I do it, Roger, because I love it.’ He died doing what he loves.”