Tim Lyden celebrated his 78th birthday Thursday, March 20, on the first day of spring, a fitting day for a lifelong farmer and agriculture educator, who enjoys the promise for growth and new life that this season brings each year.
Together with his wife of 53 years, Mary, the rural Bellefontaine couple has spent many decades carefully tending to soil health in Logan County, putting into practice regenerative no-till methods, raising cover crops, growing pollinator plots and implementing rotational grazing.
They also have worked together for many years to raise beef cattle and sheep, including some recent late nights spent in the barn during lambing season, helping new mother ewes and lambs find their footing. Tim and Mary have been members of the Logan County and Ohio Sheep Improvement Associations for more than 50 years.
Since their marriage in 1971, the couple’s farm operation has now grown to three generations pitching in, including strong support from their children, Dan Lyden, T.J. (Kae Lynn) Lyden and Jennifer Brown; and four grandsons, Bryce Schmidt, Carson and Carter Lyden and Cayden Brown.
Lyden Family Farms has been named the Bellefontaine Examiner’s Farm Family of the Year for 2025, recognizing their legacy and impact on the local agriculture community, along with the promising future for the farming operation, which son Dan and grandson Carson hope to take over in the upcoming years.
Their farm along east State Route 47 a few miles from Bellefontaine is bustling with activity around 4:30 in the afternoon, once their children are off work from their respective jobs. Dan also works for Scotts Miracle-Gro Company in Marysville, while T.J. works for Bambauer Fertilizer in Jackson Center, Kae Lynn is employed at Benjamin Logan Schools and Jennifer has enjoyed a longtime career at Honda.
Before the family settled on this property and built their house in 1997, the picturesque spot on the rolling hills of Logan County was pasture land. The property came up for sale and the couple could envision growing their farm on this serene spot.
In early 1997, a barn was raised quickly on their newly purchased property and was completed even before the house. Dan recalls the tight timing of their home being constructed.
“It was completed in May of 1997, just before my graduation from Benjamin Logan High School,” he said.
“We had his graduation party here out in the brand new garage, and then people wanted to come in for tours of the house, too,” said Mary, age 80, who in addition to tending to the farm spent a long career as a surgical nurse at Mary Rutan Hospital, retiring around 2001.
Both Tim and Mary were raised in farming families, with the former Mary Longbrake growing up on a farm in Union County, and Tim’s grandfather working as a farmer near North Lewisburg. He said his cousin still runs that farm operation today.
Following Tim’s college graduation in 1969, he moved to the Logan County area to begin teaching vocational agriculture at Logan Hills (which later consolidated with other area schools to form the Benjamin Logan School District).
Soon after moving to the area, he organized the Logan East Young Farmers with the help of Don K. Miller. At a fateful Young Farmers meeting, Harold Longbrake asked Tim if he’d like to take his sister, Mary, out on a blind date.
“Six months later, Mary and I were married in 1971,” Tim said. “We remember being rather in awe of couples who had been married for 50 years. It’s hard to believe we’ve now joined their ranks.”
In the spring that followed their wedding, the Lydens began farming with the purchase of 20 bred ewes. They also made hay on shares of land using borrowed equipment. Two years later, they purchased their first farm and expanded their flock to 50 ewes, while Tim was teaching school as well.
During 1976, the couple purchased a larger farm of 150 acres around the corner. They grew mostly hay and had their flock of sheep, with a goal of raising 100 ewes on their new farm.
However, the family’s farming story has not been without major challenges, with the tough economic times of the 1980s causing the Lydens to sell their previous farm and to take a break from owning a farm for about 10 years.
“Years rolled by and the farm depression of the 80s came along,” Tim said. “I changed jobs and sold the farm, moving to Camp Myeerah to start all over.”
The family enjoyed managing Camp Myeerah in eastern Logan County for about 10 years and they lived in a house on the property. Tim also went back to teaching agriculture. But they couldn’t escape their love of farming and raising animals.
Tim said his boys wanted to raise sheep again, so he purchased some polypays. The father and his sons also began making hay again and they acquired some equipment.
Their return to farming dreams were further realized when the opportunity to purchase their property on S.R. 47 came to fruition, and the former pastureland is now the Lyden’s beloved homestead.
Around this time, the family also had the opportunity to rent a 235-acre farm and started raising row crops.
Currently, Lyden Family Farms owns and rents about 400 acres, stretching from around their property to Rushsylvania and north to Belle Center. They raise cash crops of corn, soybeans and wheat, along with hay, cover crops and pasture ground for livestock feed. In recent years, they also have experimented with growing sunflowers as well.
Dan moved back to the Logan County area after living out of state, and he resides nearby his parents on C.R. 25. He loves raising livestock and is heavily involved in that part of the operation, along with other aspects as well.
Caring for the animals is enjoyable for Dan, along with studying breeding genetics and determining combinations to get the best beef possible.
“The genetics and the science behind it are so fascinating,” he said last week, while tending to the cattle in the barn and outdoors.
The farm currently has 32 beef cows and calves, along with 30 ewes and lambs. They hope to have a closed herd soon in terms of their cattle. Weaned calves are fed out with a few heifers held back as replacements.
From a young age, grandson Carson has helped on the farm, and recently has expressed a desire to become at least a part-time farmer. He is currently studying at OSU’s Agricultural Technical Institute in Wooster.
The 20-year-old also owns 10 ewes of his own and intends to grow the flock to 50.
“Mary and I intend to phase out and let the two boys (Dan and Carson) take over the farming operation,” Tim said.
In addition to Tim’s influence on his son and grandson’s love of farming and agriculture, his teaching career spanned multiple decades and touched many young lives with his passion for the ag industry as well.
Following his four years at Logan Hills/Benjamin Logan, Tim then spent six years at West Liberty-Salem Schools. He quit teaching for a time to farm, and later returned to the profession, spending 19 years teaching vo ag classes at Riverside Schools. He concluded his teaching career by helping to restart the ag program at Jackson Center Schools for four years, retiring in 2010.
“Jackson Center had been without an ag program for 39 years,” Tim recalled. “It was so fun working there; it was like when I first started teaching. There was so much enthusiasm and excitement.
“There weren’t any textbooks at first, and I got to just teach from my experience and the students were so receptive and willing to learn.”
The longtime teacher is an honorary member of those four FFA Chapters and also serves on the advisory committee of two of the chapters as well.
Tim and Mary are members of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Bellefontaine and Tim has served on the Parish Council for two terms and taught CCD for five years.
The couple also worked with area youths as 4-H advisers in Logan County for eight years and served several terms on the Logan County Extension Advisors.
Tim is currently serving his 24th year on the Logan County Soil and Water Conservation District and is in his second year on the Ohio No-Till Council, where he is the chairman of the scholarship committee.
Lyden Family Farms is proud of the impact that they’ve had on Logan County and their regenerative farming practices, which will help provide a solid foundation and a sustainable future for the next generation.
“Our main goal today is to make what we have here on the farm healthy, by practicing the five principles of soil health – low disturbance, always covering the soil, keeping living roots in the soil, diversifying covers and putting livestock on the land to develop healthy soil,” Tim said of the farming methods, which mimic nature by bringing biology back to the soil.
“We’re trying to do a good job with these blessings that we’ve been given.”
