Petaluma veteran, farmer has built a legacy in city

Jack Krout, 92, owned Krout’s Pheasant Farm, which was No. 11 on the map of the 133 original members of Sonoma County Farm Trails.|

When Jack and Verna Krout, both 92, moved to their rural property on Skillman Lane in 1960, they knew Jack would be living away from home for much of the time until he completed his career as a pilot in the U.S. Air Force. For the next 14 years, as Jack rose to the rank of colonel, Verna maintained the household and managed the operation of their pheasant farm, but their story began much earlier in their native state of Montana.

As a young man growing up in the undisturbed wilderness of the Bitterroot Valley region of Montana, Jack seemed to have his future all planned out. He would follow in his father’s footsteps as a forest ranger with the U.S. Forest Service, a goal he was working toward when he enrolled at the University of Montana in Missoula.

But life doesn’t always follow a plan, especially for healthy 18-year-old males during wartime, so he enlisted in the Army Air Corps to avoid being drafted. He didn’t mind being sent to Texas and to Nebraska, where he was to be trained as an aircraft mechanic, but he really missed seeing the prettiest girl he’d ever met and had fallen in love with, a journalism student at the university, Verna Brackman.

After deciding to become a pilot, but not realizing that much of World War II was going to be fought in the air, Jack was sent to aviation cadet training in Alabama, from which he graduated as a second-lieutenant with a multi-engine rating and “wings on my chest.” He then went to Helena, Montana, where he proposed marriage to Verna, but only after asking her father, Otto Brackman, a future mayor of Helena, for his daughter’s hand.

The couple was married April 24, 1945, just weeks before he was to be sent to fight in the Pacific as a crewman aboard a B-24 bomber. Thankfully the war ended as he was headed for Japan making him instead a member of the occupation forces in Tokyo. Joined by his wife, Jack spent more than two years living in Japan before being transferred to Hamilton Air Force Base near Novato in 1948.

The couple rented a place in Petaluma, an easy commute for Jack, who was flying the P-61 black widow out of Hamilton. He was then sent to McChord Air Force Base, where he flew the F-82 Twin Mustang for two years before returning for his second of five assignments at Hamilton, serving as protocol officer.

Another transfer relocated Jack, his wife and three sons, Doug, Terry and Rick (before son Kim was born), to Germany where he was assigned to help rebuild the German Air Force. He was promoted to major, and the family lived on an old duck farm near Novato when they returned in 1958.

When a near-perfect seven-acre parcel of land went up for sale on Skillman Lane in 1960, the Krouts imagined it would be a perfect spot to raise a family and small flock of ring-necked pheasants. The pheasants quickly multiplied and the demand for them began to grow. With Jack serving his country in Alaska, Colorado, Texas, Florida and Diyarbaker, Turkey, Verna began selling the birds to hunting clubs, dog trainers and Matzen Shipping Line.

In 1973, a group of local small farmers devised a plan to boost sales by bringing the public directly to their ranches, orchards, Christmas tree farms and other agricultural enterprises. The idea blossomed into Sonoma County Farm Trails, with Krout’s Pheasant Farm listed as No. 11 on the map of the 133 original members. Soon, customers figured out they could come to the ranch to place orders, take tours and view the egg-to-table operation first-hand often under the watchful eye of the family’s Australian Shepherd, Max, whose presence kept the visitors from wandering off.

“It was a great way to enjoy life,” said Col. Krout, who retired from the service in 1974 after 32 years. “The people I’m closest to in Petaluma are the ones I’ve met through Farm Trails and the Gravenstein Apple Fair.”

Hauling his cargo in a 20-foot, fifth-wheel trailer, Jack delivered up to 2,000 pheasants at a time to cities in California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Utah. In addition to raising 20,000 Mongolian ringneck pheasants a year, the pheasant farm also raised 17 species of ornamental pheasants and five species of wild turkeys. The Krouts retired from the business about 20 years ago.

“I couldn’t be happier with the way things turned out,” explained the bright, engaging and humorous Jack, an avid reader who has nearly completed reading the 100 greatest books ever written, Walt Whitman excluded. “I was absent a lot and Verna did an outstanding job raising the boys. She became a 4-H leader and so much more. We’ve never regretted, not for one moment ever, moving to Petaluma.”

(Harlan Osborne’s column Toolin’ Around Town appears every two weeks. Contact him at harlan@sonic.net.)

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