A 42-year career in the sugarbeet industry is drawing to a close for Cal Jones; and it’s ending, to his great satisfaction, not far from where it started.
    Jones is retiring April 1 as president and CEO of Worland-based Wyoming Sugar Company, LLC.  As the crow flies, Worland is just 65 miles from Powell, where he grew up.  His career has taken him to Montana, Texas, Colorado, back to Texas — and then, in 2002, home to Wyoming.  During that time, he has successively served as a sugar company agriculturist, agricultural manager, byproduct sales director, vice president of agriculture, vice president-commodities and company president/CEO.
    But Jones’ earliest sugarbeet memories come from fields east of Powell.  His uncle, Earl Jones (father of Terry Jones, a former American Sugarbeet Growers Association president), grew beets, and Cal worked for him.  “Terry and I have many memories of working side-by-side at various farming activities,” he says.
    “My most vivid memories are of when we decided we could make some ‘easy money’ thinning beets (with short-handle hoes) like the ‘nationals’ (migrants), who made it look easy.  We were definitely wrong — but had to complete the task we had agreed to perform!”
    Setting irrigation tubes is another seared memory from that north central Wyoming youth during the ’50s and ’60s.  As any veteran irrigator understands, “we not only had to move the tubes to the head ditch, but had to pick them up and move them farther down the ditch for the next set.  That farm enterprise needed more irrigation tubes!”
    Following high school, Cal received an agricultural scholarship to Northwest Community College in Powell, where he earned an associate degree in general agriculture.  He continued his education at the University of Wyoming, earning a B.S. degree in crop science.