Funeral services for 80-year old Mel Price of Alliance, NE, are Sat, Sept 17, 2022 at 2:00 at the Bates-Gould Chapel in Alliance.
Burial will be in the Hemingford Cemetery.
Visitation will be Friday, Sept 16, from 1-6 p.m. at the funeral home in Alliance.
Online condolences may be left at www.batesgould.com.
In lieu of monetary donations, Mel and the family request that your kindness to others be your memorial.
Melvyn Glenn Price was born at St. Joseph Hospital in Alliance on March 31, 1942 to Glenn Price and Pauline Ada (Estes) Price. He was a lifetime resident of Hemingford, NE and passed away Sept 14, 2022, following complications from heart surgery.
Mel attended and graduated from Hemingford High School in 1959. In school he was active in sports where he especially liked basketball, lettering in basketball and football. He also enjoyed one-act plays and friendships with other students.
After high school, Mel studied at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln. In his second year of college he met Joy Montgomery, who was a student at Union College in Lincoln; they were married March 28, 1961.
The following summer, Mel and Joy moved to Hemingford and purchased 160 acres of irrigated farmland. In 1969, they purchased a second farm of 400 irrigated acres. Crops raised through the years included: potatoes, sugarbeets, dry edible beans, barley, malt barley, wheat, corn, triticale, sunflowers, oats, millet, and alfalfa. They also had a few cows.
In 1974, they began developing a dairy hay market in the Loveland, CO, area. Later, they started an additional hay business by purchasing a semi-truck to transport hay and grain.
To supplement the farm income, Mel became a licensed and bonded grain dealer, buying, selling and hauling the commodities.
In 1976, the Alliance Jaycees chose Mel to represent Box Butte County as the Outstanding Young Farmer candidate at the Jaycees State Convention in Millard.
Mel was chosen the winner out of a field of 23 candidates and later competed for the national title at the National Farmer-Rancher Convention in Bismarck, ND.
Mel was a member of the Elks Lodge in Alliance, the Alliance Jaycees, and the Hemingford Seventh Day Adventist Church. His favorite bible text was John 21:3, “Simon Peter saith unto them, ‘I go a fishing’…”
The most exciting fishing adventure Mel had was in 1992 with two of his friends in Baja, Mexico, on the sea of Cortez near Los Barrilies.
There they pulled in a Blue Marlin weighing 1,200 pounds with a length of 17 feet and a girth of 78 inches. The marlin was processed and donated to the people of the little village of Los Barriles.
Mel is survived by his wife, Joy, daughter, Rae, a son and numerous relatives and friends.