Merv Schliefert

By LORI POTTER
Hub Staff Writer

KEARNEY - After his discharge from active duty with the U.S. Army in 1959, Merv Schliefert wanted to be an agricultural missionary.

He already had a bachelor's degree in animal husbandry from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, but he enrolled at Iowa State University in Ames to study animal breeding because he thought it would be valuable knowledge for his missionary work.

Then, Schliefert and his wife, Bev, learned that they weren't accepted for the job. Although they never were told why, Schliefert said, "I always thought one reason was there just was not enough money for all the applicants. So one of my life ambitions was to get funding for that."

Over the years, he has volunteered on finance committees and for fund-raising activities for many projects of the United Methodist Church, Habitat for Humanity and as a member of the Good Samaritan Hospital Foundation.

For that work and other service to his church, community and health care causes, Schliefert has been named the recipient of the 2003 Kearney Hub Humanitarian Freedom Award.

It was a minor part of his college education - just as single undergraduate class in appraisals during his grad school years at ISU - that opened the door to a career and the knowledge to advise groups in financial matters.

Initially, he worked as a field man for what was then Equitable Life Assurance and later would become Equitable Agribusiness. Schliefert was with the company from 1964 until retiring in 1985, and worked in Grand Island, Norfolk, Chicago, Atlanta, Ga., and finally in Kearney.

"It was a one-man show" at the field offices, he said. He took agribusiness and commercial loan applications, handled the financial checks and appraisals, and then sent the information to the central office for approval.

He was promoted to assistant regional manager in Chicago and then another management position in Atlanta, Ga., before coming to Kearney in 1983. "We thought it was a good opportunity to get back to Nebraska," Schliefert said.

His mother and mother-in-law moved in 1985 to St. Luke's Good Samaritan Village, where he served on the advisory board for many years.

He's given up his appraiser license but continues as a Legislative Committee member of the Nebraska Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, which he had served as president.

His early career included time as a county extension agent in training at Auburn, where he and Bev met; active military service with the U.S. Army from 1957-1959; Army reservist for 29 years; and a county field man with the Farm Bureau at Clarinda, Iowa, for three years.

Although he never was a full-time missionary, Schliefert has helped organize missions trips, including one in February 2002 to El Paso, Texas. The Kearney group did maintenance and repair work at the Lydia Patterson Institute, which is one of the few United Methodist Church high schools. Schliefert once was on its board.

"I'm not a very skilled workman," Schliefert said, so he used his talents as a photographer and a "go-for" during the trip.

Those are the same roles he accepts for Kearney Habitat for Humanity projects, along with the chairmanship of the Church Relations Committee. He said the goal is to have the area churches contribute food, devotions and the money to build at least one house in the community every two years.

The next church build will begin Saturday.

Knee problems have kept Schliefert off job sites the past year. However, he has continued to serve on foundation boards.

He said his role on the Good Samaritan Hospital Foundation Board is to "ask questions the public might ask if they looked at those (financial) statements."

A family interest led him to volunteer with the local chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. He is a past chapter president and is trying to assemble a resource guide for families.

"Part of the problem is it's not something people want to talk about," he said about mental illness. He has found that some service agencies don't know about each other.

Nominator Ken Mumm realized the scope of Schliefert's public service when Mumm was president of the Kearney chapter of Habitat for Humanity in 2001-2002.

"I could never get Merv available (for meetings) because he was always going to this or that," Mumm said. Once Mumm saw the list of those projects, "it clicked in my head that it is almost a full-time job. I just don't get the sense that Merv does all that for him. ... He wants to help in any way possible."

Schliefert said he learned community service from his mother, who was volunteer secretary at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Omaha.

"I don't think anybody should retire completely and sit and watch TV," he said. "As long as you're able, you should be contributing something to your church or a community organization."

e-mail to:
lori.potter@kearneyhub.com