Mark Tuttle elected new IFB director

DeKalb County Farm Bureau President Mark Tuttle has another title to add to his resume. This month he was elected as the new Illinois Farm Bureau director for District 1 at the organization’s annual meeting.

“I am honored to be elected to the Illinois Farm Bureau Board of Directors and will do my best to represent Farm Bureau members in District 1,” Tuttle said in a news release.

He also pledged to “have a voice for area farmers and agriculture at the state level.”

District 1 includes the counties of DeKalb, Kane, Lake and McHenry. Tuttle replaces previous director Michelle Aavang from McHenry County, according to the release. The meeting was held Dec. 8 in Chicago.

Tuttle has been president of the DeKalb County Farm Bureau for eight years and has been a county director for 18 years, according to the release. He also serves as president of the DeKalb County Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture.

He has held leadership positions with the state Farm Bureau having served as Resolutions Committee chairman and as a member of several committees.

He also was a Leaders to Washington participant, an American Farm Bureau delegate, and a graduate of Farm Bureau’s Ag Leaders of Tomorrow program.

Tuttle is from Somonauk and farms with his two sons growing corn, soybeans, wheat, sweet corn and peas in southern DeKalb County, and he owns a trucking business. He has five adult children and one grandson.

Tuttle joins an Illinois Farm Bureau Board consisting of 20 farmer directors from throughout the state.

It’s been more than two decades since a DeKalb County Farm Bureau president served on the farm bureau Board, according to the release, when Allan Aves of Kirkland was the District 1 IFB director from 1985 to 1997. E.E. Houghtby of Shabbona was on the IFB Board in 1934.