By Mike Orso
Get to Know Randy Bauman
1. Favorite Food: Prime Rib
2. Favorite Holiday: Summer Solstice
3. Favorite Place to Eat in McHenry County: Rusty Nail Saloon, Ringwood
4. Favorite Crop/Animal I Raise: Corn
5. If I Wasn’t Farming I’d Be: A hunting guide in the Rocky Mountains
If he’s not busy putting in hours of shop time on his farm, you’ll likely find Randy Bauman on other ones in the area or in fields repairing agricultural equipment for some of the custom maintenance and repair clients he has acquired in his young career. The 27-year-old farmer has put his well-honed mechanical skills to valuable use for work and fun on and off the southwest McHenry County farm.
“When I was a kid I knew stats, kind of nerded out over machinery and farming,” said Bauman in his crowded shop on his family’s farm near Union. “My mom says, ‘You didn’t talk, and then all of sudden I just couldn’t find the off switch.’ I used to sit in the back of the car, and every tractor I saw, I pointed out. I could sit in the buddy seat of the combine all day long, staring out the window.”
In recent weeks, Bauman has spent much of his time repairing and preparing the machines that will soon roll, weather permitting, in his family’s fields of soybeans and corn located in Boone, DeKalb, Kane and McHenry Counties. Once fields dry out, most row crop farmers like the Bauman’s will harvest soybeans first, then corn.
“I’m the mechanic, service manager, parts-guy, I do all of it,” said Bauman, who also stays on call for his off-his-farm service clients. “I still want to farm too, so it’s not a full, full-time thing. Seasonally, right now, between the farm and customers, it’s a 6-7 day a week deal working on machinery.”
Bauman credits skilled trade learning opportunities provided during his time at Marengo High School for further developing his interest in farm equipment maintenance and repair. By the time he was a high school senior in 2016-17, he took advantage of a variety of mechanical, auto body and welding courses that eventually made up nearly half of each school day.
“I started the day with P.E. from 7 to 8 basically, and then I went and worked with my hands until about 1 o’clock, then regular school,” said Bauman. “I am thankful for that and I’m using that today.”
After high school, he spent two years in a diesel-specific mechanics program at Kishwaukee College in Malta, Ill. When his family sold its herd of dairy cattle in 2021, he went to work as a mechanic for Johnson Tractor, the Case IH, Kinze, New Holland and Kubota dealer in Harvard.
“I quickly realized the big company lifestyle wasn’t for me and the farm is where I wanted to be,” said Bauman. “I met a lot of people, a lot of farmers I did not know. I worked there for three-and-a-half years.”
His mechanical wizardry has come in handy for his competitive tractor pulling hobby too.
“I actually ended last year in the black tractor pulling,” he said. “A hobby usually doesn’t make you money, but somehow just by the Grace of God it did.”
In addition to the machinery-side of the family business, Randy and his father Ken, his mother Beth and sister Renee raise beef cattle, marketing most of it to local consumers. They also grow hay, selling most of it to the horse industry in McHenry and surrounding counties. Those now will become somewhat secondary, as the machines Randy has readied will take to the soybean and corn fields soon for harvest.
“The two things that we say we want as farmers that we need – heat and water – I think hurt us a little bit,” said Bauman on this year’s growing season for row crops. “Too much water when we got it. Then we had like 10 straight days where the nighttime low was only 78, so it was just hot right during pollination. So, those plants were just cooking.”
The long, upcoming hours spent on the combine harvesting or tractor hauling grain and oilseeds will also give him an opportunity to ponder the new role he’ll play as the youngest officer of the McHenry County Farm Bureau (MCFB) board of director’s executive committee. A member of the MCFB board since 2023, Bauman was recently elected the county organization’s secretary.
“I’m really, really happy with the county Farm Bureau,” said Bauman. “We got a good group of people.”
Despite the wetter-than-average September in northern Illinois, Bauman’s goal is to complete harvest the weekend before Thanksgiving.
“I hope harvest goes smooth,” he said. “I’m a little nervous about the weather because we’ve come off two really good weather years in terms of getting the work done.”
Randy Bauman works on the head of his combine that will soon harvest corn in one of his farm family’s fields in McHenry and three other surrounding counties. “If this year goes good I know for a fact next year won’t,” said Bauman. “Everything goes in threes.”
Randy Bauman, left, and his father Ken getting ready for harvest 2026. Ken’s grandfather and Randy’s great-grandfather, the late Erhardt Bauman, established the farm near Union.
Randy Bauman uses his mechanization expertise for work and fun. For fun, he continues to perfect his 1970s era International Harvester 1066 Farmall used for competitive tractor pulling. For work, he’s the go-to guy on his farm and for several other area farmers. “My saying is, ‘It’s fixed, not worked on,’” he said. “So, I’m going to do it once, and I’m going to do it right. My customers have begun to realize and respect that. I don’t have a business card, I don’t have a flier, I don’t have a website, I don’t have a Facebook page. It has all been word of mouth.”
Randy Bauman and his diesel-powered International Harvester 1066 Farmall compete in the farm stock category at area tractor pulls like this one at the Boone County Fair. Time limited his pulls to two this year, but he has competed in dozens in years past. (Photo by Beth Bauman)