Pat Flaming Byers
I am married to Jack Byers, owner of Byers’ Ag Services located in West Central Illinois and East Missouri. The company empties pits under large hog buildings and disks it into the farmers’ fields using large tractors pulling 63,000 gallon tanks or running a drag-line over the fields. We are both OSU graduates. I received an Elementary Educational teaching degree which I later changed to K-12 when I moved to Illinois and registered for a teaching certificate. I added additional Art and Physical Education classes via a community college as a needed relief after having twins, Carl and Andrea, and another daughter, Denise, within 15 months. My first child, William, and my last child, Cristofer, bring the total amount of children to 5 . I work as a substitute teacher in 4 local area schools as well as a home tutor and art teacher. We are also blessed with 14 grandchildren.

My favorite and most feared teacher was: Miss Spencer - loved because of her method and consistency of teaching and feared that I would fail to turn in her daily due work which would lower my grade. Something you have done that no one would believe: I home-schooled my last 4 chilldren (K-12th). Something you did that your parents did not know: My dad told me not to talk to strangers but one evening I went to dinner with a friend and there were no places to sit. A guy with 2 other friends asked us to join them (my friend said she had met him before). He asked us our names and when he heard my last name, he asked if I knew Ed Flaming and I said he was my father. This man had worked with my dad and I asked him not to tell him about talking to a stranger. Two of life’s twists: We moved 14 times in the first 7 years of our marriage. This picture is of my son who plays the bagpipes beautifully for many Scottish occasions in several states. At tthe age of 9 he went totthe piano and played an entire piece, having never taken a lesson in his life. I asked him where he learned too play and he said he had “watchedd” his sister play the piece. Then and there I decided he needed lessons and he chose the bagpipes which are increddibly difficult to play.