Gary Oldham

Samnorwood | Cotton Farmer

Under the company name, S.O.S. from Texas (Save Our Soils), Gary Oldham grows organic cotton in the eastern Panhandle, near Samnorwood, Texas, then has it ginned, spun, woven, and assembled as t-shirts. He sells the t-shirts wholesale and retail, either as plain shirts or as ones with custom decoration. With this integrated, value-added business and organic product, Mr. Oldham provides a model for sustainable agriculture, but continues to struggle with the vagaries of drought and low prices that his great-grandfather lamented in the poems he wrote in the 19th century.