Leeper’s roots of service stretch to Revolutionary War

DECATUR, Ill. — The Leeper family’s commitment to service stretches far beyond their central Illinois farm where they settled in the 1840s.

“My family has a very rich military history. I’ve had an ancestor in about every conflict that this country has been in going all the back to the Revolutionary War. So, it was just kind of a calling to keep the family legacy of service going, as well as the patriotism of wanting to serve,” Evan Leeper, a sixth-generation farmer, said.

Leeper continued that tradition, serving in the Illinois Army National Guard from 2013 until his honorable discharge in 2021.

He graduated from Sangamon Valley High School in 2012 and attended Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield for two semesters. He went to basic training at Fort Benning, now Fort Moore, in west-central Georgia in fall of 2013 as an infantryman.

“With the National Guard, I was able to farm while I was still serving,” Leeper said.

“I deployed with my unit, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 130th Infantry Regiment, out of Effingham in 2020 to the Middle East, and we were primarily in Bahrain doing security operations with the Navy. We were there for about six months, and with all of our travel time we were gone for a total of nine months that year.”

Family Farm

The Leepers grow corn, soybeans and wheat and raise hay for their own cattle and horses as well as for other horse owners in the area.

They raise Angus background beef cattle for freezer beef and sell Wyffels corn and Brevant corn and soybeans.

“I farm with my my father, Tom Leeper, and my brother-in-law, Nathan Doty. He married my sister, Jenna, in 2021 and started farming with us that year,” Evan Leeper said. “My older brother, Jarred, is a fifth-grade teacher at Maroa-Forsyth.”

“About 80% of the ground we farm is in Macon County, about 10% in Christian County and around 10% in DeWitt County,” he added.

Advocating Ag

Leeper’s commitment to service has since extended from his family’s farm to the halls of Congress.

“I was part of IL Corn’s GrassRoots Orientation to Washington, D.C., or GR.O.W., program in 2025. I went to Washington with them in February of 2025 to meet our representatives and senators,” he said.

“It was a good experience there, and I’ve been active with IL Corn, doing interviews with them or going to advocate for corn growers whenever they asked me to.”

Leeper was also among the recipients of the Illinois Soybean Association’s top 20 Under 40 Award this year.

The ISA program recognizes young farmers who push boundaries in the field and beyond it. They lead with integrity, serve with purpose and understand that success isn’t just about yields; it’s about responsibility, sustainability and legacy.

“It’s great to advocate for the job that you do. I believe there’s a lot of misinformation in the ag space right now about how we do things out here. So, any chance I can get to tell my side of the story, I like to do that,” Leeper said.

Harvest

The Leepers were in the middle of harvest when AgriNews met Evan on Oct. 20 near Harristown.

He said corn yields are reflecting the wet June and hot July.

“We had a very wet June which ended up coming back to bite. We talked to our agronomist at Wyffels, and they were also seeing the effect of the warm July nights that we had this year with a record number of nights over 80 degrees, so the corn didn’t get a chance to rest very much,” he said.

“What we’ve seen this fall is if you had a well-drained field, the later planted corn is doing better than fields that you might have had water standing on. So, any well-drained field is doing above average for us, and any field with a lot of ponds on it, that hurt the corn yield average. That’s kind of the trend now.

“We’ve had really good soybeans this year. We were able to get a lot of our beans out at 12% to 13% moisture. That definitely helped, but it’s just been a very good soybean year this year.”

As for the harvest progress, the Leepers have dealt with some challenges.

“We’ve had our fair share of equipment issues this fall. We were doing really well for the first 60% of our harvest, and we’ve kind of been stumbling some here in the back half. We had an auger issue on our 7120 Case combine, and then we had a small fire on our 8250 Case combine,” the farmer said.

“The combine we’re riding in now is a rental from Central Illinois Ag to get the year finished. The last half of harvest has been pretty challenging when it comes to machinery.”