Staff writer
Suzanne Blount Hubele pictured herself becoming a Marine after graduating from Marion High School in 1996. Life took her elsewhere.
Hubele was awarded a Marine ROTC scholarship up to $80,000.
“I received a scholarship but in my junior year at the University of Kansas, I was medically disqualified,” she said.
Her time in ROTC was not wasted.
“The Marine Corps taught me a lot of discipline,” Hubele said. “I was very disappointed, but you pick yourself up and go on.”
After she returned home, she worked in an agricultural business, where she met her future husband, Thad Hubele.
“I moved to Gypsum when I got married in 2002,” she said.
Now she and her husband are building their second successful business in Gypsum.
Their first business was Gypsum Valley Outdoor Sports.
“We started a very successful sporting goods store in October 2003, and sold it in November 2014,” Hubele said.
The Hubeles now have a farm and sell a wide assortment of produce, flowers, eggs, Longhorn cattle, goat meat, and plants on 20 acres.
Hubele Farms sells direct to consumers and through market stores.
Among their offerings are tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, turnips, beets, onions, radishes, potatoes, and basic bedding plants.
“Since I sell cut flowers, I sell some of the extras,” she said.
They go to farmers markets in Wichita, Salina, and Gypsum, and will soon have a permanent location in Gypsum.
“We’re going to bring this place up,” she said.
“We had a place that was 20 acres before, and when we sold the shop we moved to his grandparent’s farm,” she said. “We decided to quit the big commercial agriculture thing. Between hail and everything else, we decided to take a good look at what we were doing and how to make a living.”
Clearly, she wouldn’t trade anything for the life she’s living.
“It’s been a wild ride,” she said.