(Oregon Right to Life) — Max Sherman’s grandfather always said the family’s history went “way back.” And with deep roots in his community, Max also has a generational connection to agriculture. Like the wholesome produce this Oregon farmer grows, harvests, and gives away, Max Sherman continues to enrich the North Coast area he calls home.
When Maxson (Max) Sherman was just seven years old, his family moved from the small coastal dairy community of Ferndale, California, to Canby, Oregon, where they had purchased a dairy farm. Young Max grew up helping on the farm and showing cows at the Clackamas County Fair.
It was at one of those fairs that he would meet his high school sweetheart, Lynda, who was attending the rival high school, Molalla High, while also competing in showing her family’s dairy cows.
“The first year we met, I was paying more attention to the cows than her, and I beat her. The next year, I was paying more attention to her than the cows, and she beat me,” Sherman said, laughing. “Priorities changed.”
Change of Plans
After graduating from Canby High School, Sherman started attending Oregon State University, majoring in Agricultural Education. He and Lynda became engaged when he was a sophomore and she was a freshman, with plans to get married in two years – when Lynda would transfer from Clackamas Community College to OSU.
But their well thought-out plans for college and the future would soon be upended. Although their “intent was to wait till marriage,” Sherman said, they “got a little ahead of things.”
“Lynda suspected that she might be pregnant. And a trip to her doctor confirmed it,” he said. During her appointment, Lynda was appalled when she was immediately encouraged to schedule an abortion so she could “get on with your life, continue with school,” he recalled.
“It was really shocking to Lynda,” Sherman said. “For us, that was not an option. We knew we wanted kids, [it] just happened a little sooner than we planned.”
Three weeks later the two married – ahead of schedule and with years of college still to go. Fast-forwarding their wedding plans and managing an unexpected pregnancy wasn’t easy, but they were grateful to have the support of each other, their family, and their faith.
“Both Lynda and I, our faith is first and foremost in our lives,” he said. “It’s been a major part of who we are.”
“We both decided that we were gonna make things work, and we were gonna both try to stay in school,” he explained. “We knew there’d be some challenges. Lynda was due the week following finals that spring. Our son decided to make an entrance the week before finals.”
“Crash Course in Parenthood”
Sherman described the ensuing months as “a crash course in parenthood.” He and Lynda would “meet between classes in different parking lots across campus and then trade our son off.” They relied on the generosity and flexibility of professors who could help them manage classes and exams around caring for their newborn, who they named Rick.
Their hard work and ingenuity paid off.
“That following spring, I graduated on time,” Sherman said. “I was fortunate to land a teaching job out at Tillamook High School… having an income definitely helped. Lynda continued on with her senior year, and graduated on time the following year.”
And while the doctor’s office staff had seemed to assume that Lynda’s pregnancy would disrupt her college plans, Lynda “not only graduated on time, she graduated the top ten of the school of Ag[riculture], with all that there was on her plate,” he said.
They would go on to have two more children. Lynda was eight months pregnant with their second child when she graduated: a daughter they named Cassandra. Two years later, their third child, Michael, was born.
Sherman taught at Tillamook High School for four years, then took a position at Canby High School, where he and Lynda had graduated. Going back to Canby enabled them to raise their children how they wanted: surrounded by family and the agricultural lifestyle they both loved.
“[W]e got a chance to head back home and raise our kids next door to my parents’ dairy,” he said. “They could jump the fence and help feed calves. And later on, haul hay and drive the tractor. I wouldn’t have traded that for the world.”
From Canby, to Tillamook, to Africa
Sherman would teach at Canby High School for 20 years before going back to Tillamook, where he would complete his career as an educator. From start to finish, his career spanned 35 years and saw him teaching agriculture, welding, and biology, and serving as an advisor for Future Farmers of America (FFA) – a role that took him and the whole family to county fairs all across the state.
He mentored hundreds of students, was a national finalist for the FFA Agri-Science Teacher of the Year award, and was honored as Tillamook County’s Educator of the Year.
It was a career that featured a lot of variety.
“There’s just a lot to Ag,” Sherman said. “I mean, one class period I could be working with some of the latest biotechnology and growing roses in a test tube. And the next period, I could be out of the shop working with kids on a 1939 John Deere tractor.”
And the impact of Sherman’s teaching would extend far beyond Oregon’s borders.
After receiving an impromptu phone call asking for his help with a group of teachers from Namibia, he took action and began building nationally recognized programs with teachers and students in Namibia as well as Kenya, Rwanda, and Swaziland. In Namibia, they also spearheaded a reading project, ultimately stocking classrooms with around 20,000 pounds of books.
For Sherman, some of the most important impacts of the work in Africa were the personal connections forged between students – bridging nearly 10,000 miles of distance and huge cultural differences.
“My students were emailing, communicating with kids in Namibia, which was just phenomenal,” he said. “Probably one of the biggest values was – between talking about agriculture – the kids were chit-chatting about their life and just kind of learning about culture and what kids were like in Africa and what kids were like in Tillamook and Canby.”
Beyond email, Sherman and some of the students even got to travel to Namibia. The memory of those experiences remains strong to this day.
“The five that got to spend some time in Namibia – I call them kids, they’re all in their forties now – I’ll run into one of them and it’s never, ‘Hi, Mr. Sherman, how’re you doing?’ It’s, ‘Hi Mr. Sherman, remember Namibia?” he said.
Retired, But Not Slowing Down
Sherman is retired, now, with all three kids grown up. He and Lynda are the proud grandparents of eight grandchildren. But retirement doesn’t mean they’ve slowed down.
He and his family have continued to cultivate their own vegetables and raise their own poultry, participating in the local farmer’s market and donating thousands of pounds of produce and poultry per year to food pantries and churches across the community – that includes providing the turkeys for church Thanksgiving dinners.
Sherman also continues to mentor young people, including homeschooling groups. He helped two of his grandchildren develop technical skills and entrepreneurship by teaching them to weld. With his assistance, the two boys started a business creating artistic metalwork from horseshoes – a successful venture that helped the boys fund their 4-H archery hobby.
Lately, in honor of the 250th anniversary of the United States, Sherman felt the desire to learn more about his family’s heritage. That’s when he discovered that his grandfather’s claim that his family’s history goes “way back” was not hyperbole: Relatives on his father’s side can trace their roots to early 17th century landings at Plymouth Rock and Massachusetts.
“So Grandpa’s ‘way back…’ yep, it does go ‘way back,’” he chuckled.
Today, Max and Lynda have been married for 47 years. Their first son, Rick, now serves as the pastor of Village Missions Church in Lookingglass, near Roseburg, and has been chaplain of the local fire department since 2023. Like his parents, Rick also married his high school sweetheart, and they have three children. Cassandra served in the U.S. Army and now lives in Kentucky. Their youngest, Michael, is an attorney, and he and his wife have five children.
