FarmersOnly couple falls in love and invents the @FarmersOnly #shoutout
PEPPER PIKE, Ohio,Jan. 22, 2014/PRNewswire-iReach/ --If you happen to be at a restaurant, bar or other venue where a TV is on anywhere in the Midwest, and you hear a group of folks yell out "FarmersOnly!" don’t be surprised. Elizabeth and Artie, a couple who met on the FarmersOnly dating site for farmers, ranchers and country folks, started this trend. And the next time a FarmersOnly commercial airs on TV or radio, you might find yourself joining in.
Elizabeth hails from Alabama, where she grew up spending half her time with her mother in town and the other half on her father’s dairy farm. “I remember getting up at 3 in the morning to help on the farm and even on Christmas, I was working insteading of opening presents. Now looking back it makes me appreciate what my dad did for others that day: Dad was not the regular milker, but he would give the others the holiday off to spend with their families and he would make the sacrifice. That’s what being a farmer means to me.”
And those values of hard work, sacrifice and love are what she wanted to find in a partner and why she turned to FarmersOnly.
Elizabeth explains how she first found out about FarmersOnly. “My friend was on there and told me about it and I thought it just narrowed it down to a type of person that I would like to spend my life with. It was the first dating website I ever tried and Artie was the first guy I ever talked to on the phone.”
FarmersOnly.com was founded in 2005 by Jerry Miller, an advertising executive in the agriculture industry, because a farmer friend of his could not find anyone to date on the mainstream dating sites. FarmersOnly.com promises an online community of like-minded, down-to-earth folks from all corners of rural America who seek lifetime partners and friends connected to agriculture and the country.
Artie comes from a corn and soybean farm background. His family resides in Ohio but he found his way to Colorado.“These Rocky Mountains, they are something else. We don’t have mountains like this back in Ohio.” The lifestyle captivated him, and he stayed.
Artie had a friend that had been using a different dating site and Artie decided for himself that he wanted to try one. “I didn’t want to try the one he was doing. I had seen the commercial for FarmersOnly.com on television so I put my profile up. Everybody made fun of me for it. But, hey, they really mean it when they sing that jingle, ‘You don’t have to be lonely at FarmersOnly.com!’”
So what drew him to the site FarmersOnly...besides the catchy jingle? "I feel it narrowed it down some. It’s an overwhelming experience and when you narrow it down to the type of person you are looking for it helps out a lot.”
Both Elizabeth and Artie started using the site in 2012 and quickly came across one another. They started off messaging, and then Artie ended up giving Elizabeth his number.
“Our first conversation wasn’t very long, but after that we started to stay on the phone for like 3 hours a night, 6 days a week, and we couldn’t stop talking to each other,” says Elizabeth.
It was in September 2012 that Elizabeth made the first trip out to see Artie in Denver.
Elizabeth had some friends there who joined her to meet Artie at a local restaurant for dinner.
“I had a good word for my friends and a bad word just in case I didn’t want to be left alone with him,” Elizabeth jokes. “One word was an escape word and the other was an ‘we are okay you can leave now’ word.” Her good word was ‘bulldogs’ and midway through the dinner she commented, “So ya’ll been keeping up with the Georgia Bulldogs?”
Artie laughs. “I thought it was very strange that people from Alabama, all of whom had Alabama Crimson Tide gear on, were talking about the Georgia Bulldogs!”
The couple spent the next three days together, followed by another trip by Elizabeth to Colorado in October. When their first Christmas together came around, Artie planned to fly to Alabama to spend the special day with Elizabeth, but he could not get tickets. The couple spent the holiday skyping instead.
Artie finally made it to Alabama the next March to meet Elizabeth’s family. In June, Elizabeth packed herself up and made the 1,400 mile move from Alabama to her new home in Colorado.
For all the lonely folks out there the couple advises: “Don’t narrow your search down to a specific distance because the reason you are on FarmersOnly is for you to find someone that is ‘new’ for you and not your next door neighbor.”
The couple blurts out everywhere they go that they found each other on FarmersOnly.
Artie jokes, “we give random shout outs to FarmersOnly for making this all possible.” Whenever the TV or radio is on and a commercial comes on, we stop what we are doing and yell out ‘FarmersOnly’! At first, people found it odd. But now they know...it’s important!”
Feel free to share your #shoutout with us on Twitter (@FarmersOnly) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/farmersonly) whenever you get the urge!
Media Contact:
Nicole Stivers
, FarmersOnly Media Inc.,
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SOURCE FarmersOnly Media Inc.