Wayne (1946- ) and Sandy (1945- ) Cryts are natives of Puxico, Missouri, a farming community in Southeast Missouri. They spent their formative years on their respective family farms and became partners in the Cryts family farm operation after they married in 1964. In 1978, the Cryts became involved with the American Agriculture Movement (AAM), a farm organization dedicated to implementing 100 percent of parity for agricultural products. AAM lobbied the American public and the United States Congress to support parity, arguing that it would compensate farmers for their increasing production costs, providing them with a living wage, thereby saving countless American family farms from financial ruin. The Cryts participated in the movement’s national tractorcades to Washington D.C. in 1978 and 1979, lobbying Congress to pass parity legislation. Although AAM ultimately failed to convince Congress to vote for such legislation, the Cryts remained active in the movement throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

Wayne and Sandy Cryts are well known for their stand at the Ristine Grain Elevator in New Madrid, Missouri. In the fall of 1980, Ristine’s owners, where the Cryts family stored their soybeans, declared bankruptcy. Subsequently, a federal bankruptcy court took possession of the Cryts’ grain, as well as several other farmers grain, to pay-off the debts of the defunct grain elevator’s owners. After several months of tense negotiations between the Cryts family and federal and state authorities, on February 16, 1981, Wayne Cryts led a large procession of local farmers and AAM activists to Ristine to reclaim the Cryts family’s soybeans, in defiance of federal law. The Cryts’ efforts drew national headlines and support; as Wayne Cryts faced federal prosecution—a grand jury declined to find Cryts guilty for stealing his soybeans—and he served nearly a month in prison for refusing to name those who collaborated with him at Ristine. As a result of this conflict, the United States Congress eventually modified Federal bankruptcy laws regarding grain elevators.

Wayne Cryts would later run twice for Congress in Missouri’s 8th Congressional District as a Democrat against the Republican incumbent, Bill Emerson, losing both times in 1986 and 1988. Despite losing the family farm to foreclosure in 1987, Wayne and Sandy Cryts remain active, assisting students across the country with History Day Projects focusing on the Ristine Grain Elevator. In 2005, nearly twenty-five years after the events at Ristine, Wayne published his memoirs with co-author Jerry Hobbs, titled One Man with Courage: the Wayne Cryts Story.