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  • Farm Collector

    NO ROCKING CHAIR FOR THIS RETIREE

    Aug 12, 2022 5 minutes
    By Leslie C. McManus
    Photos by Gary Gentzel Sr.

    After a long career at Pennsylvania State University, where he had worked in the Office of Telecommunications, Bob McLaughlin had a plan for a retirement project. He just needed a little help getting launched. “In 2007, I approached the Nittany Antique Machinery Assn. (NAMA), Centre Hall, Pennsylvania, and asked them if they’d be interested in me building a gristmill on their showgrounds,” he says. “But they’d have to pay for it.”

    Bob had no farm background. He was not a collector of antique farm equipment and he didn’t belong to NAMA. Shoot, he didn’t know anyone who . “I was hoping to find a place where I could help restore an old gristmill but that didn’t happen,” he says. “So I started

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