Family owned from field to packaged flour 

GERING – Reginald “Reg” Preston was completing his 20 years with the U.S. Navy when he was offered the opportunity to return home and start a new but familiar career. 

“I grew up on a farm in Scotts Bluff County, on a farm south of Lyman, dryland wheat farm, and would have never left but for the encouragement of my mom and dad who encouraged me to go out and see the world a little bit. At a young age, the Navy was something that seemed interesting to me; specifically, submarines, so that is the path that I sort of lined up to go into after high school,” Preston said. 

His mom encouraged him to apply for the ROTC scholarship. His 20-year career took him from Guam to the United Kingdom. As his career was reaching completion, he and his wife started making decisions for the family, including a second look at Scotts Bluff County. 

“For us, next looked like bringing our kids who were born far away from here, back here, so they could be around cousins, and grandma and grandpa and the rest of the family. And this place where Katie and I are both from. We grew up on opposite corners of the same county,” Preston said. 

He said what confirmed their future is when a realtor called to tell him a neighbor was selling his property, and the realtor thought he might be interested. They took the offer as a sign they should start planning a return home.

“My passion was farming; would have never left, but grateful i did. My wife’s passion is baking. She grew up in her grandmother’s kitchen. She has pursued a degree in culinary arts. So, that is her passion. And in between was one thing called milling,” he said. 

He said his last duty stations were in Connecticut, allowing them to witness Connecticut reinvigorating its grain economy. The milling methods went with them back to Scotts Bluff County.  

“We’ve got two mills in the facility; one is from that mill builder in Vermont. The other one is from a mill builder in California, in Quincy, California, so we’ve got a chunk of the Vermont mountains here, and we’ve got a chunk of the Sierra Nevada’s right here in Western Nebraska,” he said. 

He said stone ground processed flour has health benefits, he added. 

“There’s enormous benefit in producing flour off slow-turning mills like this because when that grain goes between those stones it forces all the components of the bran, the germ and the endosperm together that fluffy white part of the flour we all recognize, and when it comes out the other side, even if you sift it, it still retains the vitamins, minerals and oils that are otherwise stripped off with an industrial style mill,” he said. 

Their attention to detail from the field to the mill results in a better product, even for gluten-sensitive bakers, he said. 

“Gluten-sensitivity is something that we’ve paid a lot of attention to. There are folks who have Celiac Disease which is certainly a line that you cannot cross if that is your health concern. You will unfortunately never be able to have gluten in your diet. Folks with gluten intolerance can be different because that just means their body does not deal with gluten well. So there’s a couple of ways folks can still enjoy gluten products such as sourdough. Sourdough goes through a fermenting process that breaks gluten down and can make it more digestible,” he said. 

Grand Republic Milling products can be found in participating grocery stores in the Panhandle area. He said they expect their market to cover a 200-mile area, and growing. Most of the grains are grown on their farm. They have contracted with a local farmer for Durham wheat, primarily used for making pastas.