Home > News & Media > Kahn's love of citrus built over the decades
Kahn's love of citrus built over the decades
Highlands Today – October 19, 2011
SEBRING – Eighty-nine years ago, Marvin Kahn’s father, Mike, set foot in Sebring and decided to stay.
A Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, the 32-year-old was not a citrus grower. He wasn’t even a farmer. But the opportunity to own land in the Heartland and run his own grove was something he wasn’t going to pass up.
“In Europe opportunity wasn’t very good, particularly for Jewish people, because they couldn’t own property or be in business,” said Kahn.
Mike’s brother, Barney, had immigrated to Georgia and told Mike about life in America. Around the start of World War I, Mike and his future wife, Sadie, went to Canada, got married and moved to a little town in Georgia. But they didn’t stay there.
“Mother is the reason Daddy moved to Florida,” explained Kahn, CEO of Kahn Citrus Management. He said as a recent immigrant his mother didn’t speak or understand English, just Yiddish and Lithuanian. She had come here looking for the “promised land,” and Georgia wasn’t it.
“So Daddy asked, ‘What else is around here?’ He met a truck driver coming to Florida. He drove down with the truck driver to Avon Park and he asked, ‘What else is around here?’ And he came to Sebring,” said Kahn.
Kahn’s father met George Sebring and decided to stay. He brought his wife down and opened up a dry goods store. Sadie was happy in Sebring, according to Kahn.
“She was the same inexperienced stranger, but people here were much friendlier,” he explained. “She immediately began dreaming to be part of the community.”
In 1930 Mike got into the citrus business. His first grove was 20 acres, and he bought other groves over time.
“He was an early riser, and he was a friendly man. He had friends like Mr. Henry Crutchfield, and he became interested in citrus,” said Kahn.
Because he’d lived in a rural part of Lithuania, farming wasn’t all that strange to him.
Kahn’s father died at 52 and his mother continued the business. The groves were eventually divided among the four Kahn children. Of the two children still alive, Kahn is the only sibling still in the business.
“As a young man out of college, I took over management of the groves,” said Kahn, who majored in animal science at the University of Florida with a minor in citrus. “Earlier in my life I was in the cattle business, but I later planted citrus on my ranch.”
What does he love so much about citrus?
“I’ve got sand in my shoes,” said the smiling septuagenarian. “My first memories were in a home with orange groves all around me, on all sides of me. I’ve got that kind of memory and love for the business. The people that are in citrus are some very fine people that I admire, and I’m just pleased to be part of the industry.”
Kahn’s company, which originally operated under the name Kahn Grove Service Co., is now Kahn Citrus Management, LLC. It provides grove development, caretaking and marketing expertise to new and experienced grove owners, and manages thousands of acres of citrus.
Kahn himself still owns several hundred acres of groves.
Kahn also loves the politics of citrus and recently organized the Florida Citrus Growers Associates, a member-driven organization aimed at growing the demand for Florida’s citrus. For more information, visit www.flcga.org.
Click here to view this article online
