Todd Byron Price

Todd Price died unexpectedly on 28 September 2026, aged 55. He lived in Golf, Illinois. His family's obituary, published through N.H. Scott and Hanekamp Funeral Home, did not give a cause of death, and none has been made public.

Farm Foundation announced his death on 29 September, calling him an integral part of the organisation whose vision helped make its campus a reality. The Illinois Agricultural Leadership Foundation and the Glenview Park District also paid tribute, and the Journal and Topics reported his death on 6 October.

A celebration of his life was held at 11.30 a.m. on Saturday 3 October 2026 at the Farm Foundation Innovation and Education Campus, 31330 North Milwaukee Avenue, Libertyville, followed by lunch. Mourners were invited to wear plaid shirts, jeans, baseball caps and boots. He was survived by his wife, Laura, his daughter, Cassidy, his mother, Jan, and his brother, David, among others; his father had died before him.

Todd Byron Price was born on 27 May 1971 in Evanston, Illinois. He grew up with his brother, Dave, on the Price family farm near Clarinda, Iowa, land the family had worked since 1854.

Both of his parents were educators. His father, Van, was a farmer, middle school science teacher and coach who, according to the family, would leave the fields during harvest to watch Todd play college football. His mother, Jan, a kindergarten teacher, encouraged his love of history and took him to historical reenactments as a child; mother and son went on to share an interest in history and genealogy.

Price graduated from Clarinda High School in 1990 and from Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, in 1995 with a degree in history and education.

Price first planned to become a history teacher. A chance encounter with an old high school friend while visiting Living History Farms in Iowa led him instead to a job as a historical interpreter at its 1900 Farm. He later became founding director of the museums at Prophetstown in Indiana, which included a working 1920s era farm.

In 2001 he joined the Glenview Park District in Illinois as the first director of Historic Wagner Farm, which the district had acquired from the Wagner family following the 1998 Farm and Fields Referendum. In his first year the farm recorded 2,860 visits; by the time he moved on in 2018 annual attendance had passed 100,000, and it later grew beyond 150,000. He founded the Glenview Clovers 4-H Club, built a partnership with the Cook County Farm Bureau, and with Friends of Wagner Farm and Chicago Public Schools set up programmes and scholarships that brought urban students to the farm and sent livestock in trailers to low income schools.

In September 2018, after a national search, he was promoted to superintendent of leisure services, one of four division heads at the park district, with oversight of Wagner Farm, The Grove, Schram Memorial Museum, the aquatic complexes and Park Center. He recruited his longtime friend Jonathan Kuester as the farm's second director.

In 2021 Price joined Farm Foundation, an agricultural think tank, and rose to vice president of operations and board secretary. He played a central role in developing its Innovation and Education Campus in Libertyville, Illinois. He was inducted into the Iowa 4-H Hall of Fame, served on the boards of the Cook County Farm Bureau and Friends of Wagner Farm, and was a fellow of the Illinois Agricultural Leadership Program, Class of 2014.

Price met Laura Ohde at Simpson College, and they married on 25 November 1995. Their daughter, Cassidy, was born in 1999. She grew up around Historic Wagner Farm, where she took part in 4-H, raised and showed livestock and cared for a Jersey cow named Buttercup.

His family described him as an enthusiastic cook who planned holiday meals and kept years of menus in a binder, and as a lifelong collector of historical artifacts, including jars of soil from places that mattered to him or to history. He and Laura lived in Golf, Illinois, with their two dogs, George and Ollie.

Price is remembered above all for Historic Wagner Farm, which he built from its first season into a working farm and education centre visited by well over 100,000 people a year, and for the Glenview Clovers 4-H Club, which gave generations of local children the chance to raise and show animals. "Todd Price was a visionary who had the ability to make his visions a reality," said Jonathan Kuester, his successor as farm director.

Colleagues described him as a mentor who built others up. Glenview Village President Mike Jenny said that through his work at Wagner Farm he had given countless families the chance to experience Glenview's agricultural history first hand. His family established the Todd Price Memorial 4-H Scholarship, administered by Friends of Wagner Farm, in his memory.