Known as the `First Lady of the Farm,' Ruth Buxton Sayre has inspired millions of rural women around the world to improve themselves and their communities with her practicality, humor, decency, and common sense. A town girl and graduate of Simpson College, Ruth Buxton married Raymond Sayre in 1918. As a young farm wife and mother in the 1920s, she began what became a lifework of striving for better conditions for farm women and their families by organizing her neighbors for Iowa State College Extension classes. Mrs. Sayre worked at various levels of the American Farm Bureau's organization of women, becoming its national leader. She became a Master Farm Homemaker in 1930. Moving into international rural women's organizations, in 1947 she was elected president of the Associated Country Women of the World (ACWW) for the first of two 3-year terms.