Kenneth W. Hones was born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and raised on the dairy farm near Colfax which he managed in his adult years. Hones joined his first local cooperative at age 18, and from this early period was a strong advocate of farmers' cooperatives. He first became active in the Farmers Union when he was elected as the first president of the Colfax local in 1928, before the issuance of the state charter.
The Northwest Organizing Committee of the National Farmers Union began grassroots organization in Wisconsin in 1927. Three years later the developing Wisconsin Farmers Union (WFU) received a charter from the national organization. Officially called the Farmers Educational and Cooperative Equity Union of America, Wisconsin Division, it advocated increased government support for farm programs, increased agricultural education, publicly owned utilities, especially for electrical power, a publicly controlled banking system, and a national system of accident and life insurance.
Two men rose quickly to prominence in the WFU: William E. Sanderson and Kenneth W. Hones. Sanderson, born August 17, 1902, in Dunn County, signed on as a Farmers Union member in 1927, joined the Dunn County local and became that chapter's secretary when it organized in 1930. That same year he was elected the first secretary-treasurer of the Wisconsin chapter. He resigned this post in 1934 to become the administrative assistant to Congressman Merlin Hull, a position he held until his death in 1952. Throughout his Washington career, Sanderson maintained his ties with the WFU and worked for legislation embodying the goals of the organization.
Hones was a member of the 1930 Board of Incorporators which officially established the Wisconsin branch of the Farmers Union, he was elected that same year to the first state convention in Menomonie. Elected state president in 1933, Hones held that office until 1959 when he resigned. The single most important aim of the WFU, as he saw it, was to establish security for the family farmer. Also of great significance for his tenure as president of the WFU was the creation of the youth program, which culminated in 1951 in the construction of the youth summer camp, Kamp Kenwood, located on Lake Wissota. During the 1950's Hones and the Farmers Union, on a local and national level, became embroiled in the great “Red Scare.” Hones vehemently opposed the membership of any communists in the Farmers Union, and his efforts to purge communists from the WFU provoked much controversy and bitter political fights within the organization.
Hones' other activities included an appointment to the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, 1934-1938; the secretaryship of the Colfax Co-op Creamery for eleven years; membership on the original board of directors of the Chippewa Farmers Union Co-op in 1947; and membership on the Federal Land Bank Board and the Board of the Production Credit Association. Hones died in Chippewa Falls on June 10, 1972.
