Daniel Prough of LaGrange, Ind., on January 12 earned the grand prize in the Farmer Idea Exchange competition at the American Farm Bureau Federation’s 90th annual meeting in San Antonio.
Prough’s invention, an illuminating grease gun, is a xenon flashlight mounted on a heavy-duty pistol grease gun. Having the flashlight mounted on the grease gun makes it much easier to pump the gun and hold the grease tip at the same time. The illuminating grease gun saves time when lubing equipment because there is no need to find a flashlight and then try to balance it on the equipment while holding the gun tip and pumping with the other hand. It also minimizes the number of bearings needing lubrication that might be missed in poorly lit areas on the equipment.
For his winning idea, Prough won a year’s use of a New Holland TV-145 bidirectional tractor.