Monday Nights
at 7 p.m. EST

Join GRIT magazine and Tractor Supply each week on RFDTV as two rural neighbors compete for honors and prizes, using their country skills. Tune in Mondays at 7 pm EST - 6 pm CST, with an encore presentation Tuesday mornings at 9 am EST.

“TOUGH GRIT” (www.ToughGrit.com) is a weekly 30-minute television show produced by GRIT magazine and Tractor Supply Company. It combines expert information with humor to help viewers complete common rural-based DIY projects correctly and safely. To demonstrate the projects, contestants from Team GRIT and Team Tractor Supply compete in hands-on challenges to win up to $1,000 in Tractor Supply gift cards. “TOUGH GRIT” airs Mondays at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT, on RFD-TV. Find updates on Facebook (/toughgrit) and Twitter (@ToughGrit).

TOUGH GRIT'S HOSTS:

Caleb Regan - Growing up on a farm in southeast Kansas, Caleb developed an appreciation and love for rural America from the start. He and his three brothers had horizon to horizon for a backyard, and spent their days fishing the farm ponds, hunting the timber and pastures, riding horses – most times to a tract the family affectionately called the Motherland – watching cattle grow, working in the garden, and generally learning and even testing the limits of country life.

As a young adult, reading and writing emerged as Caleb’s true passions, and he pursued a journalism degree at the University of Kansas. A meaningful internship at Fly Fisherman magazine reinforced his love for magazine writing and editing, yet it also made him miss the Midwest, rural America and family.

Right before graduating from the University of Kansas, Caleb declined to interview and possibly work at Fly Fisherman and after earning his degree in 2006, worked as a concrete laborer and then as a painter while exploring newspaper reporting options and other options in Kansas (he actually interviewed with GRIT’s sister publication, Motorcycle Classics, at one time).

Late in 2007, Caleb took a sports reporter job for the De Soto Explorer and the Eudora News, two weekly papers located near Lawrence, Kan. He took over as sports editor about six months later.

Hank Will, now the editor in chief of GRIT, came upon Caleb’s resume by way of Motorcycle Classics in August of 2008, and Caleb started with GRIT in September of 2008.

“The people I get to work with, and the rural lifestyle content of GRIT, make it a joy to come to work each day,” Caleb says.

Shannon Reilly – Shannon holds a B.A. in Theatre from Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, and a Masters of Fine Arts degree (M.F.A.) in directing from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. When he’s not hosting Tough GRIT, he’s the Artistic Director at the Topeka Civic Theatre Academy. Shannon first came to TCTA in 1990 as a guest director from Kansas City to direct Wait Until Dark. He returned the following year to direct The Night Hank Williams Died and was asked to join the staff as Associate Artistic Director in September of 1992.

Shannon was named Artistic Director in December of 1993 and has directed over 100 productions for the Topeka Civic Theatre. Past theatre credits include work with the Acting Company of New York, the Shakespeare Festival of Dallas, and The Missouri Repertory Theatre in Kansas City. Shannon served as Education Director/Artistic Director of the Blue Lakes Fine Arts Camp of Michigan. He also formed two improvisational comedy companies, Laughing Stock of Kansas City and TCT's very own, Laughing Matters.

TEAM GRIT'S EXPERT:

Hank Will - Hank Will has been farming and selling farm products for almost 30 years. He direct marketed free-range broilers, eggs and turkeys long before it was “cool” and believes that demand for heritage breeds is poised to explode. He cites his family’s Bismarck, N.D., seed company and nursery business as pivotal to his pursuit of an academic career in genetics and his childhood experiences at the Minnesota State Fair for his fascination with animal husbandry.

As a youngster hiking the Missouri River bluffs and bottoms around Bismarck, Hank learned to love the prairie, its riverine ecosystems and all the creatures that made a living there. He continued to develop those interests in college at The University of Chicago, where he studied competition among some of his most cherished prairie grasses and the effects of water stress on a plant’s photosynthetic apparatus.
After earning a doctorate in molecular genetics from The University of Chicago, Hank pursued a career in academia, while farming on the side. After nearly two decades as a professor, Hank was happy to hand tenure back to the academy and more fully pursue his interests in unconventional agriculture, photography and writing.

Seven years and four books into a successful farming, freelance writing and editing career, Hank shifted gears slightly and accepted the GRIT editor position, moved to Kansas and began building what he believes is his last agricultural enterprise.

Now the editor in chief of GRIT and CAPPER’s magazines,Hank raises Mulefoot hogs, Katahdin sheep and Highland cattle in addition to a number of poultry breeds with his wife, Karen Keb, at their Prairie Turnip Farm.

“Not too many people get to live the life and celebrate it at the office every day,” Hank says, while loading the incubator with fertile eggs. “I’m one of the lucky ones.”