About the Author
John Robert Kuhn
"I Tell It Like It Is!"
Born July 31, 1962 — El Centro, California
John Robert Kuhn (born July 31, 1962) is a newly published American author and full-time California farmer. He published Volume 1 (of 3) of his autobiography in December 2025, titled: I TELL IT LIKE IT IS!
Author John Kuhn is going on a 48 United States Independent Bookstore Tour in the Fall of 2026. His book is unlike any autobiography you have ever read before. It is America's book, with America's famous work ethic. Author Kuhn shows you how you were born into that same American work ethic — how to relish your special workplace, relish your special talents, and relish your special friends.
It is also a coming-of-age story, where you meet lovely American farm girls and brilliant boarding-school girls. You end up laughing out loud at every chapter, from listening to 1970s transistor radios playing announcer Vin Scully play-by-play on Dodger Baseball games, to listening to Rock-n-Roll Music under your pillow while your parents thought you were asleep. Volume One overflows with optimism, intelligence and integrity.
Early Life
John Kuhn was born on July 31, 1962, in El Centro, California, in the farming Imperial Valleyto his farmer father, Fritz Kuhn, Jr., and his high school teacher mother, Madeline Kuhn — on the very same day as famous British author J.K. Rowling. He was also born on the same day as his Swiss dairy-farmer grandfather, Fritz Kuhn, Sr.
His paternal grandfather emigrated from Switzerland in the early 20th Century and established a family dairy farm that went broke in the Great Depression. His father, Fritz Kuhn, Jr., had to go to work for other farmers in the Imperial Valley starting at age 16 because the Depression wiped out many family farms in California. However, Fritz Kuhn, Jr. was born remarkably skilled in machinery and slowly but surely built a large alfalfa hay and sugar beet operation in Southern California.
Young Farmer John Kuhn spent six days a week, every week from age 6 onwards, learning to farm the desert soil of the Mojave Desert in California, from his farmer father. His only sibling, younger brother Jim Kuhn, was born on April 21, 1964, and they both learned to irrigate fields together, and how to prepare the ground for planting wheat, sugar beets, cotton and alfalfa hay from their father.
They also learned how to withstand the blistering El Centro, California, summer sun at 115 degrees in the shade all summer long, while raking, baling, windrowing and stacking Sudan hay, alfalfa hay, Bermuda grass and most types of straw all summer long, every summer from 1970 to 2015.
Education
John Kuhn attended McCabe School near El Centro until the middle of sixth grade, when his mother moved him to Seeley Elementary School in Seeley, California, to be nearer the family farm when he got out of school for the day. He graduated 8th Grade from Seeley Elementary School in 1976.
After scoring fairly high on the PSAT Test (for boarding high schools), he was accepted into Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana, where he attended all of high school, 1976 to 1980. There he rose up through the military school system, graduating as an officer with the rank of Regimental Aide to the Chaplain.
He was a member of Culver Battery A during his four years there as a member of the Cadet Artillery, learning how to fire cannons over the lake for military parades and drive Jeeps around the riding hall during 4 Gun Drill.
Kuhn also fell in love with photography at Culver Academies and joined the student newspaper, The Culver Vedette, his freshman year as a photographer. He spent all 4 years in the Culver Vedette Darkroom, taking about 1,200 black and white photos his first 2 years and developing and printing all of them himself, for publication in his student newspaper and for the Student Yearbook, The Culver Roll Call.
Starting his sophomore year he became the Sports Editor of The Vedette, writing about 150 articles for the Sports page. He was chosen News Editor for his junior year and wrote another 120 articles for all sections of the newspaper, taking about 840 photographs. Kuhn's senior year he was chosen Editor-In-Chief of The Vedette and helped lead the newspaper to the 5-Star All-American Newspaper in the USA in 1980, winning top awards in all 5 categories by the National Scholastic Press Association.
John Kuhn then attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, off and on from 1980 to 1986, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English. He also met his wife as fellow English majors at Vanderbilt —Augusta Porcher ("Shea") Kuhn, of Charleston, South Carolina. They dated long distance from his family farm in California to Vanderbilt University, from 1986 to 1990, and got married on June 23, 1990, in St. Philip's Church in Charleston, Shea's long-time family Episcopal Church.
After getting married in Charleston in 1990, Kuhn was accepted into The John Marshall Law School in Chicago, and graduated with a Juris Doctor Degree in 1993, in the top 25 percent of his class. He then took the South Carolina Bar Exam and passed, being sworn in as a S.C. Attorney on May 16, 1994.
Farmer to Exporter
The unbelievably severe US Agriculture Recession hit all farming in the United States starting in 1984, so Kuhn had to go back to his family farm in El Centro, California, and help them, as the oldest child, find a new market for their primary crop, alfalfa hay, when the United States Government decided to quit selling milk overseas and quit selling corn and wheat overseas.
At his father's behest, young farmer John Kuhn, just out of college, decided to fly to Japan and see if they needed alfalfa hay at their dairy farms. The Japanese were losing about 10 percent of their dairy cows because they were feeding them high protein corn, dumped cheaply on the world market by the United States government.
When Kuhn realized that he and his family could solve that problem by growing 5,000 acres of Sudan Hay — very low in protein and high in roughage — instead of their normal 5,000 acres of alfalfa hay, he took many photographs of Sudan Hay and the California farm over to Japan the first year to show the Japanese Trading Companiesthat his farm could solve the 10 percent dairy cow death rate in Japan.
Then, 22-year-old John Kuhn flew to Japan 40 times in 40 months (June 1986 to May 1989) and started a brand new market for Sudan Hay from the United States to Japan — all by himself, flight after flight from LAX to Narita. John Kuhn developed the entire Sudan Hay market in just 3 years from absolutely no Japan market for US hay to a gigantic Japanese market for US hay. This will be chronicled in his 2nd Book of his Autobiography (Volume 2 of 3) coming out in 2028.
Personal Life
John Kuhn lives in Charleston, South Carolina, with his wife, Augusta Porcher ("Shea") Kuhn. They have three children. They live in the historic district of Charleston with their two British Labrador Dogs, Diana and Chloe, and their newcomer, Callie, the calico cat.
Charleston author John Kuhn is 63 years old and still married to his first wife. At the advice of his Stanford University undergraduate mother, Madeline Hall Kuhn (B.A. History, 1948), he applied to Vanderbilt University to study English all four years of his undergraduate career.
He reveals in his autobiography, because he was born hyper-active and ADD, he had immense difficulty concentrating in college, failing out twice before graduating from Vanderbilt University in 1986. He took Creative Writing freshman year at Vanderbilt and his female English Professor said, "You are funny and you are born to be a writer."In Volume One of his autobiography, Author John Kuhn jokingly points out: "Forty-two years later, I decided to finally take my English Professor to heart!"
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Book Published
127+
5-Star Reviews
48
States Touring
10K+
Readers
"The best stories aren't the ones where everything goes right. They're the ones where everything goes wrong, and you find a way to laugh about it later."
— John Kuhn