Name: Ken Fent
In Town: Ken Fent is the Senior Pastor at Praise Assembly of God church in Springfield, Mo. Praise averages about 700 in attendance at its two Sunday morning services. “Praise has a significant role to play in the northeast quadrant of the city. We are blessed to have 40 acres and nice church facilities.” Ken has been Senior Pastor for a little more than two years. Prior to that he was an Associate Pastor for three years while also teaching full-time at Central Bible College, where he’d been for eight years. He now teaches just two classes at CBC as an adjunct faculty.
In the Country: “We have a little farm by Walnut Grove, Mo., with 140 acres and another 30 acres detached from that. We have about 100 cows and calves; mostly mixed.” Ken has brought Registered Beefmaster into his herd. “It just kind of happened. We went to a Beefmaster Sale at the Springfield Livestock Marketing Center. We bought a bull and a heifer.” He is now up to about a dozen Beefmasters. He also has a Black Angus bull, some chickens and his latest livestock acquisition: “We recently got a horse, a little Arabian. We are kind of learning about that.”
Family: Wife, Amy; son, Caleb, daughter, Angel; grandchildren, Maggie and Silas.
What's new at the farm?
The newest development is cutting their own hay for the first time this summer. “Before we always depended on others and ran into the frustration of getting them to come and cut our hay between the rains. We started buying one piece of equipment at a time and this year we cut our own hay, probably around 220 round bales.”
How do you balance being a Pastor, teacher and rancher?
“My son Caleb works part-time on the farm while he goes to college. He is a significant player in this. About half of the cows are his.”
“For me this (cattle) is a therapeutic thing. Except maybe on those sub-zero days when I wish I was back in the office.
"It’s about a 30 minute drive to the farm, but we love it.”
By Vince Crunk
