Recently, a legend in the northwest Arkansas poultry industry history passed away. Robert “Red” Bone went to his rewards up at Cassville, Mo. I worked for Red in my early years at Tyson Food. I had not seen him in almost 20 years.
Red told me an interesting story about his beginning in life. He said his life started at 5 when he was in the Pineville, Mo., jail and someone had bought him a two-piece balsa wood airplane that you threw to fly. He was in jail because there were no juvenile holding facilities then in the area. Later in life he tried to learn his origin, but a psychiatrist said his past might have been so bad that his mind wouldn’t let him. For a person not to know their real family and his only memory of anything was his stay in the jail over a weekend was very intriguing to me.
Red said the Bone family raised him. They lived up in Bear Hollow and he used their name as his because he appreciated them so much. They were a large, poor farm family when they took him in but always felt he was one of them growing up. Red also told me the story about Don O’Brien who built O’Brien Poultry Farm and lived in the same region. When Don was in high school he and a banker’s son formed a company to haul chickens. They bought a bob truck and a load of chicken coops to haul birds live to St Louis, Mo. They got the loan because of the banker’s son, who soon discovered he was not going to be a chicken catcher. Since the banker had to pay for the truck, Don convinced him he could make it work. He did, paid it off, then bought his brothers one and then another until they were in the poultry business big time.
Early on Red went to work for a man in Rogers, Ark., who had chicken hauling trucks. The man told him he’d pay $400 a month. Red thought that was a $100 week and he soon found out it wasn’t. I laughed about that.
Don Tyson went up to Rogers and hired Red to run Tyson-Calico Produce Company (now Tyson). Tyson only had one processing plant of their own then and sold live chickens to lots of others. Chicken catching and hauling was a big arm of Tyson’s business in the 1960s.
Fieldmen would book growers in some hard to get locations. When they told him where the farm was, Red would jump up and shout, “You could turn 10,000 eagles loose in Springdale and not a damn one would fly over that farm.”
Red ran Tyson live haul division for years and then he moved to their fresh egg division and ran it. He was really getting into future trading and built up quite a bit of wealth in that area. He owned several farms and even hired me to buy cattle for him at sales and off farms. He was generous enough, so when he called I went and helped him. He just signed checks and gave them to me and I did my best at lining up truckers.
He finally left Tyson and went deep into the futures trading business. For several years he made folks lots of money and himself as well. Red Bone may you rest in peace. God Bless, Dusty Richards.
Western novelist Dusty Richards and his wife Pat live on Beaver Lake in northwest Arkansas. For more information about his books you can email Dusty by visiting ozarksfn.com and clicking on ‘Contact Us’ or call 1-866-532-1960.
