Rick Stanislaus was raised in Watts, Okla., and followed a long route until he finally returned to the area and became the ag teacher at Watts High School.
He met his future wife, Lisa, when working as a plant manager of a hatchery in Dexter, Mo. Lisa was a junior high math/science teacher and was introduced to Rick by friends. Rick kept asking her out and she kept refusing until she finally said they could go out only if he agreed to chaperone a spring dance while totally unaware of Rick’s teaching background. They married a short seven weeks later.
After several jobs and three children, the opportunity to teach in Watts arose. Ironically he went back to teaching at the same school where he began his education at 6 years old.
At the time of their return, Rick’s father wanted to slow down so Rick bought him out also retaining all of his father’s lease land. Later he added additional acreage so that now he owns and leases just under 100 acres outside of Westville, Okla.
Rick said, “The most important thing I learned from my father was that everything must be in balance, especially the number of cattle per acre because caring for the land is as important as caring for the cattle. The relationship between the two is symbiotic.”
Rick implements his father’s advice by running a herd of only 24 commercial, Angus-influenced mommas and one purebred Angus bull on acreage where most farmers would run more. To keep the land healthy he drills with white sweet clover and rye grass, a perfect combination for the cattle, the soil and his other agricultural venture, honeybees.
Rick went on to explain the most important thing he learned about cattle in college was the importance of a proper vaccination protocol and deworming. Another aspect of cattle health is a visual inspection of each animal at least every other day through the use of cattle cubes. The process ensures their health and keeps the herd docile in addition to providing Rick with some personal downtime in a hectic schedule only another ag teacher can truly understand. Time demands are especially high when teaching in a small school like Watts where responsibilities are diverse and extend far beyond the ag classroom and activities.
Because healthy cattle and healthy land do not necessarily make money, Rick feels one of the most important things he can do to maximize his income is to keep track of the market. Though he has both fall and spring calves, he sells all of the calves some time during the summer or early fall even though they have a wide diversity of age and size with some calves weighing 600 to 700 pounds while others are just weaned. Rick looks for market trends in order to pinpoint what he believes is be the optimum time to sell, a time that varies year to year.
Rick entered the beekeeping industry five years ago when a neighbor cut down a tree without knowing it was the bee tree. Rick captured the bees off of the trunk. Rick said, “I got lucky and captured the queen with the rest of the bees because she came along with the honeycomb.” Rick now maintains 14 hives and sells honey locally by word-of-mouth as fast as he can produce it. In order to ensure that the bees have their natural food supply he leaves 100 pounds of honey comb in every hive for the winter making diet supplementation unnecessary. The busiest hive time for him is May through July when he strives to create the most productive environment by continually and gradually adding space to the hives thereby tapping in to the honeybees’ instinctual drive to fill the space. Harvest takes place in July and August. After that the honeybees still gather honey from plants like ragweed to complete their winter food supply.
Rick’s goal in the next year is to rapidly reproduce queens through a process called grafting which allows up to 100 new queens from a single queen by removing larva from an egg and putting them into queen cells. Those queen cells are then placed in queenless hives. The challenging but rewarding process will allow Rick to grow 30 queens at one time so he can sell starter beehives rather than honey, a more profitable venture.
Rick said, “As my wife and I reach a point in our lives where we began thinking about retirement and our future, I hope my decisions concerning our small farm have been the correct ones. We hope that the income received will help supplement my teacher retirement in order to maintain the level of comfort we have become accustomed too.”
