When Susie Means was a little girl, her grandpa, Carthel Means, encouraged her interest in his tractor. “When I was little he would let me cut hay with that big green tractor,” Susie said. “I was going really slowly. He told me to kick it up. Then he told me one day, I’m going to get you to where you can hook it and run it all by yourself. And he did,” she continued.
“Susie is a little different than some of the rest of them. Not that I like her better but, we have a lot in common,” Carthel said. “She will tackle anything whether it is a dozer or a backhoe or bale of hay or whatever. She will do it. She is mechanically minded and does a real good job.”
Carthel and Wilma’s Means had seven children: Tommy, Susan, Joe, Bryce, Ray, Lori and Kayla. Carthel and Wilma have a long history in education. Carthel retired as superintendent of the Maryetta Public School in Stilwell, Okla. Lori is Susie’s mother and served as Principal of the Maryetta Public School taking over as Superintendent when Carthel retired. Susie is 22 with an older sister, Keisha, 23 and a younger sister Janene, who is 13. “We used to live in town for a long time but, we would always come out here and then go out to Redbird. I was always following grandpa around,” Susie said. Lori and the girls built a house near Carthel and Wilma. “I was 8 and got to move here. We lived with grandma and grandpa for years while we were building that house,” Susie said. “Grandma and grandpa raised us girls because dad wasn’t around.” Susie’s parents divorced when the girls were young. “We get to give daddy-credit to grandma and grandpa.”
Susie bought her first heifer from her grandpa. “I thought I was buying a big cow,” Susie said. Her grandpa pointed to a heifer in his field. “I wanted a cow not a calf. She is an old cow and I still have her. She raises a good calf every year. That is when I got started,” she said. All Carthel and Wilma’s grandchildren took out a Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) loan when they were 12 years old. Susie purchased Beefmaster cattle with the loan. She still has some of them in her cattle herd.
Until recently, Susie and her family ran their cattle on Carthel and Wilma’s place. Carthel had been leasing 80 acres from a couple in Nacogdoches, Texas as a hay field since 1986. The owner asked Carthel to help him find a buyer for timber on the property. “When the owner sold the timber, he said I had improved the old place so much we deserved to own it,” he said. At the time Carthel was giving land to his kids and wasn’t interested in buying more. “I told the man that I’ve got a granddaughter who would just love to have that,” he said. Lori, Keisha and Susie formed a cooperative to purchase the property. Keisha has an accounting degree from Oklahoma City University and works at IBM in Tulsa driving every day. Susie got a softball scholarship to Conners State College in Warner, Okla. “I got out of college and moved home so I could go to Northeastern State University,” Susie said. “I graduated and hope to start a masters program in the spring. I want to get a masters degree in reading. I will do something within in the school system.” Susie runs the place with the help of her grandpa.
“Put it all together, it is 320 acres,” Carthel said. “The whole place is on a NRCS conservation plan,” Susie said. A NRCS representative came out to discuss their plans for the place and make recommendations. The NRCS has helped with advice and cost sharing for fencing and ponds. “They gave us the best advice and we have done it to the ‘t’ so we could get the best out of it,” Susie said. Susie and Carthel even gave the representative something new to talk about. “They had never heard of a lane through a place before. At the top there is a funnel and a pond,” Carthel said. “You can feed them in there and just close two gates regardless of where they are and funnel them down to work them.”
Keisha and Susie got a loan to buy cows. “I got those Beefmaster cows and then got these Angus cows,” Susie said. They purchased 24 bred registered Black Angus cows from Butch Hardesty at the Arrowhead Ranch near Twin Hills, Okla. “He was real good to us. He guaranteed all of them to be pregnant and have calves. The ones that weren’t, we got to take back and he switched them out for us,” she said. “We have a registered Red Angus bull right now. There are 35 cows over there and 10 heifers I’m going to keep. Those are the ones I’m going to breed to the Red Angus bull.
“We’ve got big plans for that place,” Susie concluded. “We will expand it one day. Build a house and a barn.”
