Donna Spangler
Family: Sons Chad and Todd Spangler; Chad’s wife Jill and their three kids, Jack, Simone and Vivi; Todd’s wife Maranda their daughter, Sterling.
Hometown: Stockton, Mo.
In Town: Donna Spangler has been keeping the hallways and classrooms of Stockton High School sparking clean for the last nine years. She is the morning custodian and is available during most of the athletic and extracurricular events. “I enjoy being around the kids and interacting with them the most,” she said with a smile.
In the Country: Donna grew up on a large, diversified farm near Stockton where her family raised hogs, beef and dairy cattle.
“I grew up in a family of six so we all had chores and roles on the farm,” Donna said.
Her job on the farm was to milk the cows. Their dairy consisted of 50-head of Holstein cows.
“I knew I did not want to milk cows,” she laughed.
They also had a farrow-to-feeder swine operation and ran 200 head of registered Santa Gertrudis cows.
As an adult, she continued to follow the path of her parents, raising hogs and Santa Gertrudis crossbred cattle.
“We owned around 20 sows, farrowed them and sold the feeder pigs to MFA. Just like my parents did,” Donna explained.
After her boys were grown, she kept around 10 to 15 crossbred cow/calf pairs on her farm. She sold most of the calves at weaning, either to the sale barn or to individuals to butcher. Occasionally she would finish a few calves for local individuals.
Before recently making the decision to retire from farming, Donna partnered with her son Todd and together they increased the herd numbers and added Angus.
Recently, she made the decision to retire from farming and turned all of the responsibilities over to Todd.
Donna continues to stay involved with the family farm, helping out with the cattle when needed.
