The Doug and Joy Collard family make their home at the farm his grandparents purchased in the 1950s
Doug and Joy Collard, named the Jasper County Farm Family of the Year, have a passion for passing on foundational values to their two teenage children, Morgan and Wyatt, illustrating every day what that legacy looks like.
Doug’s grandparents, Art and Margaret Collard, bought the acreage north of Oronogo, Mo. in the 1950s, desiring flatter land than the hilly McDonald County area they originated from. The steadfast family connections can be credited to Art and Margaret, whose Sunday afternoon meals and other family get-togethers solidified the family’s priorities: faith, family and farming.
Jim and Karen Collard, Doug’s parents, live just a stone throw from he and Joy’s home. A worn path hints at the frequent visits 15- year old Wyatt makes on his four-wheeler to eat some of Nana’s home cooking.
Joy hails from Rogersville, Mo., where only a fence separated her parent’s and grandparent’s farms. Growing up on a Jersey dairy farm, which milked 50 to 75 head, she recalls with fondness the hard work, determination and loving care her parents, R.C. and Kaye Crowe, modeled throughout her childhood.
Joy and her siblings often took a string of up to 20 dairy cows to fairs each summer. In fact, one of her brother’s cows went to Louisville, Ky., and won National Champion Jersey in 1982.
“We really took care of our herd and especially my mom,” Joy reminisces. “In fact, when they made the hard decision to sell the cows in 1995 because the milk market hit bottom, they did not sell them individually but all together as a herd.”
As if by design, they were able to sell the whole herd to a young couple in Kentucky and later Kaye was able to visit her precious Jerseys one more time before she passed away at age 64.
Both Doug and Joy are at home in the show ring, competing throughout their youth in 4-H and FFA, winning several titles each. The family is naturally competitive and operates on the premise that “winning isn’t everything but wanting to win is,” as one of many motivational signs reads along the walls of their barn.
Doug’s family raised registered Polled Herefords for a time, but later raised Angus and Simmental when the price of Herefords declined. Today Doug follows the same inclination but still has some Herefords because that is what is grandparents and parents raised.
Doug attended Crowder College and Southwest Missouri State University, known today as Missouri State University. He worked in several agricultural businesses before ending up in the insurance business. Joy graduated from Drury University with a degree in education.
After the couple met at the Ozark Empire Fair, they married a couple years later in 1996. They lived in Lebanon, Mo., where Morgan got her first taste of show competition, showing a pig at age 5. Wyatt, toddling lockstep with Doug, began to show pigs at an even younger age.
They returned to the home place in 2007, building a new home, barn and fencing.
“It was important to me to raise our kids back here near their grandparents,” Doug said. “I was fortunate that both sets of my grandparents were still alive for them to know, as well.”
Both Morgan and Wyatt have shown at the Jasper County (Mo.) Fair, the Gold Buckle Gala and Ozark Empire. Additionally, Wyatt has shown at Missouri State Fair, the American Royal, the Arizona National Pig show and Summer Spectacular in Louisville, Ky.
Wyatt shows crossbred pigs, crossbred heifers and steers, whereas Morgan shows steers.
Doug points out that his parents sacrificed a lot to hold the farm together when times got tough in the 1980s and others were selling out. Both his grandfather and father worked at Vickers while farming on this property, suffering through it with hard work and determination. He calls them “stepping stones” who have paved the way for his generation and the next.
“That is why we work like it is a business, even though it is not,” Joy adds. “Do your best, look your best, work harder, be honest, and be gracious.”
Both Morgan and Wyatt have reaped the rewards for the long hours they spend with their animals. Morgan took a year off but her senior year she decided to finish it showing her steers.
“I tell ‘em you might work really hard and still not get the results you want but if you keep working hard, eventually you will get the reward you deserve,” Doug said. “Judges may have different preferences on breeds of animals, but you make them look their best regardless.”
Competition aside, they both agree that the most important part of attending a fair is being together as a family and the relationships with friends you could call any time day or night and they would be right at your door.
Leaving their children a solid legacy is their main priority. Even as the town continues to move in around their six decades farmstead, Doug hopes his children will always live the farm life no matter where they may land and appreciate the journey.
Morgan is a freshman at Crowder College and Wyatt is a freshman in at Webb City High School, and in the Sarcoxie Chiefs 4-H club and Carthage FFA. Wyatt plans to attend Northeastern Oklahoma in Miami and then Oklahoma State, hoping to make the livestock judging team.
