Hometown: Halfway, Mo.
Family: Wife, Marissa; children, daughter Avery (4) and son Camden (2)
In Town: Shane works fulltime as a plant utilities technician in maintenance at Citizens Memorial Hospital in Bolivar, Mo. He can also be found working parttime wiring houses with Hamlet Electric, which is based out of Bolivar, Mo.
In the Country: When not working at his jobs, Shane can be found on his 10-acre farm in Polk County, just south of Halfway, Mo. Shane started his farming journey in hopes to express the importance of agriculture to his community and most importantly, his children.
“We currently have two Angus cross-bred cows that we breed and calve yearly. We have a mixed chicken flock that produces eggs daily, which is made up of about 16 laying hens and a few roosters. We have 20 chicks in the brooder and nine eggs in the incubator at the moment. We have raised Hereford pigs and Katahdin sheep in the past. We are bottle feeding three Jersey bottle calves right now as well. Ringo, an old Appaloosa horse and Martin family favorite, can be found wandering the pasture in hopes for someone to sneak him an apple.”
Shane hopes to grow his operation in a way that teaches his children how to become sustainable farmers.
“My wife and I are very passionate about agriculture and farming. Not only does our small farm benefit us in a monetary way, but it will teach core values to our children. We hope this lifestyle will allow them to become successful adults and hopefully give them an opportunity to develop skills through experience. Our children are young but they have learned so much already. If you ask our children where the animals go when they leave the farm they tell you, ‘They go to make meat.’ We also educate our friends and family about our lifestyle.”
