The Ice family of Texas County, Mo., approached a turning point by the mid-1990s.
Patriarch Paul Ice had begun losing the use of his legs because of hereditary spastic paraplegia, and his ability to work and guide the family farm was diminishing. He had stopped dairying, but there was still a beef cattle operation to run. Someone had to step up.
At the age of 19, Paul’s son, Darren, did just that.
“He kept the family going,” said Reta Ice, Darren’s mother. “Financially and emotionally.”
The operation has prospered and the family was recognized at the Missouri State Fair in 2015 as the Texas County Farm Family of the Year. Families honored each year are chosen by Missouri Farm Bureau boards and University of Missouri county Extension councils.
But the award presented to the Ice family represents not just Darren’s efforts, he is quick to note.
“It takes everybody (in the family),” he says. “All of us are involved.”
That includes Darren’s wife Renee, daughter Racheal Pursifull and her husband Austin (who works for Intercounty Electric), daughter Abby Ice, mother Reta (Paul passed away in 2012) and longtime family friend and employee Michael Hock.
The Ice family’s Samoa Farms operation consists of two farms totaling about 1,000 acres. The farm has a beef cattle herd of 190 head, most with Simmental blood lines, and grows fescue, mainly Kentucky 31, to feed the cattle rotated among several pastures.
The Ices plan to sell some of their grass-fed beef and pork at the farmers market in Houston, Mo., and maybe beyond.
Darren recently added a covered calf feeding floor to the family operation. The system contains manure and unconsumed hay. It is stored and composted, then spread as fertilizer.
The farm bears the name of the defunct Samoa Post Office that once served the Piney Township area east of Houston. The owner of the original building that housed a store and post office was an admirer of the writings of 19th century adventure novelist Robert Louis Stevenson, who once lived on Samoa in the South Pacific.
Ice family ancestors, McKinneys and Ices, homesteaded in that part of Texas County in the 1870s and 1880s.
Life for the Ice family is pretty busy off the farm.
Darren does custom combining and baling for other farms in the area. One year during combining season he harvested a half-million pounds of fescue. His brother, Travis Ice, who lives in Ozark, helps with the combining each summer. Darren also is a member of the Texas County Soil and Water Board, as well as a bus driver for the Raymondville (Mo.) School District.
Renee also teaches at Raymondville, and raises a small show pig herd.
Family matriarch Reta babysits Austin and Racheal’s son Tucker, born in October 2015. Reta, who is a former teacher, also runs for equipment parts when needed and does plenty of cooking for the family.
“My specialty is homemade pizza. … Deer meat and lots of cheese.”
Darren is also president of the Texas County Fair Board and has been for about five years. Renee is secretary.
“The fair is a good way for all our area youth to be involved in agriculture,” even kids who don’t live on a farm, he said.
The family also hosts FFA farm visits and supports FFA and 4-H activities.
“There are so many lessons that can be learned on the farm,” Renee says.
The Ice daughters, Racheal and Abby, grew up working on the farm. Racheal is going to college to become a teacher and Abby is a junior at Houston High School, where she is secretary of the school’s FFA chapter.
Darren maintains and repairs his own equipment and occasionally works on other people’s machinery. He earned certification in agricultural diesel technology at Crowder College in Neosho, Mo., and once worked for an area ag machinery dealer.
Longtime neighbor Marty Martinez, who raises beef cattle breeding stock on his farm across the highway from the Ices, says Darren works on his equipment “and no money changes hands. That’s the kind of neighbor he is.”
“Darren keeps this neighborhood going and helps anybody and everybody,” Marty said. “The whole family is really outstanding.”
With all there is to do every day on the farm, Darren said, “It’s a juggle.”
But he enjoys it.
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t do it,” he says with a laugh. “You’ve got to like it.”
