Arkansas Neighbors

It’s no surprise that Tara and Jacob Hudson met at the University of Arkansas. They pursued the same degree in agricultural economics, worked for the same professor and attended the same church. After college, they got married and now have three children, Canaan who is 8, and daughters Hayden, 6, and Harper, 4.

Randall Davis, ranch manager for Honey Creek Land and Cattle, stands next to a converted stock trailer that could be likened to a truck modified for rock climbing.

Two families in the small White County, Ark., town of Floyd are united in the goal of bringing the best Brahman cattle seedstock to the world.

Billy Williams is the “Marlboro Man” of Vinita, Okla.

Phil Hofschulte of Miami, Okla., was an agriculture teacher for 29 years in Wyandotte, Okla., retiring in 2013. He and his wife Jan own and lease 600 acres, the base of operations for Hofschulte Show Pigs and Sires, as well as a commercial cattle herd. The couple met after a Wyandotte football game when Phil came in from a typical late-night of working with students.

For the last generation, thousands of kids and their parents have flocked every fall to the Schaefers and Collins Pumpkin Farm near Mayflower, Ark. In addition to experiencing the thrill of riding the hay wagon to the pumpkin patch, where they can pick out their own gourds to be carved into Jack-O-Lanterns, they can play games, challenge the corn maze, and buy farm-fresh treats. And the families that put on the annual festival always make sure there’s something new for their annual visitors.

Farming and ranching facilities are never the same.

Caye Mott, a life member of the American Dairy Goat Association, runs a show dairy goat operation named Loch Arbor outside of Hogeye, Ark., on 17 acres. She raises Toggenburg goats originally from the Toggenburg Valley of Switzerland and the oldest registered goat breed.

David Martin’s purebred Gelbvieh business, the Martin Cattle Company, has only been in operation on the family ranch in Judsonia, Ark., since 1991.

There is no doubt that times are a changing. Technology is rapidly invading every aspect of daily living. This shift begun to change the face of farming and ranching from manual field monitoring to what one high school student hopes will change once labor-intensive activities to a more cost effective and time efficient process.