Arkansas Neighbors

Sunflower Heritage Farm in Japton, Ark., is located on 120 acres and home to a wide variety of mostly heritage animals. Patty Stith and her mother, Roberta, and brother, Kenny, began the heritage, conservation-conscious animal farm in 2012. One of their conservation methods includes refurbishing and using old and existing buildings whenever possible. Another is using their animals to clear land naturally by first allowing pasture hogs into unimproved areas to forage and then admitting goats for browsing. Patty said, “That simple process gives you a park.”

Rod and Jamie Garman of Ground Zero Farms in Watts, Okla., run and operate Ground Zero Construction in Siloam Springs, Ark. “We got started with a construction company in 2004. We mainly do dirt work, utilities and build subdivisions,” Rod said. He bought about 350 acres to start his ranch. “As the construction company grew, we just kept buying land around us and own around 1,800 acres now,” he said. Ground Zero Farms also leases another 2,000 acres. “We run about 350 registered Red and Black Hereford cows and about 450 commercial cows,” he added.

Allen and Donna Shumate of Elkins, Ark., run a 3-year-old grass-fed commercial beef operation on nearly 1,000 acres of combined owned, shared and leased land. They have three registered Angus bulls and 80 mixed mommas with the goal of gradually increasing the herd to 100 mommas with 175 calves growing from weaning to butchering at all times.

Myle Ratchford said, “I can’t remember not being on a horse rodeoing.” Myle was raised on a polled Hereford cattle farm in Elkins, Ark. After graduating from high school, she married and started raising and training horses in Oklahoma. She then moved back to Arkansas in 2008 and brought her operation Myle Ratchford Training Stable to Treat Farm. She remarried and lives in Kingston, Ark., with her husband, Michael, and children, Whitley who is 18 and attending the U of A for a degree in animal science, and Ryder who is 3. Michael works in the local logging industry, a nice complement to her horse farm.

“That’s the way I like to sell bulls,” could be heard as the gate slammed shut on one trailer, and the next truck and trailer pulled in. It was a good sale day for Keith Cagle of Rose Bud Feeders, LLC, that cool Saturday morning in late March, “$65,000 worth of bulls in just a couple of hours from a couple of different operations.”

Jason Lawler returned home to Eureka Springs, Ark., in 2006 to help his grandfather Paul Hull on their 320-acre highly diversified farm. Jason said, “I came back after being gone for a short while because it’s all I know and what I love.” For economic reasons, Jason also works for the Carroll County Road Department.

Don Smith of Hogden, Okla., was raised in Kiowa, home of famous country-western singer and TV personality Reba McEntire. In fact, Reba and Don are cousins with Reba’s father, Clark, being a major influence in Don becoming a professional cowboy and in meeting his wife. Don and Susan met at a rodeo in Wilburton, Okla., where both were competing and with both eventually becoming professional cowboys.

This is the story of a young couple deciding to build a farm from scratch, something unusual in this day and age. Cody Hays, now of Gentry, Ark., met his future wife Carrie when he was a junior in college at the University of Arkansas. Cody said, “Land prices are too high to make a purchase viable for expansion and leased land is competitive.” Cody and Carrie, however, were undeterred.

Two couples, Bryan and Amber Bench, and Randy and Nancy Williams, have combined their skills and resources to form Nature’s Green Grass Farms. Their goal is to raise tender and tasty grass-fed beef using nothing but what nature provides. They have chosen Devon cattle as the breed for their Everton, Ark., operation. The interesting thing about Devon cattle is that they were brought to America for the first time in 1623. If this rings a historic bell, that’s because the Pilgrims landed here in 1620, so it was just a few years later that three Devon heifers and a Devon bull first hoofed it onto American soil. The herd that the Benches and the Williamses now have is descendants of these cattle. Bryan is proud to call Devons a heritage breed, pure, not crossed with another breed. A few changes have been made since the first four were consigned from Devonshire, England, to the colonies. For example, American stockmen have developed a polled strain of purebred Devons. Interestingly enough, this traces back to a bull born in 1915 in Concordia, Mo., not too far from here.

Farmers’ livestock herds change as their lives change. This is what’s happening to Derrick and Simonnee Butler who lease 60 acres in Bentonville, Ark., and run some cattle on Simonnee’s fathers land. One defining factor in the nature of their cattle operation is rodeoing. The couple first met in 2003 when Derrick judged some rodeos that Simonnee competed in. The couple’s paths crossed again three years later when both were competing in another rodeo.