Arkansas Neighbors

Tom Nelson was typical of so many young men raised in the Ozarks – always around cattle and wanting to stay on the farm, but yet knowing that a job off the farm would be necessary in order to get by.

It was Albert Einstein who famously said, “The only source of knowledge is experience.” Experience and wisdom are the two words that first come to mind when you meet Gene Pharr of Lincoln, Ark. Gene is steeped in the hands-on knowledge that comes with growing up on a chicken and turkey farm in Lincoln. Gene expanded his experience when he headed to college at the University of Arkansas, where he graduated with his degree in Animal Science in 1975. He started working as a turkey serviceman for the Campbell Soup Company after graduation, where he jokes that he was a bridge across the cultural divide for the company.

Rethel King runs about 125 head of registered Red Angus on his 120-acre ranch outside Harrison, Ark. They’re all-natural, raised with no hormones. Rethel said that if his calves don’t scan in at “choice,” he doesn’t keep them. Because of the extreme high quality of the cattle that Rethel produces, he is able to sell them directly to a local market at a premium.

The lambs at Bloomin' Acres call out and crowd around Marilyn Miles when she visits them twice a day on the 70-acre hilltop farm in rural Washington County.

Joe Don Koenigseder has wanted to be in the cattle business all his life. And like most people who had a dream and no inheritance to back it up, he had to scratch it out with his own bare hands. He and his wife, Susie, started building toward this dream in 1968 in Ft. Smith, Ark., with two heads of cattle, and moved from there to Hackett, Ark., with stock cattle. During this time they had a family of five kids – four girls and one boy, Jill, Amy, Kathy, Jay and Sarah. "They were good hard working kids too," said Joe Don. The family then moved from Hackett, to Booneville, Ark., and while they lived in Booneville, they changed from stock cattle to dairy cattle.

Twelve years ago Jeanette Larson moved to the Ozark Mountains from Colorado. She attended CSU in Fort Collins, Colo., majoring in Forestry and Animal Science. In Arkansas she utilizes that degree raising Jacobs, an ancient, domesticated breed of sheep. Historical documentation indicates the breed originated three thousand years ago. When they first moved to Arkansas, they had 120 sheep, but currently they have 12. She considers the fleeces from Jacob sheep a delight for hand-spinners, with healthy luster and sheen.

There was a time when Jerry Carnes, his three siblings and parents spent long hours milking 22 cows a day by hand. That was back when Carnes Dairy was just beginning on a 240-acre spread in Rose, Okla., that his parents, Paul and Floy Carnes, had purchased on March 18, 1950.

Manuel Barnes has spent his life trying to be a good steward of the land.  Manuel received his degree in Zoology from the University of Arkansas. He worked with the Corps of Engineers for 13 years in two of their district offices and at their main laboratory in Vicksburg, Miss. Manuel also received a Master of Science specializing in Water and Land Resource Planning from Colorado State University. Manuel formed EGIS, Inc., an environmental consulting firm, in 1990.

Located just outside Cameron, Okla., the French Ranch combines family tradition with modern know-how and a big dose of self-reliance to stand proudly as one of the larger stocker steer operations in Eastern Oklahoma.

Everyone knows that commercially raised turkeys can’t fly; they’ve lost that particular limited ability that their wild relatives retain. However, Cleet Baker of Fayetteville, Ark., and his wife Jan Dji-Lynn have turkeys and flying in their backgrounds. Jan spent six years in the Air Force as an F-16 mechanic and getting to fly at times, while Cleet took over the 27,000 head turkey farm his father started in 1984. Cleet spends his days making a living by running his Dee-Ran farm located in West Fork, Ark., which  is comprised of a 50 by 500-feet brood house and three grow-out houses where he raises hen turkeys for Cargill, Inc. The couple married in October of 2008. “There’s a reason I was 34 before I got married. In addition to Jan being beautiful, I knew that since she was raised on a horse farm in Montrose, Colo., and was a working kid, that she had good morals and a tough work ethic. Since she grew up on a farm, she knows what it takes to be in farming and that really mattered to me,” Cleet said. Jan chuckles when she says, “I have a strong personality and a different sense of humor. No man has been strong enough to deal with that in the past, but Cleet has a sense of humor and he’s tough, so it works.”