Missouri Neighbors

Life in Southwest Missouri provides many opportunities to be part of the local agriculture.

Ronald Entlicher of rural Polk County, outside of Bolivar, Mo., can look out his living room window to the 80-acre field across the way that his grandmother farmed.

The magnificent fall-drenched Ozarks countryside that surrounds Jeff and Charlyce Ruth’s Rogersville, Mo., home serves as the perfect backdrop for Jeff’s backyard collection of vintage tractors that he marveled over as a youth.

In 1999, Wendy Dickens, now Childers, attended a cattle sale that included an essay contest on the attributes of Shorthorn cattle.

While some young livestock producers are born into the business, others have to find their own path into their chosen industry; and 16-year-old Linsey Lowrance-Rogers is one of those young producers.

Cole Clark’s day reflects the life of most farmers. He rises before the sun and works until his head hits the pillow at night. The only difference is Cole is a 16-year-old high school student.

Hesston Stark has been gaining ranching experience on his family’s beef cattle operation, located outside of El Dorado Springs, Mo., as far back as he can recall.

Twenty-six years ago, Corneliu Gradinariu left everything he had ever known in his homeland of Romania and headed for the border of Yugoslavia.

Marketing strategies are as unique as the cattle producers themselves. Some venture into the fray of social media or online sales, while others utilize familiar methods, such as, local sale barns.

Only four years into Angus production, Reid Roberts of Sparta, Mo., knows what he wants and has a plan for getting there.