Missouri Neighbors

Brenda and Darrel Tribble love their animals – all of them which include Boer goats, horses, ducks, Guinea hens, Dominique chickens, a miniature horse, a miniature donkey, dachshunds, schnauzers, cats and kittens, and perhaps their favorites, Old English Babydoll Southdown sheep. They raise their self-confessed menagerie on 38 acres in rural Camden County, outside of Macks Creek, Mo.

On a ridge above James River sits a beautiful dairy called Lorenae. Lorenae Dairy is the only state licensed Grade A raw milk provider in Missouri. Bruce and Debbie Salisbury, who have been in the dairy business for several decades, came out of retirement to be part of this agricultural industry that they have loved so much.

Paul and Jennifer Walley moved to rural Polk County, outside Bolivar, Mo., from Florida, looking for a place with better milk laws and more conservative values for their growing family. They brought their sons and a couple of cows from Florida and settled on 24 acres in the Ozarks.

Paul Wallen left the racetrack and automotive repair industry and got on the fast track to raising Beefmasters full time after experiencing success with the breed first hand.

Lonnie Cook is a third generation farmer who continues his family’s tradition of raising Charolais and Charolais cross cattle on 640 acres once owned by his grandparents, Arthur and Mary Cook. Along with his brother, Derrel, who lives three miles up the Osage Fork River from Lonnie and his wife, Jean, they run 80-90 cows on his property.

Just short of being a century farm, Crystal Springs Limousin, knows cattle with great quality and has been raising such cattle, for some time. Bill Burch’s family started not in the beef cattle business, but the dairy industry when they moved to the Neosho, Mo., area in 1919.

Vance and Gloria Mattson started with 10 Angus cows when they first moved to Everton, Mo., in 1999. But that just wasn't really cutting it for them. "Gloria wasn't really comfortable with them, so we started looking for something smaller," Vance said.

Ed Cahoj, a cattle farmer in Polk County near Halfway, Mo., remembers the day he became aware of soil fertility. He was 7 or 8 years old on his dad’s farm in Kansas. The land had just been plowed, and like any good farmer, his dad picked up a handful of the freshly turned sod and smelled it.

For the past 32 years, Terry Halleran has been an agriculture educator in southwest Missouri – beginning in Pleasant Hope and in classes at University of Missouri-Columbia, Missouri State University, Ozarks Technical Community College and for the last many years, as the ag teacher at Buffalo High School.

What has four legs, a tail, likes to work and has ears almost as long as your arm? Why, a mule, of course. A mule is a hybrid cross between a mare and a jack – with a combination of such diverse traits, you get the best of both worlds: the size of a horse, the stamina of a donkey and who can forget those famous ears? Bill Jackson, of Ozark, Mo., in Christian County knows these hybrid equines inside and out – he has spent more than 50 years of his life with them. “I’d rather work a mule anytime than a horse,” he said.