Neighbors

Clint Brown lives on and owns 80 acres in West Fork, Ark., but works as a hired hand for the Willow Springs Ranch owned by Larry Walker in Prairie Grove, Ark. Clint was raised both in Devils Den and the Strickler part of West Fork. JR, Clint's father, believed that a man had to have many skills in order to support himself. Clint took his father's advice and became skilled in many areas.

There’s more than one way to make a profit in the beef industry, and the Church family of Viola, Ark., has found a way to do it. Since the 1980s, Jay and his wife, Georgie, have raised Corriente cattle as sport cattle for rodeo events such as team roping and bulldogging. After a year in the arena, the cattle would be returned to them and the Churches would take them to the sale barn. It didn’t take long to discover that lean cattle with long horns aren’t top sellers there.

Married 37 years, Bill and Cathy Dalton have lived on their 80-acre ranch in Douglas County, near Ava, Mo., for 16 years.

For a semi-retired woman, Linda Shaddy of Grovespring, Mo., in Wright County stays mighty busy on Tri-Mi Stables with her 18 Fox Trotters and 25 miniature dachshunds. The ‘Tri’ in the original name came from the fact that when she founded the business in 1983, she did so with two partners. Today she and her business partner, Janet Cunningham, operate the business that has produced over 50 World Grand Champions at Ava Missouri’s yearly Missouri Fox Trotters Horse Breeders Association (MFTHBA) Show and Celebration.

Over 140 people from 11 states gathered this spring at the MO-ARK Livestock Marketing Center in Exeter, Mo., for a chance to purchase bulls that were bred and developed in Fescue Country. The idea was to purchase low-input bulls.

Robert “Bob” M. White, a fourth generation farmer, cattleman and owner of White’s Bar-W Ranch in Ozark, Mo., has a love of history that is almost as great as his love of farming. Owned by Bob’s family since the 1850s, White’s Bar-W Ranch has a long and well documented history – starting with the original land grant signed by Ulysses S. Grant hanging in Bob’s office. In 1931, Bob’s parents began a dairy operation, known as White’s Dairy, with Guernsey cows; White’s Dairy bottled, sold and delivered milk to Ozark. In 1966, Hereford cattle joined the Guernsey cows at White’s Bar-W and today Bob raises crossbred beef cow/calf pairs with a Hereford base. “They’re crossed with a little bit of everything,” he laughed.

Through a thick, deep pasture in a valley on the Chevallier farm grazes a gentle, peaceful herd of Katahdin sheep. Dr. Beverly Chevallier, who practices at her veterinary clinic in Western Grove, Ark., is focused on growing quality sheep for the meat market. She implements grazing and managing techniques, and couples a beef herd as well, to meet her production goals.

Jack and Kay Carmody live in a beautiful and privately located area where their ranch spreads out over 100 acres of spring green pastures and wooded areas near Hartman, Ark. Their home is over 140 years old. “It used to be an old nunnery and when our house burnt, I moved this building out here and made it our new house,” said Jack. “It took a lot of work because I also worked a full time job and broke horses too.”

There are as many ways to run a successful cattle operation as there are people. Eddie and Teresa McCoin of Afton, Okla., are among the more unusual because they run an operation based on cattle trading.

"Kids need to learn about farming and animals. They need to touch the dirt. There are so many lessons to be learned and so many kids are missing these lessons,” said Bob Brandon, director of Runnymede School for Boys and Runnymede Farm.