Neighbors

The Billie Blevins farm in Boone County is a rare place for the Ozarks. His 128-acre cattle farm is almost flat. No hills, no hollers, just good flat ground. Billie was born in the area and has owned the property where they live since 1957. Just a few years later he and his new bride, Dorothy, built a house and moved on the place. They’ve now been married 52 years, raised three children and are still in the same house after all these years.

When Fred and Gay Mason opened their Gay Parita gas station in 1930, the highway it served was the great thoroughfare of the nation.

Jim McDonald has been farming long enough to know pretty much what it will cost to raise a calf to a desired weight.

The Brooks family owns a farm in Webster County near Marshfield, Mo. They also own and operate Brooks Gas Company.

Jack Dill operates Alva Dill and Sons dairy farm near Conway, Mo., in Dallas County. Jack said, “It’s a family partnership.” Alva Dill is his father. Also included in the partnership is Jack’s son, Jordan, his brother, Jerry, and Jerry’s son, Jarrod. Five families are working together and making a living on the farm. Jack is quick to point out that while he is the manager, everyone has an equal say in decision-making.

Russ and Marla Jones are partners with Marla’s parents Jerry and Shirley Green in a diverse, small acreage farming operation in Muldrow, Okla. The farm includes dairy goats, Boer goats, chickens, St. Croix hair sheep and Jersey cows that supply area residents with milk, milk products and meat. Other family members are also involved causing Russ to comment, “This is as communal as you can be in the United States without raising eyebrows. We all work together.”

Gene and Dianna Buffington live on a 530-acre ranch in Watts, Okla., on land that once belonged to Gene’s parents. They also have 30 acres in Siloam Springs, Ark., that is Dianna’s.

David and Rita Stratton’s farm is nestled in the woods and hills of Cookson, Okla. They are currently remodeling David’s boyhood home with the intention of turning it into a bed and breakfast and then building themselves a smaller home nearby.

"It’s all I’ve ever known,” shrugged Geno Middleton. “Raising, breaking and training horses has been in my blood. I’m the third generation to do this,” he explained of Geno Middleton Stables north of West Plains, Mo., in Howell County.

Growing up in Lockwood, Mo., about a mile from his current farmstead, Charles Obert was deeply frustrated by his father’s refusal to buy exotic animals. Instead his father ran a dairy and raised chickens and hogs for personal use.