Neighbors

"Ten years ago, it started as a joke,” Katie Stewart, vice president of the Southwest Missouri Goat Producers Association, explained how her family’s involvement with Boer goats began. “Bob (Katie’s husband) brought home three baby goats from the sale barn for our children. He called them 'weed eaters' and from there…” she waved a hand towards the lot full of 40 South African goats known for their meat production.

Houston and Kenda Giles share a dedication to all things natural. They farm 120 acres just north of Carthage, Mo., and raise grass-fed dairy and beef cattle, chickens, pigs and sheep without using steroids, hormones or antibiotics.

A man once said, “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” That man must have known Tim Moore.

Jim and Dixie Robinson purchased nine goats in September 2008, and found themselves in a learning process. During the first week, they lost three. Dixie said that it was quite the education at the beginning and still is.

Land and cattle have tied together the threads of Scott Price’s family for more than 100 years. Scott’s grandfather Claude Wofford bought the original 200-acre ranch in Crawford County, Ark., from Scott’s great-uncle in the 1890s. “My grandfather had three girls, my mother being one of them,” explained Scott. “He was a railroader, and me being the grandkid, I tried to spend every moment I could here.”

"If it weren’t for him,” were the words mustered by both Chad Foster and his father-in-law, Ben Coleman simultaneously. The two men stated those words about one another, as they discussed their cattle operation in Hickory County.

Carol Pool is your typical American cowgirl. She is hard-working, fun-loving and knows her way around a horse. She’s been a cowgirl her whole life, all 70 years of it. Growing up around fox trotters, near the town of Eldridge, Mo., she’d always been fond of horses. Her interest in the sport of barrel racing didn’t begin until she saw a picture of a barrel racer turning a barrel on a beautiful, strong horse. Carol said with her contagious laugh and smile, “I wanted a picture like that to hang on my wall.” 

Daphne Sartin described the farmer as 'the eternal optimist.' "Very few people get up every morning and go to a job they can’t control,” she said. She explained that they have no control over the weather or prices.

Five years ago Evelyn and Al Terhune researched sheep breeds with an interest in raising meat sheep on 35 acres of pasture on their 70 acres of land near Gilbert, Ark. Mowing grass and weeds, they felt, was a waste of time and money, where grazing sheep would be a positive contribution to pasture management, without having to spray weed killers.

Joe Powell has a rich agricultural heritage, ranching in the river bottoms in Franklin County. “I have ranched all my life really,” said Joe. “As a kid, I loved cattle. My grandfather Willis Powell started here with a parcel of land that was given to them by the U.S. Government to homestead." The deed to that land is framed in Joe’s home today. “My dad, Grant Powell, farmed, and he had a few cattle and land down in the bottoms near the river,” explained Joe. “When they put the locke and dam in, they had to sell their land to the Corp. of Engineers. Of course that was back in the horse and buggy days,” joked Joe.