Neighbors

"A happy goat has its tail up,” Donna Allen of Rose Hill Farm east of Lebanon, Mo., shared on a recent walk through her pasture, which includes 18 registered Boer goats. Donna and her husband, Cecil, a former truck driver have Allen & Allen Limousins, and for the past six years, have also raised Boer goats, the meat goat breed originally developed in South Africa.

In 50 years as an Angus breeder, Kenneth Elbert has found that the middle of the road isn’t all that bad a place to be.

Larry and Kathleen Holt, who own K and L Farms in Mount George, Ark., have two successful farming operations that they have decided, complement each other perfectly. On the Holt’s 1,000-acre farm south of Russellville, Ark., they have both a Beefmaster operation and a poultry operation.

Tom Nelson was typical of so many young men raised in the Ozarks – always around cattle and wanting to stay on the farm, but yet knowing that a job off the farm would be necessary in order to get by.

It was Albert Einstein who famously said, “The only source of knowledge is experience.” Experience and wisdom are the two words that first come to mind when you meet Gene Pharr of Lincoln, Ark. Gene is steeped in the hands-on knowledge that comes with growing up on a chicken and turkey farm in Lincoln. Gene expanded his experience when he headed to college at the University of Arkansas, where he graduated with his degree in Animal Science in 1975. He started working as a turkey serviceman for the Campbell Soup Company after graduation, where he jokes that he was a bridge across the cultural divide for the company.

Double J Ranch is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. Operators Ronald and Will James of rural Mindenmines, Mo., recalled many family dinners put on hold to show bulls to customers, and the father and son duo laughed about a time when they were stopped one Easter Sunday, mid-egg hunt, to show a bull to an interested customer. The bottom line is, Double J Ranch tries hard to give their customers what they want.

For his parents, it was a babysitter. But now it’s become a profession.

Raised on a farm near Urbana, Mo., Larry Glor said, “I never could quite get it out of my blood.”  Although he milked before he was married, almost 42 years ago, he has been in the beef business since.

Rethel King runs about 125 head of registered Red Angus on his 120-acre ranch outside Harrison, Ark. They’re all-natural, raised with no hormones. Rethel said that if his calves don’t scan in at “choice,” he doesn’t keep them. Because of the extreme high quality of the cattle that Rethel produces, he is able to sell them directly to a local market at a premium.

The lambs at Bloomin' Acres call out and crowd around Marilyn Miles when she visits them twice a day on the 70-acre hilltop farm in rural Washington County.