Neighbors

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.

Joe Don Koenigseder has wanted to be in the cattle business all his life. And like most people who had a dream and no inheritance to back it up, he had to scratch it out with his own bare hands. He and his wife, Susie, started building toward this dream in 1968 in Ft. Smith, Ark., with two heads of cattle, and moved from there to Hackett, Ark., with stock cattle. During this time they had a family of five kids – four girls and one boy, Jill, Amy, Kathy, Jay and Sarah. "They were good hard working kids too," said Joe Don. The family then moved from Hackett, to Booneville, Ark., and while they lived in Booneville, they changed from stock cattle to dairy cattle.

"It’s all born of laziness,” said Larry Marah in reference to his farm equipment inventions. “I got old and tired of doing everything by hand. Maybe if I was easier to get along with, I wouldn’t have to build so many one-man machines,” he chuckled.

In 2008 Rebecca DeLong decided that it was time for a change after 14 years in the medical industry. She wanted to get back to the farm life, be her own boss and keep her own hours. Although Becky was raised on a dairy farm, she was quick to say it did not fully prepare her for her new career.

A black and white photo hangs on the wall of the Edmundo Quiñonez home in western Dallas County that shows a 13-year-old boy and other family members riding in a horse-drawn buckboard wagon across the dry desolate countryside of Durango, Mexico. The scene could easily belong to the mid-19th century instead of the mid-20th century when it was actually taken. Edmundo Quiñonez, owner of 220 acres, 100 Black Angus cows and three horned Hereford bulls, smiled as he pointed out that he is the young teen in the photo.