I grew up on a 100 pair cow/calf farm in the Blue Grass Valley near Monterey, Highland County, Virginia in the Allegheny Mountains. I made extra money when I was in high school by trapping, digging ginseng, and riding colts for neighbors. I sure wish I’d have known about Ray Hunt then. It would have saved me a lot of hide.

They graduated me from Highland High School in the spring of 1967 and I joined the US Navy that fall. I spent the next four years as an aviation electrician’s mate working on F-4 Phantoms for fighter squadron VF-101 and VF-11 aboard USS Forrestal.

When I got out of the Navy in the summer of 1971, I spent the next several months working for a couple of different electrical contractors. I learned the ropes a little bit and decided to hang out my own shingle.

I did mostly industrial and commercial work. At the height of my contracting career, I had 6 crews of electricians and an underground utility crew. I even got into building a few houses. In 1979, I started downsizing the contracting business and up sizing my cattle business. I was going to get into where the BIG money was. (Ignorance is truly bliss.)

My outfit was more of a cattle company than it was a ranch or farm. I mainly bought lesser quality calves and upgraded them. They were vaccinated, wormed, de-horned, castrated and back grounded to grass. I resold most of them to local stocker operators and/or grazed them by the pound gain for Midwest farmer feeders or investors. I grazed a lot of them for myself. I also put together mama cows for resale and to build my own herd. By 2001, we were handling right at 10,000 head a year of stockers, feeders and cows and calves. During this time, I was a rep for Superior Livestock Auction and most of my own and customer’s cattle were marketed through them. Superior is doing a great service for the beef industry.

I had a small broodmare band of usually about 15 head. I started the colts in the winter along with “refitting” trader horses for resale. I got my 20 year breeder’s certificate from the AQHA in 2003.

On October 14, 2003 fed cattle futures closed over $100.00 for the first time ever. Prices were going through the roof. I could see a light way down there at the end of the tunnel and figured I’d better get out while the gettin’ was good. When I started selling out, we were running about 450 head of mama cows and grazing around 1200 head of yearling cattle. It took 3 years and that light kept getting brighter. We finally got through that tunnel and came out in Stanfield, Arizona.          

All of this sounds real slick and smooth. I just don’t have nearly enough room here to elaborate on all of the wrecks, screw-ups, breakdowns and the mud and the blood and the beer it took to get all this done but it was quite a ride, Woodrow.