The second half of the decade of the 60's brought about much change to our family and farming operation. At the beginning of 1965 I was 10 and just beginning to learn about the real world. By the end of 1970, I was 16 and, of course, pretty much knew all there was to know. The biggest change was the purchase of a nearby farm. As I understand it, the family we purchased the farm from was closely related to the family we currently were farming on shares with. There was some disagreement between the two families as to whether it was proper for them to sell land, so we were not allowed to continue to farm on the original property if we moved to the farm we had purchased. No one really wants to give up 600 acres, so we continued to live at the previous home and rented out the two houses on the newly purchased property.

There were about 70 acres of timber pasture on the new farm, so it was obvious that we needed to expand the cow herd. Our herd prefix had been Circle F, but we changed it to Oakview due to the many oak trees in the new pasture. We added some cows from a few sales around the state and it wasn't long before the cow herd had doubled in size. LKS Shorthorns, Leland Kellogg & Sons, had a sizable Shorthorn herd not far from us. Ron Kellogg was the herd managing son and it wasn't long before I started going to shows and sales with him. There were many consignment sales around Iowa at that time and two of the biggest were at Hawkeye Downs in Cedar Rapids and the Central States sale in Oskaloosa. Each site had two sales per year, one in the spring and one in the fall. The Kellogg’s consigned to both sales and I would help Ron load the cattle and tack, and we would leave for the sale at the crack of dawn. No one had stock trailers then, so everything was hauled in a straight truck and loaded/unloaded with a cattle chute. I suppose parts must have been quite expensive for those old trucks because they came with a sun visor only on the driver's side. It was 90 miles directly east along highway 30 from Colo to Cedar Rapids. I had to squint or shut my eyes the entire trip. After the sale, it was another 90-mile trip home. Directly west. Directly into bright sunlight. The trip to Oskaloosa was almost exactly the same, only slightly south which helped a little bit. I don't think we ever made a trip on a cloudy day.

I also helped Ron at several shows. We normally hit the All Iowa Fair in Cedar Rapids, North Iowa Fair in Mason City, and the Iowa State Fair. I suppose I got paid for the help, but it didn't matter. I was doing something I loved. I so enjoyed seeing the cattle, meeting the people, and treasured the entire experience. The Kellogg’s were competitive, but never really dominated the shows like a few herds. One year, though, Ron had an exceptional senior yearling bull, LKS Archie RP sired by Louada Rothes Prince, full brother to the dominant bull of the time, Louada Rothes King. Archie won the show in Mason City and after cleanup was done, we led the show string to the tie outs. I was proud to lead the champion bull of the show that night. We tied the cattle to the posts of a chain link fence using both the halter and the neck strap. The next morning, Archie was loose and had bred a polled Hereford heifer down the line a ways. He had slipped out of his halter and the neck tie must have been too loose. The joys of a cattle show!

Dad gave my brother and me the proceeds from the sale of one of our steers at the county fair to “pay us for our help on the farm” I guess. Billy Anderson had one of the top herds around in the mid 60's and one that I admired. He always sold a few cows at Cedar Rapids and Oskaloosa, and one year I used some of the money I had saved up and bought one of his cows. WL Princess Roma 5th. She was a daughter of Louada Aristocrat, Billy's herd bull at the time, and her dam was Saltoun Princess Roma 11th, a direct Scottish import. I finally did it—I had a 100% Scottish pedigreed cow. She had a bull calf at side by Scottsdale Arrogant, a bull Billy had purchased from Scottsdale Farms in Canada. Billy agreed to take my cow home and rebreed her to Arrogant. She calved the next summer. She was a true belt buckle cow. If you weren't around in the mid 60's, just imagine a cow that just comes up to your waist. As you can imagine, her udder was also quite low to the ground. I don't know if the teats were 4 inches above the floor. We tied her in the barn and had to put some pressure on the calf's head to get it low enough to nurse, although once it figured it out, it was fine. While we were working on the calf, Dad said that the cow acted like she'd been through this before.

SV Caesar 25th had been our herd bull for several years and did a pretty good job for us. We tried out several bulls after him, none of which really clicked. JB Keynote 53rd was purchased from the Johnson Brothers at Atlantic, Iowa. We turned him out with a group of heifers the first year we used him. A neighbor was feeding out about 50 heifers in a timber pasture that adjoined ours. He had a self-feeder and was feeding MGA (daily hormonal feed additive) to keep the heifers from coming into heat. As luck would have it, the creek rose after a heavy rain and the heifers didn't cross the creek to eat for several days. They all came in heat and we could never keep that bull in again and had to sell him. We purchased Hi View Royal Cameo from the Raisbecks in Wisconsin and had high hopes for him. However, he got a twisted gut and didn't live long. A son of Louada Aristocrat, LKS Talisman, was purchased from the Kelloggs and he did okay, but not great. The Acadia Napoleon 66th son, Colomeadow Silver Cloud, was used some, but the calves out of these bulls just weren't as good as we had hoped for. If you look back far enough in the pedigrees of these bulls, they all go back to the Scottish type Calrossie herd.

As I went to the shows and sales, I began to notice a demand for more growth and productivity in the cattle. Our county fair started to weigh the steers as calves and compute the average daily gain and provide that information to the judge. Dad was more than a little upset when, after going to all that work to include performance in the show, the champion steer was an Angus with an average daily gain of 1.67. At least the seed was planted. In the purebred shows, performance was mentioned more and more and polled cattle began to come into favor. When we first got involved with Shorthorns, the polled cattle seemed to be almost second-class citizens. The Iowa Beef Improvement Association came up with a program that allowed a youth producer to identify 5 cows and they would weigh the calves and compute 205 day weaning weights. I enrolled 5 cows and the results were interesting to say the least. At that time, 450 pounds was a good goal at weaning. Needless to say, I did not enroll our worst cows, but my weights were about 440 pounds. We needed to add some performance.

TPS Coronet Leader 21st x was just beginning to make a name for himself about that time. We AI’d some cows to him in 1968 and got 2 very nice heifer calves. The semen was shipped by Greyhound to a bus stop in Colo and we picked it up there. Gerald Kangley was an AI tech with Carnation Farms and he AI’d the cows and filled out a breeding receipt noting the date, owner, and cow and bull ID. In the spring of 1969, Oakview Augusta's Secret and Oakview Lady Anna were born. Secret was white and from the day she was born I had my heart set on showing her. Unfortunately, Randy had first pick of the heifers that year and I had first pick of the steers. To this day, I don't know if Dad 'suggested' to Randy that he let me have the white heifer or if my older brother was just being nice to me—I really don't want to know. I literally jumped for joy when he took Lady Anna with his pick. I also chose OV Augusta Jealousy, a daughter of SV Caesar 25th, with what was actually the 4th pick.

Secret won the county fair and she and Augusta Jealousy were champion and reserve in the junior show at the State Fair. The judge at the county fair was the manager of Pioneer's beef cattle division at the time and said over the loudspeaker that if he could find 50 Shorthorn heifers like Secret, he would have a Shorthorn herd. By the way, I had no pity and picked the best steer with my first pick and he won the county fair, too. That year we almost couldn't show our heifers. Leader 21st's owner decided to charge a steep fee to record calves out of him right when we were ready to register them. Dad either called Mr. Gordon or wrote him and since we were junior members, we were spared the extra cost.

Beyond the county fair, I had dreamt of showing in the open show at the Iowa State Fair ever since I started attending the show before I was 10 years old. I was certain Oakview Augusta's Secret was going to be the heifer of my dreams when she hit the ground. She developed exactly as I thought she would. After doing quite well in the junior shows I took the plunge and entered her in the state fair open show. We took our FFA entries to the fair on a Tuesday, 2 days before the fair officially opened. We showed in the junior show on Friday and were released on Saturday. My entry in the open show posed a few problems. The open show was not until the following week, Wednesday I think. Football practice also started as soon as the FFA show was over. I had to decide if I was going to play football or show my heifer. I decided to retire from football. I liked baseball and basketball better anyway. My dad had played semi pro football and he may have been disappointed, but I don't think the team needed a linebacker that stood 6 feet tall and weighed 145 pounds.

During the FFA show you were required to stay in the fair dormitory. No one had heard of air conditioning. It was at least 100 degrees with no air movement whatsoever. After a shower you were wetter when you put your clothes on than you were in the shower. I spent a couple days alone at the fair before I could move to the open show barn. Corn dogs were a quarter and I ate a ton of them. It took about 20 years before I could eat another one.

During the open show you slept in the barn. You took the cattle to the tie outs, cleaned the stalls, fluffed up the straw, and hopped into your sleeping bag. With the fan on. There I was—in the open show barn, rubbing elbows with the Shorthorn breeders I had admired for years. Burr, Penningroth, Struve, Anderson, Studer, and many others. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and started down the aisle to get Secret from the tie outs. As I got to the east end of the barn I could not help but notice one of my heroes, half in half out of his sleeping bag, taking a swig of Southern Comfort from a bottle in his show box. He looked at me with my jaw on the floor and said, "Just need a shot to get me going in the morning." After I stood there for what seemed to be a long time I continued on my way to the tie outs.

Show day finally arrived. In those days there were often 20+ heifers in every class. Secret was second in her class to the reserve grand champion. It took a week for me to come down. Who needs football anyway?

About this same time, we started the search for a polled bull. Dad and I went to Kaehlers in Minnesota and found a few I really liked. Dad pretty much let me make the selection and I narrowed it down to two, a son of TPS Coronet Leader 10th and a son of Clipper King of USA. I studied both of those bulls and could not decide. Dad was talking to the gentleman showing us the bulls while I looked and I heard him tell Dad about the time he took two horses to the field to plow one morning and came back that night with a different set. There was little talking after that and Dad said we needed to go and he would let them know what we decided. We didn't get out of the driveway before Dad said, "I don't do business with horse traders." To this day, I don't think anything was really wrong, Dad just loved horses and I know he would have never sold or traded away one of his. We ended up purchasing a yearling bull from Miles Mann at Woodbine, Iowa, Fair Acres Emblem, a son of the Canadian Bull Boa Kae White Tornado.

A Shorthorn Heritage (Part 3): Change is Coming