Everyone that breeds or shows purebred cattle has had a few that they remember for a long, long time. Maybe it's the first calf you ever had, the first cow you ever bought with your own money, or for many Shorthorn breeders it's a white heifer. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone told me they fell in love with Shorthorns because of a white heifer. I've been at this for a long time, maybe that's why there are so many that have held a special place in the heart. The first one, though, was that white Leader 21st heifer that I won the Iowa State Fair junior show with. Then there was Justamere Todd. Winning the Iowa State Fair open show was a thrill I'll never forget. Maybe it was luck, maybe it was just being in the right place at the right time, it doesn't matter. To find a bull like that and accomplish what he did was an unforgettable experience. I bought Todd in late spring of 1975 and wanted to show him later that year so we bred only a very few cows to him. We used him more heavily the next year and went into winter of 1977 with great anticipation.
Justamere Todd as Grand Champion at the Iowa State Fair, being held by Lonny
The fall of 1976 was extremely dry in our area. There was no fall rain to speak of and absolutely no snow. We had feedlots full of market cattle, about 50 purebred cows, 25 Suffolk ewes, and an 80-sow farrow to finish hog operation. Our hog facilities were much different than those of today. We had ten 24 X 48 buildings with a 24 X 48 concrete pad in front of each. Two buildings stood side by side, maybe 50 feet apart, then another pair maybe another 50 feet away. One building was used for an 18-stall farrowing house, another for a nursery and over run farrowing needs, 6 were used for finishing hogs, maybe 125-150 per pen, and 2 others for storage. Each building had a water hydrant and the pens for market hogs had 4-way cup waterers. It was so dry that by January of 1977 the underground water lines began freezing. The cup waterers were warm, but the pipes that fed them were frozen. Then the lines to the hydrants froze. Soon I was down to three working hydrants. To provide water to the hogs, I bought several metal hog troughs and pieced together up to 200' of garden hoses. Every morning I would put the trough in the hog pens, one by one, and stand there with a hose trying to hit the constantly moving target of the water trough with 100+ hogs battling for what they thought was the last drop of water on the face of the earth. After finishing the west half of the lots, I moved the hoses to the next working hydrant and finished the remainder of the pens. I then pulled the hoses back into the warm farrowing house and rolled them up. The process was repeated every evening, every day, until the last water line finally thawed in April. Imagine, if you will, holding a garden hose in below zero temperatures for maybe 15-20 minutes, water splashing on you, every piece of clothing frozen stiff, then moving on to the next pen to repeat the process. I suppose it took 2 hours, day and night, to finish the process every day for 3 months.
I was so happy when that last water line thawed, but the problems were not over. There was no snow, so there was nothing to melt in the fields. There was virtually no spring rain. We planted our crops into essentially dry dirt. It was next to impossible to follow the row markers when planting. Some crops germinated, most did not. The corn that did germinate didn't last long. The pasture was nonexistent. A neighbor had quit feeding cattle then and he sold us his bunker silo full of silage from the year before. That got us through for a while. We finally got some rain just as the state fair started in mid-August, but it was way too late for the crops. The pastures greened up, so we did have some fall pasture. The only soybeans we harvested were on a rented farm 3 miles south of us and they yielded almost 6 bushels/acre. We had no silage to chop and no corn or beans to combine at home. Crop insurance was nearly unheard of at that time so there was no help. Imagine investing all the money to put in your crop and getting no income. It's hard enough to go without income from losing a job or for other reasons, but to have all the cash invested on top of it is something that is almost impossible to recover from. Added to that is the fact that we had to buy all the grain to feed our livestock. I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone. A very small area around us was the most affected. I had several friends within 5 or 10 miles that got a few small showers that allowed them to get 1/3 to 1/2 a crop.
Justamere Todd daughter which was the dam of a Minnesota St. Fair reserve champion bull
We got our first real sampling of Justamere Todd calves in 1977 and they were everything I had hoped for. We didn't start calving back then until about April 1st, so there were obviously no problems with spring mud that year. There was an early spring yearling heifer that was always in the top 2 or 3 of her class, but could never get around Greenley's Millvale Prairie Pearl heifer that won the National Junior Show. Oakview Swamp Fox (a son of Justamere Todd) won his class every time shown including at Denver and was later named an All American. Others included a reserve champion bull at the Minnesota State Fair, the top selling female at the Iowa Beef Expo, and many others that represented our herd well. Later on, I was able to purchase several cows from the Jones Family of Washington, Iowa, the breeders of Todd. They included four half-sisters to him, Roan Beauty, Justamere Staci, Justamere Clarabelle, and Justamere Monica 3rd. The other two were Justamere Hildegard and Justamere Missy.
All were tremendous producers and the real dual-purpose kind. I bought Staci and Clarabelle at the Iowa State Fair following the Milking Shorthorn show and stalled them with my beef string when I brought them to Des Moines. There was a young man there that had sold the Des Moines paper in the barns for as long as I could remember. He came by my stalls twice a day saying, "Lonny. When you gonna milk those cows?" I did take them to the milking parlor twice a day and we had a good time. Everyone in the barn knew the story, but a few asked me if I was going to show them in the beef show. I told some them, "Of course." I knew full well all the time I couldn't for a variety of reasons including they had not been transferred to my name and were not yet double registered with the ASA. Virgil Wegener of Hub's Shorthorns finally came over and asked how I was going to show those cows. I smiled and told him of course I couldn't and we had a good laugh.
Now I had to figure out the next step in our genetics. Dad had purchased Weston Garrison, a son of Weston Goliath, plus a son of Mandalong Super Flag, but I was not too interested in using them because I felt they didn't have enough growth for the time period. I had always admired the Graham cattle, so the logical choice for me included Clark, Columbus, and Great White Hope. Clark and Great White Hope seemed to work best on my cows. I didn't seem to have a very good conception rate with Columbus, so I had very few calves by him to compare. Several of the best cattle I had raised up to that time were sired by Clark and out of the Foxdale Favorite Robin cows I had purchased. Admiral Halsey, out of Justamere Clarabelle, was Iowa Champion and reserve overall at the Iowa State Fair, reserve Senior Champion at the Illinois State Fair, and a two time All American. Monaco Prince, out of Justamere Monica 3rd, won his class at both the Iowa and Illinois State Fairs and teamed with Admiral Halsey to win the pair of bulls class at Des Moines and Minneapolis. Justamere Staci produced the champion and top selling female at the Iowa Beef Expo. We used Great White Hope on several Todd daughters with great success, too, producing a member of the champion pair at the Iowa Beef Expo and other good show cattle.
Beef Expo Champion pair. Bull (Great White Hope son) won his class, and heifer (Clark daughter out of Justamere Staci) was grand champion. People L to R: Steve & Linda Haywood, Lonny Flack, Flack’s daughter Andrea (Lassie Princess), Susan Flack is the Lassie Queen, and nephew Derek (prince).
Artificial insemination allowed us to use several bulls that we otherwise couldn't afford at that time. Soon, though, I began searching for a bull that I liked to turn out in the pasture. Bob Miller in North Dakota had several Hilltop Lancer 457 sons that I wanted to see, so one evening Dale Studer and I took off for Fordville. We drove all night and finally stopped for a brief nap at a rest area somewhere around Fargo. We pulled into Bob's driveway around 10:00 a.m. and he showed us his bulls. The two I liked best were named Mr. Majestic and Jubilation. Bob was especially proud of Majestic and just went on and on about how he looked down his top. I could see that, but he insisted that I climb into the hay mow to get a bird's eye view. I finally relented and up the ladder I went. I was interested in the bull, but didn't think I could afford the price tag. On our way home we drove to Waverly, Minnesota, to see what the Grahams had. It was maybe 11:00 p.m. when we got there, but they had lights on the round barn and we were told to make ourselves at home and look around. I had driven the entire trip, but when we got just south of Mankato I had had enough. Dale took over the driving. I don't think we'd driven a mile when we met a semi coming towards us with a deer standing on the dividing line of the highway. Fortunately, it didn't move and both vehicles just missed it. Needless to say, I was awake then and drove the rest of the way.
Soon after that trip, Rich Studer and I set off for Plains, Kansas, to visit Dean Fieser. Nelco McLeod was one of my favorite Lancer line bulls plus he was polled. I didn't buy a bull there, either, though there were several I liked. That, too, was an interesting trip. Rich had spent time in Vietnam and wasn't as nervous about spending the night at some stops I wasn't too sure about. I decided to use Admiral Halsey on my cows and it turned out to be a good decision. The Admiral Halsey calves, in my opinion, were just right for the times. Good growth, excellent conformation, correct, stylish cattle with adequate depth and thickness.
Admiral Halsey (Justamere Todd son) was Iowa Champion and reserve overall at the Iowa State Fair, reserve Senior Champion at the Illinois State Fair, and a two time All American.
I couldn't help but notice the rising popularity of the Irish Shorthorn cattle (which are not Heritage Shorthorns). Since they had become accepted into the ASA herdbook, their use became widespread. The Alden family from Missouri made a huge splash in the breed with their offspring of Deerpark Leader 13th (Dividend) and Deerpark Improver, the very bulls I had seen on display in Denver several years earlier and passed by because their calves could not get fully into the herdbook. Dividend became the most popular in the United States perhaps because he was the larger framed, more extended bull of the two. I had not used any Irish breeding up to that time, but thought perhaps they could improve the rump structure and feet and legs of some of the other popular cattle of the day. Richard Dolginow had founded a new herd near Excelsior Springs, Missouri, and had imported several full Irish cows. I called Richard and he said he had some bull calves I might be interested in. Kathie and I drove down to take a look and I immediately picked out two calves that stood out from the rest. Lazy D Ultimate Type and Lazy D HL Quane. Richard and his manager, Larry Moorehead, told me earlier that Ultimate Type was so named because of his impeccable structure and appearance. They weren't kidding. Quane was almost as impressive to me due to his substance, growth, and bone. I ended up selecting Ultimate Type because, in additional to his tremendous eye appeal, his sire was the original Deerpark Leader, his dam, Highfield Una 3rd, was a faultless cow, and his full sister, Lazy D Deerpark Una, was one of the top heifers I had ever seen. Quane's dam, Ballyart Snowflake, was a legendary show cow overseas, but I just couldn't resist Ultimate Type after I had seen him. With Admiral Halsey and Lazy D Ultimate Type roaming the pastures, I thought I was set for years.
Oakview Ad from 1983 highlighting some of Lonny’s cattle which he talks about in this article.