ASH FLAT — Lance and Mandy Humphries both come from farming background, so it’s little wonder they chose to begin their own farm when they married 20 years ago.
“It was never something we had to discuss,” said Lance, who grew up in Salem in Fulton County. “We were just both passionate about farming and wanted to continue that tradition and those values for our children. When we got married, we had 10 pairs of momma cows and a rodeo company, and it has just grown from there.”
Today, Lance and Mandy, who grew up in Ash Flat, have three children — Taci, 8, Graci, 4, and Harris, 1 — and raise cattle on approximately 600 acres near Ash Flat.
They are the 2015 Sharp County Farm Family of the Year.
“Farming is something we can do as a family,” Mandy said.
“The girls already help work the cattle. It’s a family thing,” she said.
“I was surprised and honored when they told me about being named Farm Family of the Year,” Lance said. “It’s a nice deal.
“This is a good community. There are lots of good people here.”
Lance, 45, is the son of Arlene Humphries of Salem and the late Max Humphries. Lance is a graduate of Salem High School.
“My parents and grandparents farmed,” he said, “I’ve been doing it ever since I was a kid.”
Mandy, 39, is the daughter of Gary Rogers of Ash Flat and Daphine Rolley of Highland. The farm on which she and Lance live was her parents’ land.
Mandy said that when she was a young girl, she picked a spot on the farm where she wanted to live.
“This is it,” she said. “There were two really pretty oak trees here back then. The tornado blew them away.”
Mandy said they had lived in a trailer on the farm for a long time before they were able to build a house.
“We had been in our house for about two years when, on Feb. 5, 2008, a tornado hit our farm,” she said. “We were in the house when it happened.”
Lance said, “It wiped out our barns. We lost 13 or 14 calves. … We pretty much had to redo the house.”
Mandy said, “We’ve been through a lot.
“We were married for 12 years before we had Taci,” she said. “Now we have three [children].”
Lance and Mandy met at a sale barn. They started their rodeo company with Lance’s brother, Heath, and called it Three Bar H. They were named Producer of the Year three times by the Arkansas Cowboys Association. They closed the business four years ago.
Lance was a steer wrestler.
“I secretaried,” Mandy said with a smile, referring to her role in the rodeo company.
Lance has several other jobs in addition to farming. He is part owner of Pocahontas Stockyards; co-owner of Foothills Livestock Trucking Co. LLC; a real estate agent for Arkansas Foothills Realty, where he manages the farm listings; and a cattle buyer.
Mandy has been a kindergarten teacher at Cherokee Elementary School in Hardy for 16 years. She received her undergraduate degree from Williams Baptist College in Walnut Ridge and her master’s degree from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.
“You just have to prioritize,” she said when asked how she juggles all that she does. “What doesn’t get done just doesn’t get done.
“I do help on the farm when I can,” she said. “I help with the vaccinations.”
“Farming is a big challenge,” Lance said.
“The market is real good right now. Prices are unbelievable, … what cattle bring,” he said. “But that could change fast. … it could be a train wreck.”
Mandy said farming is 24/7.
“Cattle don’t care if you’re sick or if it’s a holiday,” she said.
“We background cattle,” Lance said as he explained the couple’s farming operation. “Ninety percent of the cattle we start here will range in weight from 300 to 700 pounds. … They will go from here to feedlots in Kansas or Nebraska.
“We get them put together and get started with the vaccination program and ship them on out,” he said. “We also graze a lot of cattle in the spring in Kansas on the Flint Hills for bluestem grass. Then in the fall, we run cattle on wheat in Kansas. We average about 1,500 to 2,000 head a year.” They also have a 50-head Angus cow/calf operation and raise an additional herd of yearlings.
“But most of the time, our cattle will go out west for finishing,” he said, adding that his brother worked for several years as a manager of a sale barn in Fredonia, Kansas.
“We were able to get some good contacts, some good customers out there,” he said.
Lance used to have another full-time job in addition to farming. He worked for the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department for 14 years as a member of the maintenance crew in Sharp County.
“I quit that in ’06,” he said. “My dad had an accident and was not able to take care of the farm, so I quit to help him with that.
“My mom has a real estate office in Glencoe,” Lance said. “I got my real estate license and help her there.”
The children are also involved in the farming operation.
Taci has chickens, and she and Graci are raising a bottle calf that they hope to show at the county fair.
Taci, who is in third grade at Cherokee Elementary School, belongs to the Sharp County 4-H, where her mother is a leader. Taci is involved in the poultry-chain activity and the dairy-foods contest. She sells the eggs that are provided by the chickens gained from the poultry chain.
Taci and Graci also have rabbits and several momma cows of their own. They also enjoy riding horses and hope to begin to rodeo soon.
Lance said he and Mandy hope to “grow and expand” their farming operation.
Lance and Mandy are active members of Salem United Methodist Church, where she taught Sunday School before the couple had their own children.
She also helps with the Vacation Bible School program in the summer.
Mandy started and conducted a training program for women in the spring of 2009 through Women Run Arkansas. She was also an active member for several years of the Circle of Friends organization, which raises money for Arkansas Children’s Hospital.