CHIMES — Rick and Sandy Thomas believe they are living in a little bit of paradise in Arkansas.
“We moved to Arkansas 42 years ago from New Jersey,” Rick said. “We always dreamed of owning country property. The Ozarks exceeded our expectations with its beauty, opportunity and freedom. It turned out to be a great place to raise a family and start a business.
“As a young married couple in New Jersey with a little girl, we bought our first house — a fixer-upper,” he said. “Two and a half years later, our goal was accomplished — house sold for a profit. We moved to Arkansas and purchased our first piece of paradise.”
Sandy added: “How lucky are we?”
Decades later, the Thomases are the Van Buren County Farm Family of the Year.
Rick said he was “stunned” when he learned they had been named Farm Family of the Year.
“I’m so honored,” he said. “I get emotional when I think about it.”
Sandy said the honor gives her “a warm fuzzy feeling.”
They raise approximately 300 head of registered Limousin and Lim/flex cattle, which is a cross between Limousin and Angus, in a cow/calf seed operation on several hundred acres in the Chimes community near the Van Buren/Searcy county line.
They also raise hay for their own use and cut some timber — oak and pine, mostly – to create pasture or thin trees to create a savanna, which is a grassland with few trees.
Rick, 69, and Sandy, 67, have been married 46 years. Nine years ago, Rick and Sandy designed and built the home in which they currently live.
They have one daughter, Amy Spears-Thomas, 45, who lives with her husband, Devin, in Bemidji, Minnesota. Amy and Devin have six children: son Trystan, 18, who attends the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where Amy graduated; daughter, Lupe, 17; son Jasper, 12; son Gareth, 10; son, Atty, 6; and son Tamlin, 5.
Rick and Sandy also own Express Forestry Service LLC. Rick contracts forestry and conservation services with the U.S. government, state governments, private corporations, consultants and individuals to perform reforestation and conservation projects and timber-stand improvement with his professional mobile forestry and conservation crews.
He said many of his customers are yearly enterprises, and others are bid online yearly or for extended times.
Rick first planted trees himself in 1975. He started Express Forestry in 1996, and it is certified with the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Labor.
The Thomases’ decision to move from New Jersey to Arkansas allowed them to realize some of their goals.
“New Jersey was very crowded,” Sandy said. “We wanted to have some land.”
“As a kid, I had a cousin who lived in Arkansas,” Rick said. “I thought that was the greatest thing. All my life I wanted to be a hillbilly.”
Rick graduated from high school and served for a while in the National Guard. He attended a community college in New Jersey, where he studied chemistry.
Sandy graduated from high school and went to a technical school, where she was trained to be a lab technician in a hospital. She worked several years in that profession.
Rick and Sandy moved to Arkansas in 1973.
“We just packed up and moved here,” Sandy said. “We had bought a house in New Jersey and renovated it,” she said. “We made a profit and bought 40 acres here in Arkansas. We moved here just to live in the country. My grandmother lived in the country when I was growing up; I just loved it there.
“We wanted the country life … clean air, a garden. We wanted to raise Amy in a nicer place.”
Rick said the couple were “trying to find a way to make a living” after they first moved to Van Buren County.
“I worked at a shirt factory and at a sawmill,” he said, “and then I learned to plant trees.
“I thought, ‘We can do that.’ I started planting trees in 1975.”
Sandy said they took their young daughter “wherever we went to plant trees.”
“We would be gone several months at a time,” she said.
“I planted trees for seven years myself,” Rick said. “I would get contracts to plant trees in the national forests. We went wherever the contracts were.”
“It was hard work,” Sandy said. “The planting was all done by hand.”
Then in 1996, Rick opened his own business, Express Forestry. Today, he has approximately 100 employees, many of whom are migrant workers who travel all over the country. They still plant the trees by hand.
They also work on a lot of habitat restoration, thinning and clearing trees.
“We want to return the Ozarks to more of an original natural state,” Rick said of the work on their own property, which they call Thomas Farms.
“We learned from the contracts with the national forests how to create the savanna and return the Ozarks to [its] original [state], while still using it for the cattle. This is an example of the forestry business helping the ranching end [of the business].”
The “ranching end” of the Thomases’ farming operation includes raising and selling registered red and black purebred Limousin and Lim/flex cattle.
They sell the bulls directly from the ranch.
“Customers tend to be repeat customers and spread the word,” Rick said, adding that the family does some local advertising, as well as advertising in breed publications. They also maintain a website.
“We go to purebred sales and sell as many as 40 at a time,” Sandy said. “For years, we had our own sale. At one sale, we sold over 300 head. That was back in 2005.”
Rick said that in the earlier days, when Amy was growing up, “Show cattle were a big part of the operation.
“Cattle were shown in both junior and senior categories. We participated in local, district, state, regional and national shows, a time or two winning state grand champions and national division champions and a national silver medal dam.”
Rick said semen sales are a “minor” segment of the family’s cattle operation.
“The forestry and cattle operations work nicely together,” Rick said, pointing out that at different times of the year, either business can be the “cash cow” of the operation.
“Both businesses complement each other with income and time,” he said. “Startup costs each year for forestry, with insurance and payroll, could be draining, except that the cattle are fairly consistent and supplementary, especially when we have a cattle production sale. At other times, when forestry is up to speed and sailing along, it can cover expansion and upkeep in the cattle operation.
“Real estate ownership has complemented both enterprises,” Rick said. “The ownership of the land makes a place for the cattle to graze and live, plus making hay production possible, then making it possible to raise seed-stock cattle to serve the customer and supplement the forestry-business needs.
“Turning in the circle, the forestry business returns to help the needs of the cattle operation and occasionally purchase additional real estate.
“We have found our little niche.”
When asked if he has
hobbies, Rick said, “This is it,” referring to farming.
“There is no time left over for other things,” Sandy added.
“I do like my chickens, though,” she said with a smile. “I raise them just for the eggs.
“I like my garden, too. I try to put up as much of our own food as I can.”