PRIM — The Steve Carlton family of Prim is the 2015 Cleburne County Farm Family of the Year.
The family includes Steve and his wife, Janet, and their three children and five grandchildren.
Steve farms 1,000 acres. He raises 1,500 head of cattle — 200 head in a cow/calf operation and 1,300 head in a feeder cattle operation. He also has four chicken houses.
“It’s an honor to be named Farm Family of the Year,” Steve said.
“It especially made my wife happy,” he said with a smile. “We had to get the farm cleaned up for the judges.”
Janet serves as the bookkeeper, secretary and accountant for the farm.
Steve and Janet have been married for 11 years. They have a blended family.
Son Jared Carlton, 37, works on the farm with his dad. Jared and his wife, Mandy, have two children, Olivia, 14, and Jacob, 9, who attend Rural Special schools. Olivia is in the eighth grade and plays on the junior high basketball team. She is also a member of a traveling basketball team. Jacob is in the third grade. He is a member of a traveling baseball team based in Jonesboro.
Daughter Stephanie Willock, 36, and her husband, Scott, have one son, Deuce, 7. Stephanie is the business teacher at West Side High School in Greers Ferry. Deuce is in the first grade at Concord Elementary School and is a member of the 8-and-under baseball team in Greers Ferry.
Daughter Julie Carlton, 33, has one daughter, Macy, 7. Julie is a credit analyst at First Service Bank in Greenbrier. Macy is in the first grade at Eastside Elementary School in Greenbrier. She is a member of the Absolute Chaos softball team.
Steve and Janet market their cattle online through Superior Livestock Co.
“We purchase cattle from Florida and Georgia each week,” Steve said, adding that they buy the cattle at an
average weight of 330 pounds and sell them when they reach 775 pounds.
Steve also raises approximately 70,000 broilers a year for Peco Foods Inc. in Batesville, and Jared has two chicken houses that produce 30,000 birds a year.
The family also raises Bermuda hay.
Steve and his son utilize two 18-wheelers for hauling feed, fertilizer and rice hulls.
Operating as Carlton Cattle Co., Steve and Jared plan to double the size of their cattle herd. They are building a new barn for sorting and weighing cattle.
Steve, 62, is the son of the late Vernon and Wanda Carlton, who also farmed in the area. He said he became interested in farming at a young age.
Steve attended West Side High School at Greers Ferry but did not graduate.
“I started working at a local feed mill when I was 16,” Steve said. With his earnings, he made his first farming purchase of 70 pigs.
“I worked my first feed bill out for $1.25 an hour at the feed mill,” he said. “I sold the pigs and bought a brand-new ’69 Camaro for $2,900.”
He then purchased the original 60 acres for his farm.
“I was only 16 and had to go to court to get my status changed from a minor to an adult to get financial assistance to buy the land,” Steve said. “I paid $60 an acre.”
When he was 23, Steve bought his first chicken house, which, he said, was paid for “after only a few batches of chickens.”
“I built another chicken house in the late ’70s, but an ice storm in the ’80s destroyed both houses,” he said.
“In the early ’90s, I built one house; then in the late ’90s, I built another house,” he said, adding that he built two more chicken houses in 2000.
In the early ’80s, Steve bought a business that hauled rice hulls with one truck and one trailer.
“It grew into nine trucks and nine trailers,” Steve said. “I ran that business until 2013, but due to health reasons, I now only haul locally for a few growers.”
Steve started his cattle operation with four head of cattle when he was 15.
“It grew into a 60-head herd until the 1980s, when I started increasing it,” he said. “I now have 1,500 head of cattle.”
Jared, who is a graduate of Rural Special High School, works with his dad.
“That’s pretty much all I’ve ever done,” Jared said.
Before she met Steve, Janet was a licensed practical nurse for 20 years at the Conway Human Development Center in Conway. She grew up in Greers Ferry, the daughter of Ella Stark of Greers Ferry and Glenn Stark of the Miller community in Cleburne County.
Steve and Janet are members of the Cleburne County Farm Bureau. Steve drove an ambulance for Prim for five years. He was also a member of the local volunteer fire department.