Centerville family earns Yell County farming honor

The Richie Gray family of Centerville is the 2015 Yell County Farm Family of the Year. Members of the family are, from left, Kole, Divella, Richie and Morgan Gray. They raise cattle, goats and hay on 480 acres.
The Richie Gray family of Centerville is the 2015 Yell County Farm Family of the Year. Members of the family are, from left, Kole, Divella, Richie and Morgan Gray. They raise cattle, goats and hay on 480 acres.

CENTERVILLE — Although Richie and Divella Gray work full time off their farm, they also spend many hours on the 480-acre farm where they raise cattle, goats and hay.

The Grays, along with their daughter, Morgan, 23, and son, Kole, 21, are the 2015 Yell County Farm Family of the Year.

During the day, Richie is an environmental health and safety manager for Cargill Pork in Russellville. Divella drives every day to Dardanelle High School, where she teaches business.

Their work on the farm is often done early in the morning before they head their separate ways, and late in the afternoon when they return home — and on the weekends, of course.

They have a commercial cow/calf operation, as well as a registered Angus cattle herd. They also raise Boer goats. The hay they raise on 65 acres is fed to their livestock.

“We are obviously very honored that the committee chose us as the Yell County Farm Family of the Year,” Richie said. “We do love living out on the farm and working the cattle and goats.

“Farming is our second job, but there is never a dull moment, and we have a lot of fun.”

Richie and Divella both come from farming backgrounds.

“I grew up the son of a vocational-agriculture teacher with grandparents who were all farmers and cattlemen,” Richie said. “Divella was raised on a dairy farm.

“Our parents instilled in us a love for farming the land and tending to livestock.”

Richie is the son of Judy Gray of Judsonia and the late Larry Gray. Richie has two younger sisters — Regina Gray of Bradford and Carol Measel of Colorado.

His mother lives on the farmland that his grandparents, the late Bob and Edna Gray, purchased and farmed before passing the land to their son, Larry. They row-cropped and had a commercial beef operation, as well as vegetable patches. Richie’s parents were schoolteachers and had beef cattle for a short time when they retired.

Richie’s maternal grandparents, the late Bill and Wilma Gaylor, also did row-crop farming and had a commercial beef operation near the Floyd area in White County.

Divella is the daughter of Bill and Margaret Davis of Concord and Bruce and Adoncie Tanner of Dardanelle. Divella has one brother, Asa Davis, who also lives in Concord.

She grew up on a dairy farm, Circle D Farms, in Concord. Her father sold the dairy but is still farming and is now raising registered Angus cattle.

Divella is the granddaughter of Betty Davis of Concord and the late Headley Davis.

“She’s 90,” Divella said of her grandmother. “She keeps up with what’s going on here. I talk to her on the phone every day. It keeps her thinking.”

Divella said her paternal grandparents purchased the original 80 acres that her dad farms now and where she grew up.

“They helped with whatever farming my dad chose — hogs when I was very young, then beef cattle, before the dairy operation,” Divella said. “My grandfather was a plumber and electrician and could fix almost anything. My parents added land to their operation, and my dad and Margaret have continued to add land for future generations.

“My maternal grandmother, Leone House, had a farm as well and a few beef cattle,” Divella said. “My parents purchased her land when she was ready to retire. My maternal grandfather, Horace House, worked in the timber industry.”

Richie and Divella both graduated from Bradford High School. They were high school sweethearts and were married in 1989.

“I chose a career path in agriculture, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in animal science from Arkansas State University (in Jonesboro),” Richie said.

Divella graduated from ASU with a degree in accounting. She later returned to college and earned a master’s degree in library media from Arkansas Tech University in Russellville in 2005. She has taught business at Dardanelle for the past 17 years.

“Shortly after we finished college, we knew we wanted to be actively involved in agriculture,” Richie said. “We began renting pastureland and purchasing beef cattle as a sideline to my job in the swine industry. … Divella was a stay-at-home mother. As time has gone by, we have been blessed to be able to expand our farming operation to where it is today.”

Richie worked for Tyson Foods in Northwest Arkansas for six years before moving the family to Yell County and accepting a job at Cargill. The couple bought their farm in Centerville in 1997.

Richie said Morgan and Kole “have been involved in many aspects of the farming operation since they have been old enough to help.”

“They assisted in working, feeding and moving the livestock when they lived at home and as time allows, now that they are away at college. In addition to helping with our operation, both help with their grandparents’ operation and volunteer at the Northeast Arkansas Angus Association sale. Morgan represented Arkansas as Miss Arkansas Beef in 2010.”

Morgan graduated from Dardanelle High School in 2009 and from Arkansas Tech in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in English education with a minor in psychology. She received a master’s degree in marriage-and-family therapy in 2015 from Harding University in Searcy and is working on a doctorate in marriage-and-family therapy at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

Kole graduated from Dardanelle High School in 2012. He is a senior at Arkansas Tech, where he is majoring in mechanical engineering. He is serving an internship this summer with International Paper at its Valiant, Oklahoma, plant.

Both Morgan and Kole own cattle and land as part of the family farming operation.

Richie and Divella are active in the community as well.

Richie is a past president of the Yell County Cattleman’s Association and is its current vice president and a board member. He has been involved with the Yell County Farm Bureau Board of Directors for 15-plus years and is the current vice president and chairman of the swine committee and the scholarship committee.

He has been a member of the Arkansas Pork Producers Association for more than 20 years and was president of the West-Central District for two years. He is a National Pork Board delegate.

Richie is a board member and secretary of the Arkansas Valley Farmers Association. He has coached various youth sports teams for more than 10 years, volunteers at the Dardanelle charity Powder Puff football game and participates in the Arkansas Cleanup and Earth Day Cleanup with Cargill Pork and the Dardanelle Student Council.

Divella has been a member of the Yell County and Arkansas cattleman’s associations for more than 15 years and currently serves as a board member and treasurer of the county association. She is also a member of the Yell County Farm Bureau Board and serves as secretary and a member of the nominating committee.

At Dardanelle High School, Divella served as sponsor of the Future Business Leaders of America for five years. She is currently the Student Council sponsor and coordinates various youth groups to participate in Earth Day and the Great Arkansas Cleanup with Cargill Pork. She also coordinates the annual charity Powder Puff football game.

Divella is also a member and vice president of the school’s personnel committee and chairwoman of the business department and vocational committee and is treasurer of the social committee. She is also a class-level chairwoman.

Richie and Divella attend Dardanelle United Methodist Church, where they both teach Sunday School.

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