Clark County family wins title with cattle operation

Roy Gene Britt of Okolona checks his cattle and moves them to a different pasture daily as he practices intense rotational grazing. The Britts have been named the 2016 Clark County Farm Family of the Year.
Roy Gene Britt of Okolona checks his cattle and moves them to a different pasture daily as he practices intense rotational grazing. The Britts have been named the 2016 Clark County Farm Family of the Year.

— Roy Gene Britt, 74, has been farming all his life.

“You do it because you love it,” he said.

Britt and his wife, George Ann, 70, have been named the 2016 Clark County Farm Family of the Year. They have a commercial cow/calf operation of 250 mama cows and 70 replacement heifers and raise hay on their 1,050-acre farm in Okolona.

The Britts have two children.

Their daughter, Stephanie Harper, 52, and her husband, Greg, live in Lonoke. Stephanie is a counselor at the Cabot Freshman Academy, and Greg works for Entergy. Stephanie and Greg have two daughters — Brittney Ellis, 28, who lives in Lonoke with her husband, Walter, and their three children, Harper, 3 1/2, Bentley, 2, and Hadley, 11 months; and Lauren Russell, 25, who lives in Russellville with her husband, Kyle, and their son, Kalen, 1.

The Britts’ son, Clay Britt, 49, and his wife, Lynn, live in Okolona with their 1-year-old son, Noah. Clay’s older son, Logan, 22, lives in Curtis. Clay works for Hitco [Carbon Composites Inc.] in Arkadelphia, and Lynn teaches in the Gurdon School District.

“I moved here in 1952 with my parents,” Roy said, noting that his father raised cattle in Texas prior to moving to Arkansas. “I have lived here on this place since then, all but four years of my life when I went to school and worked on a ranch.”

Roy, the son of the late Bill and Delsie Britt, has three sisters — twins Ann Lance of Salem [in Fulton County] and Nan Waggoner of Richland, Texas, and Linda Brown of Greenbrier.

He graduated from Gurdon High School in 1960 and attended Arkansas Tech University in Russellville “off and on” for three years. “I never graduated,” he said. “I lacked just a few hours.”

He worked as a U.S Department of Agriculture meat inspector for 37 years, working out of Arkadelphia or Hope.

“I retired from the USDA in 2004 and began raising cattle full time,” he said. “We had registered Beefmaster for 30 years and then went with commercial cattle about eight years ago. We started using Angus and Charolais bulls. Last year I purchased Gelbvieh bulls, and I am in the process of changing my bull battery to straight Gelbvieh.”

Roy said all of the cattle are numbered, tagged and branded.

“That’s all done within eight to 10 hours after they are born,” he said, adding that the cows calve every 60 days.

“It’s like an Easter-egg hunt every morning during calving season,” he said. “It’s a busy time.”

Roy does “heavily controlled grazing” — intense rotational grazing.

“I move the cattle every day. I move them to a different 15 acres every day. It takes 37 days for them to go around [to all the pastures],” he said.

“I just open the gate and get out of the way,” he said with a laugh. “They know what to do.

“This type of grazing system is a lot more strenuous than most. I started doing this with my registered Beefmaster herd 20 or 25 years ago. I was doing [rotational grazing] before it was cool.”

Roy said the use of intense grazing “helps to reduce erosion of the topsoil and maintain good groundcover.”

Roy said he has no plans to grow the size of his cattle operation.

“I’m old,” he said with a smile. “I’ve got all the numbers we need. I don’t want to increase it any higher.”

He does have future goals, however — to improve the grazing capacity on his farm, increase the weaning weight in calves, increase the fertility and milk production in cows, and to work toward better calf uniformity.

George Ann was a bookkeeper for the Okolona School District for 15 years.

“Then when the kids got out of high school, she quit her job at the school and became my full-time employee,” Roy said.

“I still am,” George Ann said.

“She and I run this operation,” Roy said, “but our family is very involved in our operation. My son and grandson are ‘on call’ at all times to help when needed.

“When it is time for yearly cattle work, it is a family affair. We work calves, worm and vaccinate cows, and pregnancy-check cows. Our daughter, Stephanie; her husband, Greg; and our son Clay and our grandchildren are there to help. These are family days.”

George Ann grew up in Okolona, the daughter of the late George and Jewell Orsburn. George Ann has two sisters — Brenda Biehunko of Arkadelphia and Sara Hays of Hot Springs.

George Ann graduated from Okolona High School.

“She was 14 when we started dating,” Roy said, adding that they have been married 53 years. “We’ve been together all our lives.”

George Ann attended the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville for one semester before the couple got married.

“I tried to stay at Tech, but I had to get out and make a living,” Roy said.

The Britts were also the Clark County Farm Family of the Year 23 years ago.

“That’s been so long ago that we’ve forgotten how we farmed then,” George Ann said.

“I was working full time for the federal government,” Roy said. “I worked a 40-hour week for the government and farmed 250 acres of soybeans and [kept] 75 mama cows.

“I retired in 2004, and up until then, George Ann did all the hay and bush-hogging,” Roy said. “I’d come home from work and bale it.

“She was my one employee, … or maybe I was her employee,” he said, laughing. “It’s a joint operation.”

“Our grandson Logan has helped with baling hay,” Roy said. “He’s taken Mimi’s (his grandmother, George Ann’s) place. “He’d like to farm, but it’s so expensive to farm now. People can’t afford to buy equipment or borrow money.”

Roy said he hopes Logan or some other family member might be able to take over the farm someday.

“It would be nice to pass it to another generation,” he said.

Roy has been a member of the First United Methodist Church of Gurdon since he and his family moved to the area in 1952. George Ann joined the church in 1967. Both have served on various church committees.

Roy is serving his fifth year as a member of the Farm Services Agency county committee. He has been involved with the University of Arkansas Southwest Research and Extension Center in Hope for more than 15 years and completed a quality IQ testing course in the center’s quality-assurance vaccination program.

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