Every steak has a story

Steve and I recently had the pleasure of meeting commercial Angus producers Roy and Carol Soukup (she walked in a few minutes later) in Ellsworth, Kan.

In January, Roy retired after 42 years at Hanston State Bank, 29 of them as president. He grew up on an Ellsworth family farm and always knew he’d move back some day.

Before that, for decades he would make the 100-mile commute east on weekends to work with the land and cattle, and then it was back to his office on Monday. When he was at the bank, he says, “my mind was all bank.” As soon as he headed east on Friday night he was thinking about the farm and the cattle.

But now, Roy and Carol are both excited to be in their first year as full-time ranchers, able to make use of some practices like freeze branding that had once been out of reach because of time commitments. But one thing they’ve always found time for is proven genetics from nearby Green Garden Angus—in fact it made better use of their time to use the best.

Roy the banker and Carol the accountant like to see numbers. “It’s like they say, if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve,” says Roy.

When it comes to buying bulls, he relies heavily on EPDs (expected progeny differences), and just “tries to stay in the middle,” given that Green Garden already set the bar high for marbling.

To pick replacements, he turns to ultrasound.

“With eyesight there’s just no way to tell these kinds of numbers,” says Roy. “Sometimes the prettiest heifer by eyesight is actually on the bottom of the list.”

But a heifer at the bottom of his list could be on the top of another’s, after 10 years of scanning. This year’s 34 replacements scored 500 or above, all capable of producing Choice or better calves for this herd that regularly achieves 65% to 75% CAB and Prime.

After lunch, we toured the stunning green pastures east of town that are rich in history.

The first land Roy bought had been rented by his grandfather going back to the early 1900s. We saw an old schoolhouse foundation there where his mother attended many years ago.

In other pastures you could find unique rock formations and even caves, whose walls are lined with what are believed to be Native American carvings.

I spent my whole life in the beef industry, and all it took was one afternoon riding through pastures on an ATV in Ellsworth County to make me fall in love with it all over again.

Visits with folks like Roy and Carol make me love my job, my future in agricultural communications and my history in the industry.

So whether you’re eating homegrown beef tonight or dining in a CAB-licensed restaurant, just remember that every steak has a story.

-Kaitlin

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