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http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_efb9e050-b331-11df-958f-001cc4c03286.html
Rapid City Journal -Posted: Sunday, August 29, 2010
Sunday Special: Working the land
Jared Stearns wants to be a rancher just like his father, grandfather and the two generations of Stearns that preceded them.
At 8 years old, Jared knows one of the best places in his world is atop a horse straddling western South Dakota dirt, which is where he was on a warm afternoon in July.
"It's probably the best seat you can find out here," Jared said. "It's just about that. If you love the outdoors, then you're supposed to be out here."
Wearing a rancher's uniform - cowboy hat, boots, jeans and a plaid, button-up shirt - Jared, his dad and his aunt rode horses toward a skyline so big and open only rows of barbed-wire fence and cattle broke up the horizon.
Jared is the fifth generation of Stearns ranchers to work along that horizon. As it passed from father to son, a century's worth of labor transformed the original 1910 Stearns family homestead to the cow/calf ranch operating today.
Located southeast of Edgemont where the pavement turns to gravel, the Stearns ranch and its family will receive recognition Thursday from the South Dakota Century Farm program for its continued legacy.
In conjunction with the South Dakota Farm Bureau and the state Department of Agriculture, the century farm program honors ranches and farms that stayed in the same family for at least 100 years.
The Stearns' century of success does not intimidate Jared. If he had it his way, Jared would already be a full-time rancher, but his parents want him to celebrate about 15 more birthdays, and, to Jared's great displeasure, finish high school and earn a college degree.
He knows the life of a rancher is difficult, one that is never finished and continually foiled by bad weather and pesky wildlife. After eight years of watching his dad work, he also knows it's a way of life worth living.
"I think it's something the way my dad does it, because he does it pretty good," Jared said.
In Jared's mind, assuming the primary ranching responsibilities is inevitable, so until then, he is biding his time by developing his ranching skills.
His parents, Jerry and Melissa Stearns, are happy to accommodate their son's eagerness.
"He's so willing to do anything on the ranch," Melissa said. "He's definitely got ranching on the brain."
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The 127 Black Angus cattle started walking toward the open pasture gate as the three riders approached them on horseback, tromping through grass and weeds.
Jared rode Star beside his dad and aunt, a position typically held by his grandmother, Flora Stearns, but that afternoon, Jared helped move the cows and calves; it was his first pasture ride.
"If they don't want to go, you're going to make them, though. You're going to have to make them," Jared said.
Moved about every 30 days to greener pastures, the cows and calves started calling out to one another and lining up once they sensed the riders.
"They really know when it's time to go to a new pasture," Flora said as she watched from the sidelines as her son, daughter and grandson worked together.
Before long, the cow and calf pairs were filing toward their next home with the three riders bringing up the rear. Jared held strong at the back of the herd, while his dad and aunt occasionally rode up the ranks to narrow the girth of the parade.
The cattle plodded with little resistance to their new pasture, only stopping for a quick drink; it was Jared's horse that needed some encouragement.
An older horse, Star moves at her own pace. Flora and Melissa Stearns found an orange flyswatter and handed it to Jared to help keep Star on course.
"Get after her, Jared," said Flora, who operates a ranch with her husband, Dewane Stearns, next door.
Jerry Stearns and his parents typically shoulder the bulk of the ranch duties and work both ranches as one operation. Every Stearns does what he or she can to participate in the daily responsibilities, including Jared's two sisters Kaylen, 9, and Jana, 5.
As the three of them grow up, Melissa and Jerry said their children, the fifth generation on the ranch, will become great assets to the operation - especially once Jared's abilities catch up to his enthusiasm for the job.
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One hundred years came sooner than the Stearns expected.
"In a way, I guess it snuck up on us; we're always pretty busy here," Jerry Stearns said.
The earliest documents the family has access to date the ranch a few years later, but a conversation with a relative who has an interest in the family's genealogy revealed copies of homestead papers filed in May 1910.
Melissa Stearns packaged the family's application materials for the century farm program, and on June 25, the South Dakota Farm Bureau approved the Stearns ranch, and a letter arrived a few days later welcoming the family into the program.
"It's a great honor to be a part of it," Jerry said.
The Stearns' are one of 58 families being recognized Thursday for their century of hard work in agriculture, according to Julie Fritzsche, administrative assistant for the South Dakota Farm Bureau.
Fritzsche evaluates all of the program's applications for approval.
More than 2,400 farms and ranches in the state have been recognized as centennial operations since the conception of the program in 1984.
The families must prove their operations meet the four requirements of the program: consist of 80 acres or more, owned by a member of the same family for 100 years, proof of the original date of purchase and a legal description of the land.
This year, a new category of farms and ranches will share the Dakotaland stage at the state fair in Huron with the century farm families.
In conjunction with the 125th anniversary of the South Dakota State Fair, the program is recognizing 146 operations as quasquicentennial, or 125-year farms and ranches.
The farm bureau sent out letters to 690 century farms and ranches that joined the program in 1984 and 1985, Fritzsche said. With no guarantee that addresses were still current, family members still alive or the operations still in family control, Fritzsche did not know what sort of response to expect.
"We're thinking things look good," Fritzsche said. "We're happy to get whatever we can."
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John Franklin Stearns, the patriarch of the South Dakota Stearns legacy, arrived in Provo from Brewster, Minn., in May 1910 with one goal in mind: to stake his claim on federal land and start a homestead. Known by his middle name, Frank was 40 years old.
All 160 acres of his original homestead are still ranched by the Stearns family 100 years later. The dilapidated, original homestead house stands on the hill behind Jerry and Melissa Stearns' home.
Frank Stearns' wife, Annie, arrived by train seven months later with their five young children: Theodore, 7; Sadie, 6; Edward, 5; Arthur, 3; and Charles, 1.
The seven of them squeezed into a 16-by-24-foot, two-room tar-paper shack with no insulation, plumbing or electricity.
Both Flora Stearns and Melissa Stearns swear they would have hopped back on the train if they had been in Annie's position.
Annie's grandson, Darrell Hoar, the son of Sadie, remembers visiting his grandmother, a hard, serious but sincere woman.
"Like most of those early ladies, they went through so much, so much hardship, they didn't smile a lot; they were all business," Hoar said. "The hardship of just living, just to eat three square meals a day."
While the children were still young, Frank contracted typhoid fever, causing him to run deliriously through fields full of cactus in the middle of the night. Thinking he was insane, the sheriff threw him in jail after finding him 20 miles from home. A doctor diagnosed him with typhoid, and Frank was taken to a hospital in Hot Springs. Annie ran the ranch while Frank recovered. In 1927, Frank died from a bleeding ulcer at the age of 57. Annie outlived her husband by 23 years, dying in 1950 at the age of 82.
While Annie was still alive, her son, Ed Stearns, and his wife, Ida, took over the ranch in about 1933. Written in her own words, Ida explained life during the Depression in the Edgemont centennial book from 1989.
"Since we married during the Depression years, it was difficult for both of us. Many banks had gone broke, and with it being so dry, it was impossible to raise crops. The grasshoppers were extremely bad then, too," Ida Stearns wrote.
Electricity was installed on the ranch during Ed and Ida's ownership. Ed broke down wooden ammunition boxes from the Igloo army depot and used the lumber to build more barns and out buildings, some of which Jerry and Melissa use today.
After Ed died in 1975, Dewane and Flora Stearns leased the ranch for about 20 years.
"My mother wouldn't sell it to me; she was hanging on until the last minute," said Dewane, but he and Flora were able to buy his Uncle Charlie's place.
After Ida moved to Edgemont, she sold the ranch to Jerry Stearns in 1997.
"She probably could have sold it to anybody for more money than what I gave for it, but she said she wanted to keep it in the Stearns family," Jerry said.
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Melissa Stearns sprayed water on the 130-pound, freshly clipped sheep as the daylight dwindled on an August evening. The whole family was helping prep Kaylen's 4-H animals for the Fall River County Fair later that week. Kaylen's job was to soap the animal while her mom held the water hose, but she needed a little direction.
"Kaylen, come on; whose lamb is this?" Melissa said, and her daughter started scrubbing. "Go after it, babe."
The lamb, not so affectionately named Devil Child, was a challenge for everyone.
"I thought it would turn into something cute and pretty, but it turned into something devious," Kaylen said.
It is her first year in 4-H, and Kaylen is showing sheep, pigs and a 1,200-pound steer named Big Boy at county, regional and state fairs.
Kaylen knows that at the end of fair season, the animals she has cared for all summer and grown attached to will be sold and butchered. She is fine with it, but will miss Big Boy the most.
"He's going to come back home, and they're going to slaughter on the 24th, the day before I go back to school," Kaylen said. "It'll be kind of tough.
"You get money. It kind of hits the spot. I'm building up my college fund," Kaylen said.
Two times a day and all summer long, the family has looked after the project animals on the ranch. The additional animals create extra work for Melissa and Jerry Stearns, both former 4-H members.
"Ranching is a great way to raise a family. I think it shows the kids a lot of responsibilities and day-to-day life in general," Jerry said. "Maybe you start out at kind of a young age, but it shows them responsibilities."
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Jerry Stearns wound up and down the hay field, mowing down the golden-brown stalks later to be raked and rolled into bales by his mom and dad. All three of his children are looking forward to the day they can help operate the haying equipment.
As the summer sun dried out the ground, a number of round bales already dotted the landscape.
Flush from this year's heavy precipitation, the hay cut this year is expected to last about two to three years, at least twice as long as typical yields for their hay fields, Dewane Stearns said.
"This year is a very unusual year. I've never seen a year like this before," Dewane said.
"I've been out here for 45 years. Never have I seen a year like this - so much grass and hay."
The wet year follows about a decade of drought, with 2006 and 2007 sticking out as particularly dry years.
"We've actually cut our cow numbers in half just because of the drought. This year is an exception to the rule," Jerry said. "It's been a pretty tough go in the last 10 years for the ranchers."
The Stearns ranch is part desert, generating ideal conditions for cactus to grow and rattlesnakes to thrive - not an easy
ranching climate.
"It's probably the toughest place in the state of South Dakota, if you want my opinion on it," Jerry said. "We're always bumping heads with Mother Nature, I guess. If it's not the drought, it's blizzards or lightning fires."
Despite what seems like a constant struggle to survive as a ranch, no one is considering finding a new career.
"It's a way of life," Dewane said. "It's just in your blood. You know, it's just something you always look forward to; you don't make any money at it, but it's just something you like to do."
Like Jared, Dewane and Jerry both knew from a young age they wanted to continue living the ranching lifestyle.
"Working for yourself is the main thing there, and just the love for the outdoors and the animals," Jerry said "I love it, and I wouldn't trade it for anything."
If Jared changes his mind, and Kaylen and Jana choose other life paths, the 100 years of ranching history does not change Melissa and Jerry Stearns' view that their children will decide their own futures.
"I hope they do. It's their option. If they want to do, it they can; if not, that's fine, too. I'm not going to push them into it," Jerry said.
"It's easy to say that when you're young, but when they get a little bit older, I do hope they do decide to come back; but I'm not going to force them to."
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The H600 Project Genealogy DB
- 1927
, d. 21 Sep 2001, Rapid City, Pennington Co, South Dakota, USA