Reed family receives Farm Family of the Year award
by Debra Meyer-Myrum
Dennis Reed and family of Clarissa were awarded the Mississippi Valley Cattlemen’s Association Farm Family of the Year award at the annual banquet held at the Pierz Ballroom in February.
Dennis was very surprised and honored to receive the award, along with his family members. He was proud to think his peers looked at them as successful beef farmers worthy of receiving this honor. Families are nominated by the three previous award recipients.
Dennis has been involved in farming all of his life. He grew up on a dairy farm and thought that he would stay on the family farm to work with his father Raymond who was his biggest mentor.
As time went by, he had an opportunity to go on his own and decided to buy a farm where he would continue to milk cows. His upbringing taught him that dairy paid the bills when other farming wasn’t always profitable.
He also added fifty sows to his operation along the way.
Nine years ago, he began to move away from dairy and hogs and began raising Red Angus beef cattle.
He likes the Red Angus as they are more docile than Black Angus.
He started small with 16-18 head of cattle and now has grown to around 135 stock cows and a feedlot for around 200 head....
