Long time Shorthorn breeder/cattleman retires

[oakview]

A friend brought the February 21 issue of Farm News, printed in Fort Dodge, Iowa, into my office last Friday.  The headline reads, "101 year cattle run ending"  Following is an extremely good article highlighting the Willhoite Family Shorthorn herd of Wall Lake, Iowa.  I remembered visiting their herd in the early 70's with my father looking for a herd bull.  We went to Kaehlers in Minnesota, Miles Mann's herd at Woodbine, Iowa, and the Willhoites.  We ended up with Fair Acres Emblem from Miles Mann, a son of the good Canadian bull, Boa Kae White Tornado.  I remember selling a bull to the Willhoites in the late 90's at the Iowa Beef Expo.  I finally made connections with Ray Willhoite earlier today and had a wonderful conversation with him.  He remembered buying the bull, Oakview Caesar, in 1997.  I then mentioned that I remembered visiting their place in the early 70's looking for a bull.  He then told me the exact date we were there.  June 3, 1970!  I read somewhere that the average life expectancy of a purebred herd is maybe 3 or 5 years.  I thought we were doing great hitting 50 years in 2014.  Here's a herd that made it over 100 years!  Every year I enjoy reading about the newly named Builders of the Breed in the summer issue of Shorthorn Country.  They are certainly deserving of the honor.  However, you very seldom if ever see a family like the Willhoites receive such a reward.  Usually it's somebody that spends a lot of money and/or wins the shows.  I have always held those who silently go about their business, remain loyal to their chosen breed, and do the best job they can to contribute to breed improvement in extremely high regard.  I'll see if I can post the article.  Well worth the time it will take to read it.

 

[r.n.reed]

Thanks for posting that Oakview.Definitely an historic herd.I read the article and was impressed with the fact that they ran a closed herd and in the 50's when the mainstream was chasing the pony fad they directed their efforts towards increasing the performance of their cattle.What was your impression of their herd when you were there in 1970 as compared to other herds of that era?

 

[oakview]

We visited Kaehlers, Manns, and Willhoites all within a few days of each other.  The Willhoites had caught our attention with their focus on performance testing.  From what I remember, the cattle were all uniformly deep, wide, and dark colored.  It seems like they had quite a few bulls to choose from.  The bulls were a good doing, feedlot oriented type.  We fed quite a few cattle at that time, Hereford yearlings from out west and Shorthorn calves from the Dakotas, plus what we raised.  The Willhoite bulls looked like they would sire calves that would feed.  We picked out several bulls that we liked.  On our trip to Kaehlers, we narrowed our choice down to a Clipper King of USA son and a TPS Coronet Leader 10th son.  I liked the 10th son a little better, but Clipper King was just coming onto the scene.  We looked at those bulls a long time.  Rudy Kaehler, Frank's grandfather, then told a story about how he had left the house to do field work in the morning with a team of horses and came back that night with a different team.  After hearing that story, my Dad seemed a little different.  He said we'd make our decision and get back to him.  As we drove down the lane, Dad simply said he didn't do business with horse traders.  Dad truly loved his horses, but I always thought he read a little too much into a simple story.  Miles Mann's herd by Woodbine was our last stop.  He was basically raising cattle for Four Dees Farm in Illinois if I remember correctly.  He had a crop of calves on the ground by Boa Kae White Tornado that I really liked.  They were thick, deep, had some muscle, and that all important style.  You have to remember that I was a sophomore in high school then, and had been showing heifers for a few years.  I had to have that eye appeal.  I had reserve champion heifer at the state fair junior show the year before and was getting kind of serious about it.  I had a white Leader 21 heifer that I was going to show later that year, she ended up as champion and I also had reserve sired by our own bull, and the Mann bull we picked looked like the one that would best suit our purpose.  Willhoites definitely had the bulls that were perrormance oriented cattle, but maybe didn't have the style I liked at the time.  We later purchased a bull named Nugget's Max from Otto Johnson that had sired a bull that gained well over 4 lbs/day at the testing station.  He had a lot of Seely breeding in him and was very similar to the Willhoite cattle in type.

 

[sue]

Does or did the Willhoite herd maintain papers on the shorthorns?  The Homeplace Herd has to be close to 100 years old?

 

[oakview]

The article said they quit registering cattle in the 80's, though they kept them purebred.  Ray confirmed this when I talked to him.  He also said he sold the remaining cattle as a group, I believe to the young man that was now renting the farm.  No semen left, either, I checked.  Some of that old stuff might be of some use today.