A LEGACY — LLOYD DEBRUYCKER Retired farmer, rancher and agricultural to become a priest. He, however, trailblazer Lloyd Henry DeBruycker, 87, had other plans, and as he told Dutton, Montana, who with his wife it, he went in one door and out established DeBruycker Charolais, died the other. While he didn’t earn a Sept. 1, 2021, at Benefis Teton Medical degree, he liked to tell people that Center in Choteau of natural causes. he “completed college” as a 16-yearMembers of the Americanold. International Charolais Association, Lloyd returned to Dutton, Lloyd and his wife Jane were honored where he worked on the farm with by the industry in 2003, when they were his father and brothers and did odd inducted into the AICA Hall of Fame jobs, putting together machinery, in recognition of their influence on the working on other area farms, doing Charolais breed and their contributions to carpentry and sending out roots in the beef cattle industry. the Dutton community as he and “Lloyd’s impact on the breed is his brothers purchased farmland. significant,” said David Hobbs, the At a Dutton High School Lloyd DeBruycker Director of Activities for the AICA and ball game, Lloyd met a pretty little manager of the Charolais Journal, the breed Minnesota girl, Jane Clemenson, publication. who came to school there in her sophomore year. While there Hobbs said that DeBruycker Charolais bulls and females were lots of boys vying for her attention, Lloyd jumped to the are found worldwide, and the ranch’s LHD Cigar E46 bull front of the line, and the two were married on July 2, 1954, in has more than 4,000 progeny in the AICA system. “The LHD the Dutton Lutheran Church, starting a grand partnership brand, in my mind, is a household name not only in the that would span 67 years, seven children and the building of Charolais beef industry, but also in the commercial beef cattle a nationally and internationally respected Charolais cattle industry across the country and North America,” Hobbs said. operation. Lloyd truly understood what the beef cattle industry was They made their home initially in a small house in Dutton about and certainly put his bull customers first in wanting as Lloyd worked at local elevators and continued to farm and them to be successful, Hobbs said. ranch with his brother Roger. In 1963, as drought wreaked Lloyd was born on Dec. 1, 1933, in Great Falls to havoc on area farms, they had the opportunity to purchase a immigrant parents, Achiel and Rose DeBruycker, who came 600-acre farm from Dave McClellan. They moved into a big from Belgium and Italy, respectively, to find their fortune in house on the farm in July of 1963, and began raising grain, the American West. They operated a small grain farm and pigs, cattle and kids. cattle ranch in rural Teton County Montana south of Collins An agricultural innovator his whole life, Lloyd wasn’t and west of Dutton. Lloyd was born with a heart murmur, and satisfied with the Hereford cattle his dad raised. In 1958, he his parents were told he likely would not live past age 12, but purchased his first Charolais bull and used it to crossbreed he turned out to be heartier than predicted. their commercial cows. Lloyd saw the tremendous gain in Lloyd was one of four brothers who grew up on the farm, red meat production and the incredible enhancement in the learning to coax crops out of the dryland fields, to ride horses quality of the beef with the Charolais bull. and to raise cattle. Lloyd attended the Collins Grade School, In 1963 they purchased 12 registered Charolais heifers where his teacher skipped and in 1964 they added him from sixth grade to a purebred Charolais eighth grade. He liked to bull, Amigos Pride. say he graduated second DeBruycker Charolais in his class, and then was officially born. would laughingly note, In the 1960s there were only two of and 1970s, Lloyd them. Not fond of school, was instrumental in Lloyd didn’t go to Dutton importing different High School until his breeds into the United sophomore year. He then States. He along with graduated in 1950 as the many other cattlemen at salutatorian of his class. that time experimented His Catholic parents with many different sent him to Carroll College breeds such as Chianina, in Helena at 16 years old Maine-Anjou and 54
O C T O B E R 2021
CHAROLAIS JOURNAL
