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Agriculture and education go hand-in-hand for retired principal Junior Roweton Junior Roweton has had two great loves in his life; education and farming. He feels fortunate to have worked in both for the past four decades. “I grew up in Halfway,” he said. “Both sets of my grandparents lived there, too. Ninety-eight percent of what I know about farming I learned from my dad Alvia, who was also a farmer, and my grandparents. “Today, what I do is all about the grass. I’m strictly a grass farmer. This last year, we had a lot of rain and that made for a lot of good grass. I ran about 500 cows on the 1,620 acres that I own and on another 1,000 acres that I rent. Any of the years where the grass isn’t good, I cull pretty hard, like if a cow doesn’t produce a big calf.” Growing up, Junior played basketball and went to Southwest Baptist University when it was still a junior college, many years ago. He then went to Drury. Junior Roweton says he’s a grass farmer, raising grass for his cattle herd. “I coached JV basketball at Parkview (High School) and that’s when I bought my first farm, outside of Springfield, Mo., inable out there in the field. I keep about These days I sell at the sale barn in just 10 acres to live on,” Junior recalled. 30 bulls, all black, and I leave them in Springfield although over the years, I’ve That was the beginning of Junior’s dou- year round,” Junior explained. “That sold at Buffalo and Joplin.” Working a full-time job, a job that isn’t ble career. He went on to coach at Boli- means I have calves all year round, too. var, Mo., and led his the girls’ basketball Sometimes I have good weather and just 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., can make farming difficult, but for Junior it was worth it. team to a state championship, which he sometimes I’ve run into some bad. “I maintain a pretty low-key operation, “Everyone says you’ll never get rich beadmitted was “pretty exciting.” Junior noticed land around his home which keeps costs down. I don’t do feed ing a teacher, but teaching fed the famwas being sold for housing, so he sold and supplements, if I can possibly help it, ily and the years the farm made money, brought the money back to Halfway to be- and I buy hay. Overall, I found that to be then I could buy a little more land and gin buying more farmland. He retired from more economical than trying to do it my- expand the operation to what it is tohis education career 20 years ago, finishing self and maintaining the hay equipment. day,” he said. “I never neglected the the last 10 years as the principal at Halfway. A couple of years, it was pretty expensive, education responsibilities for the farm Junior keeps his breeding program sim- but overall that’s been the best. I try to work, which meant I worked on the ple. He does not work in AI or to any keep a bale on hand over the winter for farm a lot of evenings, well after dark, extent with EPDs or delve into the latest each cow. I don’t play the market but on weekends and vacations, but cows rather, go by the calendar.” are pretty flexible so it worked. In the computer research or similar Keeping it simple also means past, my wife Kathy helped by keeping technologies. He runs a working cattle the old-fashioned up all the home chores and freeing me basic operation with a comway as well. up to do the rest. mercial herd. “Every six months, I hire Junior’s sons, Brad, Lance and Brock, “I learned to do the best with three cowboys for four days, have followed his path into education. a mixed herd and while I have to round up the cows, Lance is the superintendent at Halfway a lot more black cows than Halfway, Mo. work the calves and such, and Brad and Brock coach at Bolivar when I started, I still have cows so that’s eight days a year. and Willard, respectively. of just about every color imagOzarks Farm & Neighbor • www.ozarksfn.com
MARCH 16, 2020
