STAYING TRUE

Keeping a customer-first mindset at Forester family auction markets.

Story and photos by Mike Barnett

Honesty. Integrity. Look a person in the eye when making a deal. Seal it with a handshake.

Do what you commit to — every time. And make sure that check you are writing is always good.

That is how Don Forester and his brother, Peewee, conducted business at their livestock commission companies for more than half a century.

It is those proud values, which are now carried on by three generations of the Forester family, that led to the continued success of Athens Commission Co. and Emory Livestock Auction — and greatly supported the cattle business in East Texas along the way.

“They stick with what they tell you,” says Dean Campbell, of Chandler, who has purchased and sold cattle at the Athens auction since the brothers acquired it 50 years ago. “They tell you anything, you can take it to the bank.”

Don, 83, still works the Emory auction market on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and Athens on Fridays, but is slowly transitioning to a less active role.

His lifelong business partner and brother, Peewee, died in 2011. Today, their children and grandchildren — indoctrinated with the values of the past — are making their own mark in the cattle business of the future.

Sale

Humble Beginnings

Don and Peewee, the sons of John Robert Forester, helped their dad scratch a living out of the family truck farm, growing potatoes and watermelons to sell in Dallas.

As teenagers, the brothers were fascinated with cattle and stumbled their way into the auction business.

Their high school agriculture teacher, Mr. Westbrook, owned part-interest in an auction market in Tyler. Westbrook, tired of the partnership, gave the brothers his interest around 1958.

“When I was in school, I wasn’t studying nothing else,” Don says. “I was just studying cattle.”

The brothers learned quickly about the challenges associated with running a business. The Tyler venture eventually failed, and they started trading cattle and worked for Reagan Jenkins at the Athens Commission Co. When an auction market came up for sale across town, the Forester brothers took the plunge.

“They bought it, and Reagan said they would never run as many cattle as he did,” says Peewee’s oldest son Brad. “About a year-and-a-half later, they bought him out.”

That was in 1972. Roughly 14 years later, the auction market in Emory came up for sale. A group of local businessmen approached the Forester brothers to see if they were interested in the sale barn roughly 50 miles north of their Athens Commission Co. location. They bit.

“Our mother didn’t want to do it,” Brad remembers of the risky business decision. “But then, it has turned into one of the best investments they ever made.”

True Family Business

It’s 9 a.m. Friday morning, sale day at Athens Livestock Commission. The front office is quiet before the auction begins at 11 a.m., sharp.

Back in the pens, the action is hot and heavy.

Cows bellow and calves bawl in a noisy chorus as pickups form a line with their trailers, snaking back toward Highway 31.

Gates clatter and clang in harmony with the screech of metal, as deadbolts are forced to open rusty trailer doors — releasing cattle to be moved throughout the sprawling facility.

Orders are given as workers sort, record and perform all the necessary duties to run cattle through the sale ring.

Bryan Forester calls it organized chaos, but it is all part of a well-oiled machine making the Athens and Emory markets two of the most efficient in the business.

“They get the cattle in. They get the cattle out. When you go to load, they get you loaded,” says John Hyde, an order buyer and Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association member who has bought cattle from both auctions for many years. “It’s a smooth operation. They know what they’re doing.”

That efficiency is a tribute to three generations of Foresters who have made sale barns their lives.

Don, the surviving brother, is the family patriarch. Also included are his children, Bubba and Kim Haupt; and Kim’s daughter, Amanda Butler. Peewee’s sons, Brad and Bryan, are vital to the business; as are Brad’s daughter, Paige Morrison, and Bryan’s son, Kyle.

Bubba says he, Kim, Brad and Bryan were pretty much raised together working in the auction markets.

“When we were seven, eight years old, they’d get us out of school on Friday when they didn’t have enough help,” Bubba says.

Kim learned her front-office skills at the hand of a lady who was Don and Peewee’s bookkeeper from 1976 until she died in 2011.

“Her name was Mildred Turner, and she was really their boss,” Kim says with a chuckle. “She was the glue that held them together.”

Teamwork is at the heart of the Forester family’s success. Each can do any job required.

The familiarity of working with someone all their lives may not be easy at times, but it has its advantages.

“Me and Bryan have been working cattle since we were 12,” Bubba says. “I know exactly what he’s going to do, and he knows exactly what I’m going to do.”

That familiarity also extends to the Forester employees.

Most are housed on the Forester ranches and work fulltime, splitting between auction duties and ranch work. Some have worked for the Foresters up to 50 years, and in many cases, their own families continue the tradition.

This gives the Foresters an experienced and stable sale barn crew, which allows Judd Murray, an auctioneer who has worked for the Foresters 16 years, to move through cattle — and fast.

“This barn runs like clockwork,” says Brandy Baughman, Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association market inspector. “Here at Athens and Emory, Judd sells about 250 an hour.”

A second auctioneer, Jack Robinson, is like a second grandpa to three generations of Foresters, Amanda says: “We can always call on his expertise. He wears many hats around here.”

The Extra Mile

With an average herd size of roughly 45 head, small ranchers are the backbone of the Texas cattle business — and it’s no different at Emory Livestock Auction and Athens Livestock Commission. Those seated in the crowd reflect the changing demographic and dynamic in parts of rural East Texas and across the state.

According to data from the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute, the Rains County population has grown 65% since 1997. Land values have skyrocketed nearly 360%. Nearby Henderson County has experienced 22% population growth and more than 290% increase in land values.

Statewide, Texas has lost more than 2.1 million acres of working lands since 1997.

As old-timers pass on and their children move to town, ranches are split up and weekenders fleeing Dallas and Fort Worth wanting their own little piece of Texas move in. These landowners may have little background in agriculture, opting sometimes for a small herd of 20 or 30 cows, or, as evidenced by the Emory auction, exploring a variety of more exotic ventures on their small acreage.

Saturdays at Emory are a true melting pot in this new era, and sometimes, literally a zoo.

Goats are a big draw, as are llamas and alpacas, and a kangaroo or two has been known to hop through the ring. Livestock and exotic animals have been transported in everything from a convertible Corvette Stingray to a school bus.

Kyle acknowledges the important role livestock markets play in the East Texas cattle business. A wave of new marketing tools may have gained a foothold, but the local sale barn will always be the “first option — and a lot of times the best option” for smaller ranchers to convert cattle into cash, he says.

“There’s always going to be the need for people that need to sell four, five or six calves or something instead of full load lots,” Brad adds.

Not every rancher has the time, patience or know-how to track the ups and downs of the market each day, Kyle points out.

“So, if you’re not in tune with that, your best bet may be to put them here,” Kyle says. “When you have hundreds of orders that are competing for your cattle, you’re more likely to get their true worth here than you are anywhere else.”