Jerry Crownover This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. The Monett Times Story

   www.monett-times.com/NF/omf/mo - [Cached]

   Published on: 2/28/2003   Last Visited: 3/1/2003

   JERRY CROWNOVER
   
   ...
   Jerry Crownover recalls lessons learned from his father as tips for surviving being a cattleman
   
   Undertaking agribusiness is hardly a laughing matter. Sometimes keeping a sense of humor is the only way to keep from crying, but author Jerry Crownover looks at life from its funnier side as a better point of view.
   
   Crownover, a faculty member for 17 years at Southwest Missouri State University and now a cattleman, was the final speaker at the Monett Chamber of Commerce's 34th annual Beef/Cattlemen's Conference, held on Wednesday. His topic was "surviving the beef business," and as the only beef producer on the schedule, it was his job to offer the inside track on the business to those attending.
   
   Part of the program had been on value added marketing. Crownover recalled as in the late 1960s selling alfalfa hay for different prices depending on the buyer: $1 a bale to cattlemen, $2 a bale to dairymen who needed the more nutritious alfalfa, or $3 a bale for those with horses who "had money and didn't know how to spend it."
   
   Crownover jested he and his college roommate, a fellow ag student at the University of Missouri in Columbia, invented "value added" products 30 years ago. His idea was selling alfalfa and crushed oak leaves to a fellow college student as a version of "Ozarks gold" from Ozark County, figuring it looked like the bagged marijuana the student had in his room. If they'd sold the whole bale of alfalfa at that price, he figured, they'd have gotten $9,600, even if they didn't get any repeat customers.
   
   Crownover had some tips on being successful in the cattle business. One came from retelling a story about how his self-educated father dealt with a snooty, well-educated new neighbor who declared if the Crownovers didn't have a big operation like his, they would go out of business.
   
   The senior Crownover had such a knack at saving bottle-fed calves that even veterinarians asked him for advice. The neighbor, after losing many calves, finally asked too. Heading over, the speaker said even at age 10 he could tell what the problem was--the neighbor had left calf poop everywhere. His father, though, convinced the neighbor he had simply bought deformed cattle, none of which had upper teeth, which calves at that point don't have anyway. He offered to buy them all at $3 a head, and took them away.
   
   Asked what he had learned, the younger Crownover said, "How to take advantage of your neighbor?" The senior Crownover said no; all the calves would have died had they stayed there. The lesson was: buy low.
   
   In another instance, Crownover's father had just sold the farm's bull, figuring all the cows were pregnant. Returning with a new young bull with no experience, he discovered his best female was in heat, not already pregnant as he thought. Having the only angus herd in the county, borrowing a Hereford bull from a neighbor was out of the question, so the only thing to do was try out the new bull.
   ...
   Crownover said he tried to return the favor to his partner, who helps with the farming. For her birthday, he'd sent her to artificial insemination school for three days, for Christmas he had given her insulated overalls, and on other occasions he got her an artificial insemination kit and a semen tank. One day for no reason he bought her a squeeze chute. Being thoughtful is important, he stressed.
   
   The wisest words Crownover recalled had come from his three-year-old son Zach. Warned the new electric fence was like getting stung by a bee, the boy decided on his own to test it out. He did this by stripping to his underwear and walking through chest high fescue on a very dew covered morning holding a cat. His father saw him through the kitchen window and decided to watch.
   
   The child held the cat's nose onto the electric fence wire. The cat spit and hissed as the current went through it, but the boy, acting as a ground, took the full brunt. He pulled back, and tried it again. Again the cat howled, and the boy shook from the current. He did this seven times until Crownover stuck his head out the door and called to the boy.
   
   Zach answered, "The cat thinks he can't take it. He can. I don't know if I can take it."
   ...
   "The beef business is a lot like that," Crownover said. It can be done, but "I don't know if I can take it."
   
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