This digital story recording was created in conjunction with the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program and its Stories from Main Street student documentary initiative, called "Stories: Yes." The project encourages students and their mentors to research and record stories about small-towns and rural neighborhoods, waterways, personal memories, cultural traditions, work histories, as well as thoughts about American democracy. These documentaries are then shared on Smithsonian websites and social media.
Students at the Gentry Intermediate EAST Students in Gentry, Arkansas, worked with the Gentry Public Library to produce short documentaries about everything from local parades to diary farming in their community.
Delia Haak (00:04): Bill and I moved here in 1979, 40 years ago to start our dairy farm. And someone said, "You should look at the land prices in Arkansas, and land is really cheap." And so that's honestly how we came here with 54 heifers, that's before they're ready to be milk cows. And we were looking for a place to start our own dairy farm. So we mortgaged those 54 heifers, as a down payment on 47 acres and an old barn and an old farmhouse. And we're still in that farmhouse and still milking, approximately 160 cows every day, twice a day. We do rotational grazing for our cattle on 12 different pastures. So they're pasture based, and I guess they're happy cows because they're pasture based.
Delia Haak (00:56): But when we moved here, there were 400 small dairies in Benton County, now there's 10 dairy farms left. Benton County is the largest agricultural operations in the whole state of Arkansas, for beef cattle and hay sales and poultry operations. We started out the county before it was actually even part of the state.
Delia Haak (01:24): We've been dairy farming for 40 years, and I would love to see future generations get into that opportunity because it's just the best for both worlds our children grew up doing chores, feeding calves, now our grandchildren can help feed baby calves and help raise them. And to help you learn a work ethic, that no matter what, you have to get out every morning and feed your animals and take care of them and take care of the land.
Delia Haak (01:56): I feel very blessed to live here near these wonderful communities in Northwest Arkansas and still have the best of both worlds in living in the county and in the country, and being surrounded by the beauty of our pastures and our animals.
Jamie Montgomery (02:15): My husband Matt, and I live on Graves Road in Gentry and we farm. We actually just recently saw a plat map, and the land was originally purchased in 1859. During that process, our understanding is it was a strawberry farm. Lots of that area is very flat. We now raise feeder cattle on the property. We've kind of combined two farms together there. Feeder cattle cycles through, I mean it's going to be meat, it goes to feedlots. So it's usually several hundred circling through at a time [inaudible 00:02:49] feeds them and then contracts them and sells them then to... Like I said, to a feedlot. But they're going to be meat. We don't have any mama cows or anything like that. We've lived there 22 years. And it's always been to my knowledge, a single family's farm. We have corporate farms around us, poultry farms, but all beef in our area is still privately owned.
Asset ID: 2022.06.03
Find a complete transcript: www.museumonmainstreet.org
