Missouri Cattlemen’s Association celebrates 50th anniversary

The Missouri Cattlemen’s Association celebrated its 50th anniversary at the annual convention this year. Pioneer Award winners Dr. Curtis Long from Butler, Missouri, and W.A. Schlesselman, from Concordia, Missouri, have watched the organization grow since it was formed in 1968.

Long was born in Iron County and grew up working in his father’s meatpacking house in Festus. Long recalls that this father killed about 20 head of cattle and 30 hogs every week and marketed the meat locally.

After graduating from the University of Missouri in 1956, Long returned to Festus and worked for his father in the packing business. One of his jobs was to travel to the stockyards in east St. Louis and buy cattle for the packing house.

After graduating from medical school, Long set up his practice in Butler, Missouri, in 1964. That same year he started a herd of registered Angus cows on his farm west of town. Today Briarwood Angus Farms has 220 cows and Long markets about 100 head every year at the annual production sale. He has been an MCA member since it was formed in 1968.

“The value of having an organization like this is just tremendous,” Long said. “You not only get help at the local level but at the state and national level, as well. Today if you don’t have help at the state and national level you are not going to be successful.”

The importance of the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association, according to Long, is what they can do for the individual cattle producer.

“They can help a guy with 12 cows as well as they can help one with 220 cows,” Long said. “It is one of the few organizations that can do that, but with their grassroots organization you can have influence all the way to the national level.”

W.A. Schlesselman came to MCA from the feeder side of the business. He was a member of the Missouri Livestock Feeders Association when it merged with MCA in 1982.

Schlesselman was born and raised on a 120-acre farm near Concordia, Missouri. Like most families in those days, they milked a few cows in addition to raising pigs and chickens. After his schooling was completed, Schlesselman went to work for a farmer in northwest Missouri shucking 160 acres of corn.

“I had a good team of mules, a box wagon and I could shuck three loads a day,” Schlesselman said.

This farmer used the corn to feed out steers he purchased in Kansas City. Eventually Schlesselman settled on his own farm near Concordia and started feeding out his own cattle. In the 1980s he began shipping feeder cattle to feedlots in western Kansas.

“Since 1983 there has not been a week go by that I did not have cattle in a feed yard in Kansas, Nebraska or Iowa,” Schlesselman said.

Consumer education about the Missouri beef industry is important to the 91-year-old Schlesselman and is one reason he belongs to MCA.

“You can sit there on the farm and go to your local coffee shop where everybody knows everybody, but by being a part of an organization like MCA you are better represented outside your local area,” Schlesselman said. “If you believe in what MCA is doing you need to be part of it and support it.”

MCA can trace it roots back to the Missouri Cattle Feeder’s Association that was formed in 1911. This was the first livestock commodity group in the state. The primary mission of this group was to protect and promote the beef-producing industry. That is still a primary mission for MCA today.

In 1916, several organizations including cattle, sheep and swine organizations combined to form the Missouri Live Stock Producers Association. In 1925 this group changed the name to the Missouri Livestock Association.

Species-specific organizations were formed in the 1950s, which reduced membership in the Missouri Livestock Association.

More changes came along in 1964 when Missouri cattle and hog producers established the Missouri Livestock Feeders Association, which was affiliated with the National Livestock Feeders Association. The original Missouri Livestock Association was affiliated with the American National Cattlemen’s Association.

In March 1968 the Missouri Livestock Association was re-formed as the Missouri Cattlemen’s Association with C.W. Caldwell of Mexico, Missouri, as the first president.

Doug Rich can be reached at 785-749-5304 or [email protected].