By Steve Roark

My name is Steve Roark; I am co-owner and current manager of the Circle R Ranch.

The Beginnings
The Circle R Ranch is in the heart of the beautiful Ozark Mountain region of Southwest Missouri.  The ranch is located in the fertile Shoal Creek valley north of Neosho Missouri.

This area was the site of a great deal of Indian activity as is evidenced by our large arrowhead collection.  We have collected hundreds of perfect arrowheads ranging from small bird points to large spearheads.  When the bottom ground was plowed we would spend hours walking the fields adding to our collection.   Our prized spear point, measuring seven inches in length, was discovered digging the footing of one of our barns.  The greatest concentration of arrowheads has been around our home and barns.

The nucleus of our ranch began in the late 1800s when a small farming operation began taking shape that numbered about 300 acres.  With the beginning of the 19th century the small farm saw the introduction of grape vineyards as winerys and grape production had their beginnings in Missouri (several of our hillsides still show evidence of the terraces that once produced grapes).  Our father, Joe Roark, moved from southwest Oklahoma to southwest Missouri in the mid 1920s and began his career in real estate.  Dad spoke often of how he admired the small farm north of Neosho, hoping one day to be its owner. What caught his eye about this farm was the abundance of water including large springs and, of course, Shoal Creek.  Having been raised in southwest Oklahoma where water was scarce (and sometimes fought over) instilled in Dad the importance of owning water. During the 1930s the farm began operating as a small dairy and also grew a few grapes as a cash crop. Our mother, Helen Douthitt, and Father, Joe Roark, were married in 1935.  In 1939, the farm that Dad had admired since the 1920s came up for sale and early in 1940 Mom and Dad became the proud owners of the Circle R Ranch.

The 1940s 
The Dairy Years
The 1940s saw a number of additions to the farm. First, the dairy operation was expanded to about 60 cows.  Dad's favorite milkcow was the Guernsey because of their disposition and most importantly the high level of milk fat in the milk (prized because of the rich butter it produced).  The valleys were planted in corn to produce corn silage that was the feed of choice to keep milk production high.  The corn silage was stored in a newly built upright silo, which displayed the symbol of the new ranch, the Circle R.  Other huge trench silos were carved into our hillsides to store additional silage.  The dairy operation was one of the largest in Southwest Missouri.  It took ten people to milk the cows twice a day every day of the year.  (Milk cows never take a vacation).  As properties that surrounded the ranch came up for sale, Mom and Dad would acquire them to increase the productive capacity of the ranch.  During this period, the ranch began to develop a reputation for producing excellent horses, primarily Quarter Horses. Dad had been raised around horses and had an eye for a good horse and a way with them when it came to training.  Borrowing from a recent movie, Dad was known as a "horse whisperer" before it became fashionable. In the late 1940s, riding stables and a tack room (where saddles, bridles and other tack was stored) were built.  A stud pen was also built to house Salty, our stallion.  These wooden buildings were constructed out of oak that was harvested off of the ranch. By 1949, the year of my birth, the ranch had grown to about 600 acres.

The 1950s and 1960s 
Growing up on the Circle R Ranch and raising cattle.

In the early fifties Mom and Dad shifted from dairy farming to beef cattle.  Dad located 100 registered horned Hereford cows from western Kansas to begin our cattle operation.  Mom and Dad did not enjoy the paperwork and politics of the registered business so the ranch evolved to a commercial cow/calf operation.  Dad was a master at hiring good men and managing their work.  We always had five or six men working on the ranch or on other real estate projects.  I have many memories of working with these men and with Dad.  Building fence, clearing land, planting crops, establishing permanent pasture, working cattle, feeding cattle, putting up hay and helping deliver a baby calf or colt were activities that were repeated every year.  All of this work created a tremendous sense of pride in the ranch we were building.  Mom and Dad always used the word "we" when discussing things we were going to do or things that we accomplished, and never the word "I". 

My sister Claire was born in 1952.  As the two of us grew up over the years, the ranch was the scene of numerous cowboy, Indian, and calvary wars.  We always had our own horses to make our childhood games more realistic than the games of our city cousins.  Our parent's love of animals insured that we always had plenty of dogs, cats, puppies, kittens, goats and an occasional possum to play with.  We even raised our own chickens with mother taking responsibility for harvesting Sunday dinner (Dad was too softhearted).  Mother played the role of the traditional housewife, always preparing three delicious sit-down meals every day and later shuttling my sister and I back and forth to our many in town activities.   We always kept a couple of milk cows and would share the milk each day with our ranch hands.  Claire and I loved to watch mother churn fresh butter with the hope that we could lick the leftover butter out of the bowl.  Fresh baked bread, biscuits and red-eye gravy, and chicken and dumplings were always family favorites.  In the 1950s our county had a bounty on wolves.  On two occasions mother managed to run down a wolf with her car, load the wolf up in the trunk and transport her prize to the downtown Neosho square where she would claim her $25 bounty (making the front page of the paper). 

Putting in a big garden was a much-anticipated event every spring.  Dad always insisted on harnessing a team of horses to plow and level the garden.  He said it brought back memories of his childhood when he spent long days walking or riding behind a team of horses working their home place in southwestern Oklahoma.  I remember how complicated the operation of harnessing the horses appeared and how routine the task was to Dad.  Our life during the fifties and sixties was as close to a storybook as anyone could imagine.

The 1970s to the present. 
Life changes and continues.

In 1970 Dad died in an accident on the ranch.  Claire was a senior in high school, and I was a junior at the University of Tulsa.  Our lives suddenly changed in many ways.  Mother took over the reins of the ranching and real estate operation, and soon demonstrated her skill in business affairs.  We scaled back our cattle operation while I completed school and served a tour of duty in the Air Force.  During this time many friends and family provided endless help to allow us to keep our beloved ranch intact.

When I returned from the service we began to make significant improvements to our commercial cattle operation.  We introduced Santa Gertrudis bulls and began developing a commercial herd of Santa Gertrudis cross Hereford cattle.  This program took about six years to complete and in 1980, with cattle prices at an all time high, we made the decision to sell the cattle and lease the ranch in order to allow me to return to school.

In the late 1980s, while I was teaching at the University of Arkansas, the idea of hosting an arts and crafts festival on the ranch was created.  We believed this idea would allow us to maintain (and in several cases completely restore) the numerous barns that were no longer needed in our cattle operation.  The barns were too important a part of our heritage to allow them to deteriorate or be destroyed.  (Some of the barns dated from the turn of the century.)  Beginning in 1989 we spent eight years restoring and rebuilding our old barns to prepare them to house exhibitors in a juried arts and craft fair.  Sadly, Mother passed away in 1996 and would not get to witness the festivals we worked so hard to create. 

Since our festival would literally be held in a barnyard, we decided to call the event Barnyard Days. Barnyard Days in 1997 was held the first weekend in October and exceeded all our expectations. Our crowds over three days exceeded 30,000 people. In the following years with weather, 9/11, recessions and war, Barnyard Days has averaged over 20,000 people each year. We have become a yearly tradition for many families and our reputation as the premier family event in the four state area continues to grow. Although Barnyard Days is centered around a quality juried arts and craft festival, we have evolved into an event that resembles an old time country fair with fun for the entire family.

In the years since Dad passed away, we have increased the size of the ranch from 850 to 1100 acres. In addition to cattle production, we manage the ranch for wildlife and have guided deer and turkey hunts each year. In 2005 we began acquiring land in north central Kansas for farming and wildlife development. The Kansas operation works closely with local wildlife biologists and Pheasants Forever to establish quality wildlife habitat in addition to a no till farming operation.

Our roots, now and always, are in our ranch and in our family.