Salute to Beef: Show cattle a family operation for Mitchells

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

“Winston” was the grand champion steer last July at the Floyd County Fair.

He probably didn’t know he was keeping almost 75 years worth of family tradition alive.

Winston’s owner, Sarah Mitchell — a junior this year at Charles City High School — is among the fourth generation in a Mitchell family tradition of raising, showing and marketing award-winning cattle.

“A lot of people might take big trips to Florida or California. We go to the county and state fair and go to some cattle shows,” said Jerry Mitchell, a member of the third generation of Mitchells in the cattle business. “That’s what we do. It’s in our blood and we’ve loved it forever.”

The Mitchell family, who owns and operates Mitchell Family Show Cattle, has won grand champion market beef nine out of the last 10 years at the Floyd County Fair.

The current version of the Mitchell cattle business was created by Jerry, his older brother Tim and their cousin Chad. The family produces show calves to sell to 4-H’ers throughout Iowa. Jerry said they’ve sold locally and to places as far away as Texas, Missouri, Nebraska and Alabama — “just all over the place.”

“We started off with three or four show heifers that my kids used to show,” Jerry said. “We’ve expanded — we’re up to 22 cows now.”

Jerry Mitchell is a 1986 graduate of Charles City High School and is currently the school district’s transportation and buildings and grounds director. Tim Mitchell graduated in 1983 and is currently a choral music director at Union High School.

Chad Mitchell is a 1992 CCHS grad. He and his dad, Bill, are the two last Mitchells who still actually farm on the family farmland, located just 2 miles off the Avenue of the Saints on the Clarksville blacktop.

The Mitchell family focuses on offering affordable stock so that “the experience of raising and showing a winner is available to all young showmen.”

“We’re into more of the show cattle, for people to show at fairs and so forth,” Jerry said. “There are producers who do it strictly for the meat production.”

According to the Mitchell Family Show Cattle Facebook page, for 73 consecutive years, there has been a member of the Ray and Leone Mitchell family exhibiting 4-H animals at the Floyd County Fair. The family believes that continuous string of 4-H participation is a national record for one family.

Sarah has been competing at the Floyd County Fair since the third grade. As of last year’s fair, she had taken grand champion market beef three times and two times on the breeding side. She has three older brothers who have shared in that honor – Tyler, Zach and Drew.

“It’s really been a family affair for many years,” Jerry said. “My entire family has kept this operation going.”

Ray and Leone Mitchell are Jerry’s grandparents and Sarah’s great-grandparents. Jerry remembers he and his cousins spending summers on the farm, baling hay and doing all the necessary farm work when they were young.

“When Ray and Leone started, they mainly had shorthorn cattle,” Jerry said. “There used to be a ‘cattle crossing’ sign right there on the blacktop.”

Jerry said that one of the biggest changes he’s seen in the cattle industry is that there are far fewer cattle producers out there.

“You don’t see cattle lots all over the place like you used to, and you don’t see as many cows in the pasture like you used to,” Jerry said. “More land has been converted to crop production.”

That means there is less land for cattle to graze, according to Jerry.

“That’s a struggle that we even have,” he said. “We have to go 18 miles from our house to find a good pasture to put our cows in the summertime.”

Better transportation helps to make up for some of that distance, however.

“Before, you pretty much had to walk everywhere, or jump into an old two-door pickup,” Jerry said. “Now utility vehicles can run right out to the pasture and check on the cattle.”

Technology eases the burden of raising cattle in other ways as well.

“During calving season, you used to have to get up in the middle of the night in the cold of January, and get your coat and boots on to check the cows,” Jerry said. “Now you turn on the TV and look at the cameras in the barn and check on your cows with the cameras.”

Regardless of all the changes over time, the Mitchell family still all goes out together to look at cattle, and Jerry believes that won’t stop any time soon.

“We’ll go to a show, and we’ll help get the calves ready, it’s a family thing that we all do together,” Jerry said.