Jeff and Kathryn Schultz Family
Jeff grew up on his great-grandparents Otto and JoHannah Schultz’s Century Farm. His parents, Donald and Barb, milked cows and raised dairy steers on the farm. The cows left in 1976. Three years later, Jeff started farming, raising crops, and finishing feeder pigs.
Jeff and Kathryn were married in 1995 and moved to Jeff’s grandparents’ farm. His grandparents, Albert and Edna Schultz, purchased the farm in 1939 and built every building on it. The farm at that time was all bare ground. Albert and Edna built a one-and-a-half-story home with used lumber from three salvaged buildings. They milked cows, finished dairy steers, farrowed-to-finish hogs, and raised broilers, layers, ducks and geese. Albert died in 1975, and the last dairy cows left the farm in 1978.
When Jeff and Kathryn took over the farm, they purchased layers, broilers and feeder pigs for their children to get 4-H experience. The kids also experimented with dairy calves and lambs before settling on beef cattle and market goats. Today, the farm consists of some crop ground and pasture for the family’s purebred Red Angus and crossbred cows under the direction of the Schultz children, Madeline, Hank and Cal. The kids sell breeding stock and show calves, while Jeff and Kathryn concentrate on direct marketing beef.
Madeline, Hank and Cal spearhead the cow-calf operation. They make the management decisions and market and promote their genetics while looking for opportunities to expand the operation with the hope of making it into a full-time venture.
Madeline and Hank are teachers with the Faribault school district, and Cal is a student at Oklahoma State University. All three have been very active in 4-H and FFA and have judged livestock shows while in college and after.
Jeff is a farm business management instructor at South Central College. Jeff and Kathryn were adult 4-H leaders, Project Development Committee members and Project Bowl coaches. Jeff has also served as a school board member, a church trustee, a member of the county Extension committee, the Rice County Pork Producers, Dakota/Rice Corn and Soybean Growers and the National Farm and Ranch Business Management Education Association.