By LESLIE MANNING
The Spotlight
“We’ve never really been a one size fits all,” Mason Winter said. “In the sale barn industry, you get a taste of it all, and make due with what you’ve got.”
In December, Winter came on board at Farmers and Ranchers Livestock, Salina, representing the new ownership, Winter Livestock.
“We are going to keep everything the same,” Winter said. “Salina is the largest sale barn in Kansas, so whatever they were doing is working really well for them.”
Under new ownership
Winter was born and raised in Dodge City, where his family owns and operates a sale barn, Winter Livestock, that began with his great-grandpa.
“I’m the fourth generation,” Winter said. “My family came to Dodge in 1936. My great-grandpa, Karl, bought stock yards from the railroads, and turned it into the local sale barn. It’s treated us pretty well ever since.”
Winter Livestock expanded throughout the generations, to its current capacity of three sale barns in Kansas, one in Colorado and one in Wyoming. Winter, one of four siblings, earned a degree in ag business from Oklahoma State, while returning home on weekends and for Wednesday sales to help operate the Dodge City sale barn. Upon graduation, Winter ran the Dodge City location.
“(Growing up) I was around the sale barn as much as possible,” Winter said. “I tried to dive in as much as I could. Once I got to high school, I started helping and not being in the way of everybody.”
Since December, Winter has dove in at Farmers and Ranchers Livestock, learning everything he can from sale barn manager, Mike Samples.
“It’s no secret in the state of Kansas that this is Mike Samples’ sale barn,” Winter said. “This place was built on his shoulders. We are happy to build off of what he has built.”
Samples will stay on as manager for two more years, to teach Winter the ropes of the structures in place at Farmers and Ranchers Livestock.
“There’s not really a secret formula,” Winter said. “You work really hard and treat people well, and they seem to do the same back to you. (Sale barns) all kind of follow the same plan, and the same systems, with their own personal touches on them.”
Farmers and Ranchers Livestock will continue to operate with a flat rate commission per head. Preparing cattle for the auctions on Mondays and Thursdays, with special auctions for vaccinated calves on Tuesdays, will remain a priority.
“The feeding, the watering and the facilitating of the cattle is a job in and of itself,” Winter said. “We’re trying to get as close to what they weighed at home. We want the smallest amount of shrink as possible. Through grass hay and pellets, we try to mitigate that shrink as much as possible.”
Kyle Elwood, will remain the assistant manager at Farmers and Ranchers Livestock, preparing the cattle for sale days. Elwood has been the assistant manager and an auctioneer for Farmers and Ranchers Livestock for over 30 years.
“Kyle has about as good of eye as anyone I’ve met,” Winter said. “He knows what is going to sell each week, and what the buyers are looking for. It’s impressive how in tune he is with where the cattle need to be and how they need to be sorted.”
Packaging the producer’s cattle, by characteristics like color, weight and sex, will remain the same.
“Each producer’s cattle is represented in categories in and of themselves,” Winter said. “Buyers are looking for the biggest bunch of like cattle that they can put together. As long as there’s something for them to buy, they make our job really easy. They are competing against each other, so their competitive spirits drive up the costs.”
Buyers will continue to see a selection of bottle calves, weaned calves, cow/calf pairs, cows and bred cows.
“We’ve got every facet covered and the buyers make our job really easy,” Winter said.
According to Winter, the hardest part of the job is unloading and loading and keeping everything straight.
“Everything that comes in has to go back out to its new home with low stress and no injuries,” Winter said. “It’s a lot of thankless jobs, that we wouldn’t be able to do without. It’s a lot of getting cattle in and getting cattle out.”
Horse sales will also continue at Farmers and Ranchers Livestock, with the 2025 sales scheduled for May 17 and one in October. Hog sales will continue on the second and fourth Mondays of the month. A buffalo sale is planned for December.
“I am here to learn as much as I can from Mike and Kyle,” Winter said.
Building a sale barn
Mike Samples began managing Farmers and Ranchers Livestock on August 31, 1987. Raised on an 80-acre farm north of Erie, he joined the FFA chapter in high school under the direction of vo-ag teacher, Ken Nuntin. Samples’ first FFA project was raising six pigs, leading him into raising hogs and cattle.
Also, while in high school, Samples went to the sale barn in Parsons as often as he could. Wanting to be a part of the auction world, he started driving and traveling with famous cattleman, E.J. Peck, learning about the cattle industry.
Samples worked for the Fredonia market, later running the Chanute Sale Barn for a short while before becoming the manager of the Parsons Livestock Market for Russell and Mark McKee. He had been running the sale barn in Parsons, when he left to take over Farmers and Ranchers Livestock in Salina.
“It was in pretty sad shape when I got here,” Samples said. “I’ve never had a lot of give up in me. I just went to driving around the country and meeting people. A lot of places I went to, people actually ran me off their property, because they didn’t like Farmers and Ranchers. I just kept coming back. Most of those people made really good customers of mine.”
In 1987, Farmers and Ranchers Livestock was owned by Joe Clemence, John Clemence, Chris Hoffman and Bill Hoffman. Joe Clemence was the son of an original owner, Laurence Clemence. Laurence Clemence started Farmers and Ranchers Livestock with Merrill Christiansen and Bob Muir in 1966.
“There were two sale barns already in Salina,” Samples said. “They shut the other two barns down. They got all the cattle and the other barns just went away.”
According to the Kansas State Department of Agriculture, by 1987, numbers were down, with Farmers and Ranchers Livestock running 88,606 head of cattle across the auction block during the year. By building relationships with producers and buyers, Samples increased those numbers to over 200,000 head each year.
“They didn’t have buyers and they didn’t have an active market,” Samples said. “Roger Johnson told me when I got here, ‘You’ll never be able to fill this barn back up, because you don’t have the buyers.' I got the buyers, I got the cattle and I got the market and all is good.”
Samples knew buyers, and began calling people. Now, every major feeding group in the Midwest is represented in the buyers’ seats at Farmers and Ranchers Livestock.
“When I got here, Junction City was getting a lot of cattle,” Samples said. “I just, slowly but surely, got the farmers to bring their cattle to us. It was not an easy task and it was not a quick task. It took time. After I got the thing going and started, then we became the largest livestock auction in Kansas.”
Winter Livestock owned the two largest sale barns in Kansas, Dodge City and Pratt. According to Samples, Dodge City had the biggest sale barn in Kansas for 50 years. Mike Lewis, a friend of Samples, ran the Winter Livestock sale barn in Pratt.
“When I started getting the business going, Mike Lewis was trying to pass Dodge,” Samples said. “Nobody had every passed Dodge. We joked with each other that I was going to pass them both after Pratt passed Dodge.”
That is exactly what happened.
Samples attributes the success of Farmers and Ranchers Livestock to several factors, including the location. With Salina at the junction of I-135 and I-70, the sale barn was easily accessible to both buyers and sellers. In addition, Samples notes, the conditions of the region allows for good livestock production.
“I like this part of the world, because there’s grass,” Samples said. “There are cattle and crops to feed the cattle.”
The success is also rooted in Samples’ drive and motivation.
"I had always wanted to run a big successful sale barn,” Samples said. “You gotta love what you do, people have to know that you like what you do and enjoy what you are doing.”
In 2021, Samples was inducted into the Cattle Marketing Hall of Fame. The honor recognizes individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to competitive marketing, as the backbone of true price discovery.
“Farmers and Ranchers is very highly respected in the auction business in Kansas and the Midwest,” Samples said. “We get sellers from Western Kansas, from Oklahoma, from Missouri and all over the state of Kansas.”
Samples intends to manage the barn for the next two years, and introduce Mason to the network of buyers and producers composing the business of Farmers and Ranchers Livestock.
“The main thing, I have a very tight relationship with my customers,” Samples said. “I thought when I first met Mason he would fit in. He’s met the people well, and they like him. People were looking for a home. They were going other places, and we give them a home.”