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Roachdale man honored as IBCA Young Cattleman of Year
INDIANAPOLIS -- A Putnam County man who returned to the farm six years ago after a stint in corporate America was named 2018 Young Cattleman of the Year as the Indiana Beef Cattle Association (IBCA) honored the state’s top cattlemen during its recent annual convention.
Following research positions with Monsanto, Paul Hodgen of Roachdale moved his family back home to operate a diversified commercial cow herd and grain operation.
With all of the rolling ground throughout his northern Putnam County area, Hodgen turned to expansion of the livestock operation.
“That includes utilizing cover crops for grazing,” Hodgen said. “We’re a cow/calf operation mainly. This past year we started bringing in some feeder calves as well. We’ve got a lot of byproduct from our corn side that we need to utilize, and it’s cheap feed.”
Looking back at 2018, Hodgen said things started out great, but took a turn with a cold, wet March that brought a lot of health issues to his calves.
“Surprisingly the calves really rebounded from that,” Hodgen said, “and then we had a pretty decent growing season.
”Then we got into October and, just like on the crop side, it was a mud bog trying to get the crops out,” the Roachdale man said. “It was also tough on the cattle. Trying to fight a lot of rain, a lot of mud, and cattle mud do not mix.”
With those challenges hopefully behind him, Hodgen is looking forward to 2019.
“We did some embryo transfer work for the first time in years on our farm,” he said, adding that he’s”really excited to see these calves hit the ground that we’ve done the ET work on.”
Other winners at the IBCA convention were:
Cattleman of the Year — Phillip and Patty Dow of Paragon whose Hoosier Homestead farms have been in the family since 1870.
Robert C. Peterson Lifetime Achievement Award — Barry Jordan of Rensselaer and the late Alan Armstrong of Springville. Jordan was awarded the Young Cattleman of the Year in 1983, co-chaired the first IBCA Hoosier Beef Congress in 1987 and was Cattleman of the Year in 2000. He also served as 2005 IBCA president. Armstrong was an educator for 43 years while continuing the growth of the family farm to a productive 3,060-acre beef cattle, hay and crop farm. A steward of the land through soil and water conservation, Armstrong continued to grow the family farm to 1,500 beef cattle and served as the IBCA Area 2 director.
Friend of the Industry Award — Randy Haymaker of Hoosier Energy. A staunch supporter of the Indiana agriculture, Hoosier Energy has sponsored IBCA area beef meetings for many years.