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Sara Shivers, Salt Creek Farm

Posted on by Pat Melgares

Let’s have a steak dinner at the beautiful Savoy at 21c restaurant in downtown Kansas City. Where did this Black Angus beef come from? It was brought here directly from a farm in the Flint Hills of rural Kansas.

Man and woman with two daughters, standing near farm field
Margot, Sara, Jay and Stella Shivers

Sara and Jay Shivers are the owners and operators of Salt Creek Farm in Greenwood County where Sara grew up. She is the daughter of Don and Jan Stephens who run cattle at Rafter S Ranch.

Sara went to K-State. She earned a master’s degree at the University of North Texas where she met her husband Jay, a country boy who was getting a master’s in urban planning. They lived in the Dallas area and Sara worked in non-profit management.

Sara had always wanted to come back to the ranch to help her father. She shared that desire with her husband.

“We knew we wanted to move to Kansas, but urban planning jobs are few and far between,” Sara said. “On our honeymoon, we day-dreamed about selling beef direct to consumers.”

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Alex Parker, Circle P Processing

Posted on by Pat Melgares
Alex Parker, Circle P Processing, Waterville, Kansas
Alex Parker, Circle P Processing

“Full circle.” That’s one way of describing the creation of one Kansas rural business, which is located in what was once one of the first state-inspected meat plants and is again serving the processing needs of Kansans.

Alex Parker is owner and founder of Circle P Processing, a meat processing facility in Waterville. He grew up in nearby Washington, where he judged livestock, meats and horses in FFA. After high school, he joined the Marines.

While stationed in Okinawa, he volunteered at a local stable. A farrier came to trim hooves and shoe the horses, and Alex became fascinated by this work. After finishing his service, he came back to Kansas and graduated from professional farrier school to become a farrier himself.

Using the initial of his last name, he adopted the brand Circle P. He also married Karly. They now have two daughters with another child on the way.

As Parker visited his various farrier customers during 2020, a question came up consistently: “Do you know anywhere we can get in to get our beef processed?” All the local locker plants were booked up for a year or two ahead.

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Lettie McKinney, MC- Meat Company

Posted on by Jason Hackett

By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.

“Connecting with consumers.” That’s a goal of many food companies, but today we’ll meet a young beef producer who has taken this idea to heart. She finds that delivering beef and communicating with families is the most rewarding part of her job.

Lettie McKinney
Lettie McKinney

Lettie McKinney is the founder of MC- Meat Company, which provides homegrown beef directly from the ranch to the consumer. The family brand, based on their last name, is pronounced “M C Bar.”

The McKinneys have farmed and raised cattle for decades in southwest Kansas since Lettie’s ancestors settled there in the 1920s. “My great-grandparents lived through the Dust Bowl and the Depression,” Lettie said. “We’re still here by the grace of God.” Today, she is part of the fourth generation on the ranch. Continue reading “Lettie McKinney, MC- Meat Company” →