*Note: Interview recorded to audio only.

Elizabeth Uhlig: This is an oral history with Dean Frischknecht. Today is February 9, 2008. This is part of the Extension Service Oral History Project at OSU. And today we're in Dean's office on the campus of OSU. My name is Elizabeth Uhlig.

Dean, to get started, can you tell us where you were born?

Dean Frischknecht: Yes, I was born in Manti, Utah; that's in the geographical center of the state and it was a small town at that time; 2,200 people. It's grown about a thousand people by now, but we figured well, that's a safe place to live and it was. Our ranch was nine miles south of town, out of town, but my grandparents on my Mother's side of the family had run a large herd of sheep, over a thousand ewes plus their lambs on the mountain on National Forest land just east of private land nine miles south of Manti and so we had about a hundred acres of irrigated crop land and so I grew up working on our family ranch most of the time.

EU: How long had that ranch been in your family?

DF: It had been in the family since about, well before 1900, well before 1900, actually my Mother's parents came from, some from Denmark, some from Sweden. Those that came from Denmark are the ones who homesteaded there. This was about in the 1860s and so they had a private ranch before the Forest Service was created in that area. Then the Forest Service was created along around 1903 to 1906 and they had a permit to graze 1,044 ewes in the summertime plus their lambs and they had a small cattle permit; I mean they had a small permit for cattle. Let's say a one-bull herd. And they also had a permit to graze a few horses and they raised excellent horses, both saddle horses and draft horses.

EU: Did you also do farming, I mean raising crops?

DF: We helped irrigate and usually I worked with the sheep in the spring of the year and with the cattle. I had an opportunity to help brand yearling foals and we branded calves generally before they went on the mountain in the summertime but it was a wonderful set up. My Dad taught high school at Manti High.

EU: What did he teach?

DF: He taught Geometry, Trigonometry when necessary but he also taught world history and U.S. history and social sciences. He was a well thought of teacher and as a young man he had served two years in the city council and then in 1932 they asked him to run for mayor and he was elected mayor, so this took some of his time away from the ranch. He also had to devote some time to it during the school year, and so on, but it worked out wonderfully well. I had a wonderful place to grow up.

EU: Did you have brothers and sisters?

DF: Yes, I was next to the oldest. I had a brother who was two years ahead of me in school, but he was about a year and a half older than I am. Then I had a brother three years younger than me and a brother four years younger than me. We had one girl in the family and she was child number five. She was born when I was in the first grade in 1927 and then we had another younger brother born in 1930. So there were five boys and one girl in the family, but the girl was the next to the youngest. We had a wonderful family growing up, a close-knit family.

[0:04:50]

EU: Did you have other aunts and uncles or cousins in the region?

DF: Yes. We had relatives on my Mother's side and on my Father's side and we saw them quite often and my folks liked to have family dinners and both sides would be invited and it was a great time. It was a very enjoyable childhood, time growing up.

EU: You had to work on the farm and with the cattle and so forth, the sheep.

DF: Yes, this was a wonderful opportunity to learn the range and to learn how livestock were managed out on the open range and then we knew about wintering them and we learned the year-round process for running cattle and sheep and horses. In FFA, I had a mother sow, a pig, for a project and so we had experience not only in sheep and cattle and horses, but also in pigs.

EU: Could you talk about what are some of the other activities that you did with FFA? That's...

DF: Future Farmers of America. Now, we had 4-H in the county but I was more active in the FFA, which was associated with high school. And our vo-ag instructor in high school was also our vo-ag teacher and so he taught us in FFA and of course we received high school credit for our work there and I was very fortunate to be on our high school livestock judging team and at our sophomore year we were having the annual FFA convention at Utah State University, it was actually Utah State Agricultural College at that time at Logan, Utah and two other boys and I won the state of Utah in livestock judging and we got to compete in Kansas City that fall. This was the fall of 1936 at the national FFA convention. Back there, we were very fortunate to win second place overall in the livestock judging and our vo-ag instructor had bought a new Ford V-8 and we drove from our home in Utah, we drove over to the American Royal Livestock Show which was at Kansas City, Missouri and that's where this national convention was held and so it was a wonderful trip over and a wonderful time there.

EU: Was that the first time you had basically been out of the state?

DF: That was the...Yes. I'd been out of the state just a little bit and this was the first major trip we had outside of the state. And so we were sophomores in high school and we felt very good about winning second place. But when we got home, we wanted to be modest about this thing and our vo-ag instructor was very happy that we had won second place. We also did win first place in sheep but my older brother said, "It's good for you young men that you won second place and not first place because you still have quite a lot to learn." (Laughter)

So, FFA was a wonderful time for me and also through the high school, Swift and Company sponsored an essay contest for high school students and they sent brochures out for you to study about Swift and Company, meat packers in Chicago. They sent out information to all high school students who wanted it and who wanted to participate and first prize was $100 cash and it so happened that my essay on Swift and Company, and they were supposed to be under 1500 words. But my essay was named champion in the U.S. and I won that $100 and that was wonderful for me. I had a little money but not a great deal and that $100 paid my tuition at Utah State Agricultural College that fall. Tuition was $25 a quarter, like here at Oregon State and Utah State; $25 a quarter but if you paid it all at one time, they deducted $1 for each quarter and you could get a year's tuition paid for $72 and that left over a little money for books and so on. And so I felt very successful and enjoyed that very much.

[0:10:15]

EU: Did your parents encourage you and your brothers and sister to go to school?

DF: Yes. My Dad, he had graduated from the University of Utah and had his degree from there. My Mother did not get to go to college; she said that she really wanted to go to college but her father thought that girls didn't need college and so she didn't get to go to college.

But actually they were married at Manti when Dad came home from the University of Utah for the Christmas holidays. So they were married in Manti in what we call the Church Temple on December 22nd, 1915. Dad was two years older than Mother and actually my Mother had grown up in the small town of Sterling, which is six miles south of Manti; population of approximately 450 people.

And my Grandfather on my Mother's side, the one Grandfather, Christensen, had moved twelve miles south of Manti to the small town of Mayfield, population approximately 500 and so this grandfather and family that lived out there in Mayfield, he had married a young lady in 1916 as I recall, he was 21 years old and she was 20 at the time they were married and their long awaited baby, finally was born ten years after they were married and unfortunately the mother and the baby died in child birth. And things were different back in those days and my Grandmother then was my Grandfather's second wife and he told her one day after he had been a widower for a few years, he said to her, "When I married Elmira she was 20 years old and I was 21 and at that time you were only 13. And seven years made a lot of difference then." And she says, "Well, it doesn't now." And that was the beginning for a wonderful courtship and they were married. Of course she was the second wife and they had a daughter born and she lived only three weeks and she died. She is buried in the family plot at the little town of Mayfield, population 500 and 12 miles south of Manti. Then they had a little boy born and he died the day he was born. And he is also buried there. My mother was their third child and their first one who lived and she was born in 1895.

And her father was called by the church authorities, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, they're also called Mormons. Anyway, the main religion in Utah and he was called to moved from Mayfield, six miles north to Sterling where he was made Bishop and this was in 1891. And he and my Grandmother, his second wife, got married right about that time. He had just either had his call or after he was called he proposed to her and when he told her that she was seven years younger and that made a lot of difference when he got married the first time, when she said, "It doesn't now," they had a marvelous courtship and they bought a home in Sterling which is six miles south of my home town and six miles north of their original place where they lived at Mayfield.

He was Bishop there, then, for nearly 20 years from 1891 until into 1910 and she worked in the church auxiliary organizations. They moved to this town of Sterling where he was called to be Bishop and while there he represented Sanpete County in the Utah Legislature and his first term was from in 1901 until 1902; his second term ran, these were just two-year terms, from 1902 into 1904. But during that time he became active in politics and they hadn't been in Manti very long until he was elected to the Manti City Council. They moved to Manti so that their two daughters could go to college. Mother had a sister three years younger than her. They moved to Manti where there was a high school so that their daughters to go to Manti High School and it was understood when we were kids even in kindergarten that a college education was necessary and that we'd just as well figure on it. And so we did. That was a wonderful thing to look forward to and we were active in high school and also knowing that we were going to go to college and we felt fortunate in that respect.

[0:17:05]

EU: Were your parents able to help you, support you, through college? Did you work also?

DF: My freshman year I worked a little at the sheep barn and also I was familiar with horses and I was asked to feed their horses first thing in the morning, the horses that Utah State University owned, and they had a thoroughbred stallion and they had a Percheron draft stallion and I would feed these horses first thing in the morning when I was going to school and on Saturdays I would take both of them out for a little exercise and ride for a couple of miles around Logan. But this was a wonderful experience and great training for me and I enjoyed it very much. College was a great growing experience; in addition to our classes we learned great practical things in addition to our traditional work.

EU: What kinds of things did you learn?

DF: Dr. Fred F. McKenzie, who later became head of the Animal Science Department here, was my major professor and he taught me how to do artificial insemination of cattle and horses, and he taught me how to collect the semen from the stallions and to inseminate the mares and cows. This was extra-curricular work, but I was learning a great deal. Also, I had the opportunity to work in the wool laboratory and I became a professional wool grader. I could grade wool professionally and did for a large ranch in southeastern Utah. I'm getting ahead of the story a little bit, but I learned this from Dr. McKenzie.

Then when I graduated from college, I was offered an assistantship to get a Master's degree. Dr. McKenzie wanted me to get a Master's degree and I talked to my folks about this and they said it was going to take a little too long if I took that assistantship. It would pay $60 a month, which was pretty good at that time; a young couple could live on that.

I should say also that my wife and I got married the spring of my junior year and the spring of her sophomore year. We had gone together in high school and I missed a quarter of school but I took correspondence classes. And my Dad at that time was Director of the National Youth Administration; he had been in Utah and he was transferred to San Francisco to be director over the western states and the territories of Hawaii and Alaska. And I knew that it was going to be a problem out on the ranch getting that herd of sheep lambed so I proposed to my wife Kathryn that we go home and live out on the ranch, there was a two-room house on the ranch, with a one-room basement, that we could live in the ranch house and lamb that herd of sheep out and my Dad would finance us through my final year of college. And that's how it worked. It worked out wonderfully well.

[0:21:20]

EU: What was your major?

DF: We called in Animal Husbandry at the time. But Ag Econ was my minor. Back up at Logan, then Dr. McKenzie wanted me to go down to southeastern Utah and grade the wool; there were going to be 25,000 fleeces at the Charlie Redd Ranch. Charlie was on the Board of Regents for Utah State Agricultural College and he wanted me to come down there and grade his wool, which I did. And his cousin, Joe Redd, owned five thousand, Charlie owned 20 thousand and Charlie Redd offered me permanent employment at the time but I told him I couldn't take a job then because I really had to finish that Master's degree. But he was quite impressed and he would ride with me, he would have me ride with him in his pickup truck to different herds of sheep and I learned just how he operated and he had a wonderful organization really and I was very happy to go there and grade that wool professionally. And Charlie says, "Dean, I want to pay you five dollars a day for being here, but he says, what we're going to do, is I'll just make you a flat check for $100." Which was big to me and I could sure use it.

EU: So for your Master's degree, was that also in Animal Husbandry?

DF: Yes. And Animal Science – we called it Animal Science by then.

EU: So you got your Master's then in 1944, is that right?

DF: Yes. And when I got back up to Logan, after I was done down at Charlie Redd's, Dr. McKenzie and our Extension sheep and wool specialist, Professor Alma Esplin, had made arrangements for me to be up at Deseret Livestock Company in northeastern Utah during their and they had 40,000 ewes. And I went up there. And what I was supposed to do was to look at every ewe before she went in to be sheared, I was to select the top 20,000 to be bred to white-faced rams for replacement ewe lambs and the lower 20,000 were to be bred to Suffolk Hampshire black-faced rams to produce those meatier carcasses and all of those would be sold. They had set up a place for me to work - two long chutes that would hold about a hundred sheep each chute, about three feet wide and about a hundred feet long. And I would work in that chute and those sheep that I thought were the lower 20,000 I put a yellow chalk mark on their nose that could be seen after shearing. Then they got a special brand which would designate them to be bred to the black-faced rams when the breeding season started that fall.

[0:25:15]

And after I was done there at Deseret Livestock Company I was asked, "Well, we understood, we knew you were down to Charlie Redd's; what did he pay you?" And I said, "Well he paid me $100 but he wasn't supposed to pay me anything." And the general manager, Mr. Walter Dansie said, "Well, I think that we should pay you that amount for your time here." And so that felt good to me and they offered me permanent employment at the time. In fact, Mr. Dansie said, "Will Sorenson, who has been the sheep foreman here for many, many years is in his 60s and his wife died a year ago and he thinks that when he steps aside and retires, that you're the man we want to take over from him and you could be in charge of these 40,000 sheep on a day-to-day management." And so, that's how that happened and I told Will; he said during one day, he said "I'll stay here through or I'll leave next week. You say." And I said, "Will, you can't just dump this outfit on me and leave. I don't know the range summer or winter; I want you to stay for at least a year and teach me how to run these sheep year round." And I said, "This is a big outfit and I want you to stay and be here and guide me through it for at least a year." And he said, "Well, I can do that, I don't have anything else to do but I don't want to be in your way." But he and I got along wonderfully well and we worked together for many years.

EU: So, when you finished your Master's degree in '44, did you immediately go working or did you....it was during the War...

DF: I went home and was deferred and I was told that I was going to be drafted along around the first of November. In the meantime, I had acquired a small bunch of sheep, about a hundred head, and I turned these over to my younger brother who was actually deferred, to run that ranch and I prepared to go into the service. I went to Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City. Went up on the train. We got up there and had our physicals and so on and a Marine Captain said to me, "We'd like you to join the Marine Corps." And I said, "Well, I have an older brother in the Navy and a younger brother in Patton's Army in Europe. That's fine, I'll join the Marine Corps." He said, "If you'll join the Marine Corps, we'll have our quota for today." So when we got done and I said I would join the Marine Corps, I said, "Well, how many Marines did you take today?" And he says, "Two. You and another fellow and the other fellow happened to be Louis Keisel, a little younger than me, but from my hometown. I've got to say there was a good boy and he was all muscle and I had been working hard also and could do hard work and I could run that obstacle course in good time. So when November came, I was ready to go into the Marine Corps but the draft board said we can't take you. Young men have been volunteering and it so happened that Louis Keisel and I went in at the same time and this was early January ...

EU: 1945?

DF: Yes. And so I was in the Marine Corps. I went through boot camp at San Diego and was recommended to go to Officers Candidate School out of boot camp, but our outfit was getting ready to head out for the Pacific and I got held up a day and this Major said, "You're recommended to go to Officers Candidate School but you have to have 90 days' active duty before you can go." And he says, "You've got a wife and two kids now and I'm going to send you over as a Private to the Pacific Theater War because second lieutenants are expendable. Second lieutenants have to lead men into combat and you've got a wife and two kids and I'm going to send you over as a private. And then after your 90 days are up, if you want to go to Officers Candidate School, they will be glad to ship you back here to go through OCS." And I think that man just could have saved my life because that's the way it happened.

And so it was January when they finally got around to taking me and going through boot camp in San Diego was a great experience. It was a tough course, but very worthwhile. And I went overseas as a private, was promoted to private first class, and they said they would send me back to Officers Candidate School. And I said that I was going to have 32 points and that's what it would take to be discharged from the Marine Corps at the end of May 1946, I would have about seventeen months, not quite a year and a half in the Marine Corps. So I was discharged at Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay, we came back there, and I was discharged in May of 1946.

[0:32:05]

EU: So you said you were overseas.

DF: I was in the Pacific. I was on the occupation of Japan.

EU: So you were in Japan.

DF: I had been actually, was in Hawaii when I joined up with an outfit that had fought on Iwo Jima and they were back to Hawaii to be built back up to strength for the invasion of Japan. And so I got in with an outfit of experienced men who had been through combat and I felt good about this and so we went around to the west side of Japan to the southernmost island, Kyushu, of their main islands. And there we went ashore just as if we had invaded. The occupation of Japan was peaceful and things went exceedingly well. I learned a great deal and I'm very glad that I had served in the Marine Corps. I was not in the Corps quite a year and a half, a little over seventeen months and that made me feel good.

EU: But you never did actually do any fighting, then?

DF: I never shot at anybody and I never got shot at. The closest I came to live ammunition was in boot camp when we crawled under live ammunition and we dug our bellies into the ground, I'm telling you. And the boys had told me that most Purple Hearts were getting in the rear end. (Laughter). We kept that pretty low, as low as we could. But this was good training, crawling under live ammunition.

EU: All right, let's take a break. This is the end of Part 1.

[0:34:19]

Elizabeth Uhlig: This is part 2 of the interview with Dean Frischknecht.

Dean, when we ended Part 1, you had just come home from Japan and you were out of the Marine Corps. And so, 1946. What did you do next, then?

Dean Frischknecht: I went to work for Deseret Live Stock Company. I would like to have gotten back into business and been a full-time rancher myself. But while I was gone, my younger brother who was deferred to run the ranch, was able to pick up a small herd of sheep that ran in the same outfit and he was going to have about 250 head of sheep of his own and although the two of us had leased the ranch from my parents, we couldn't be equal partners and there was nothing else available. I really wanted to be a full time rancher but there was nothing available and Deseret Live Stock Company wanted me to go to work for them. So I did and I got there during their shearing just in time for their shearing and it worked out wonderfully well.

EU: You said their ranch, Deseret, was in southeastern Utah?

DF: Charlie Redd's was in southeastern Utah; Deseret Livestock was in northeastern Utah along the Wyoming state line. They have a little property in Wyoming. And Deseret Live Stock Company is a marvelous ranch, and they ran approximately 40,000 ewes, a little more than that, plus their lambs, plus over 5,000 cattle and they did own and use 400 horses. So that was a great place for me to go to work. I enjoyed my time there and it was a time of building again. And from Will Sorensen I learned how to manage those 40,000 ewes and Mr. Dansie, general manager, told me to get familiar with the cattle operation and we also broke our own horses, trained them to work, to do draft horse work or for saddle horses.

[0:37:29]

EU: It must have been hard work.

DF: It was hard work. We would be up early in the morning. At Deseret Live Stock Company the first bell rang about six o'clock in the morning and to wake up the late sleepers and to let everybody know that breakfast would be served at 6:30. And people would get up and get dressed and get ready to go for breakfast at 6:30. At noon, the first and only bell rang at 12:00 noon so the work at the corrals was halted a half hour before it was time, I shouldn't say "lunch" because it was quite a heavy meal at noon and also another heavy meal at night and the first and only bell rang at 6:00 and you could adjust your schedule accordingly.

But this was a wonderful place for training. Walter Dansie taught me things that had to be done as general manager, Will Sorenson taught me how to run the sheep along with working with cattle and a lot of our sheep and cattle ran on the spring range together and the home ranch. Deseret Live Stock Company had a summer headquarters for their sheep and a winter headquarters for their sheep. The summer headquarters was up near the Wyoming state line, a little land just inside of Wyoming and the shearing corral, where I headquartered, was approximately 18 miles from the ranch headquarters which we called the "home ranch." This was a private outfit - that ranch was 225,000 acres, ninety percent privately owned, ten percent public. The winter range for the sheep was down south of the Great Salt Lake in what was called the Skull Valley; that was where our winter headquarters were for the sheep. We would have the sheep in generally 15 herds for the winter, and these were large herds with 2,700 head to about 2,850. We tried to keep them less than 2,900.

But for the winter there would be every camp had its own wagon for the herder and camp tender for their living quarters, they had a team of two draft horses and then they had two saddle horses. It was the camp tender's job to move the camp to fresh feed, to take care of the horses, he'd have to melt snow for the horses sometimes during the winter, but he had equipment to do this and generally there would be two men, the herder and the camp tender with each winter herd.

EU: So you lived...

DF: Yes, and in the wintertime we lived at the headquarters in Skull Valley, the winter headquarters. Had a nice home there. A six room house.

EU: So your wife was there with you and your children?

DF: Yes. We had two children. Our third son was born while we were working for Deseret Live Stock Company and then we had a daughter born while we were working for Deseret Live Stock Company. So we had two sons and two daughters. We lived at the shearing corral in the spring. Water had to be carried from the well and there was an outside toilet about 50 yards east of the cookhouse and there was another outside toilet out by the shearing corral about 100 yards. But water that you used in the home for washing yourself and for culinary use was dipped out of the well there at the spring and carried to the home. So Kathryn, my wife, really appreciated it when we got to live in Skull Valley because there was a six room home, a bungalow type and it had inside plumbing and inside bathroom and inside water under pressure. So being up at the shearing corral was quite a hard thing, rugged for the ladies.

EU: Especially with all the children.

DF: With the kids. And so, high on the summer range we'd be up there. It was a beautiful country and we lived in a two-room log cabin on the summer range – two-room log cabin to start with. We were with Deseret Live Stock Company for nearly eight years. It was a wonderful time of growth and that helped me every day of my life.

[0:44:29]

EU: I think you told me before that you're writing a book about the Deseret...

DF: [whispers] Yes, I don't know if I should say it on here or not, probably not, but it's at Utah State University and they are going to publish it.

EU: So when you were working for the Deseret, the experience you gained; that stayed with you?

DF: Yes, and that helped me here in Oregon in my Extension work. Working for Deseret Live Stock Company was wonderful; I have explained this in a book that I hope to have out within a few months. I explained just in more detail how we ran the outfit.

EU: So you worked there for eight years?

DF: Yes, nearly eight years, I was through nine shearings, counting my Master's degree, I was through nine shearings and Will Sorenson who eventually retired said that I was the man yhat should replace him running the sheep day by day and I was glad of that.

EU: Why did you leave the company?

DF: The company had changed ownership and I had an opportunity to go into selling life insurance for a man who had his own dealership with Pacific National Life – Ivan Johnson – there in Salt Lake. And he said to me one time after we had small educational policies on each of our kids, he said, "Dean, if you ever leave Deseret Live Stock Company, I'd like to have you go to work for me." So, after the company had changed ownership, the new man thought I was being paid too much. They said, "How come you and Walter Dansie got paid so much more than everybody else on the outfit?" And I said, "Well, he was the general manager and I was in charge of the sheep." And I said, "I don't think what I'm making is too much for the responsibility." And one of the new investors in the company actually, a syndicate of investors mainly from Salt Lake were able to buy Deseret Live Stock Company stock and they kind of gained control of the company. And one of the new men who was brought in who had put about $220,000 of his own money into Deseret Live Stock Company stock wanted to be the general manager. Now, he was a good man and he became general manager but he told me then after I'd been there a few months that he voluntarily took a cut in pay of $200 a month from what Walter Dansie had been making and some of the new directors of the company thought I should take a similar dock in pay. And I told him I couldn't take a dock in pay of $200 a month.

And so we agreed that I would stay for awhile until we got the sheep on the winter range. He told me this in the fall and I said, "Let's let her go the way it is; I'll stay indefinitely and do what I'm doing, but I don't want to take a cut in pay. I don't want to leave here and go somewhere and say Deseret Live Stock Company was only paying me this much." And I said, "I'd like to leave here with the company still at its peak." Because some of the new men wanted to cut the sheep operation very much and so we agreed to get on the winter range and then talk about it again. Which we did and so as a result, I didn't want to take a pay cut.

And I figured I could make more money selling life insurance for Ivan Johnson than I could make there. And so Johnson gave me a quota to sell by the first of June and said, "You get this much sold and we'll take you and your wife Kathryn, to our annual convention at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs." Which we did and there I was given a quota to sell for the next year and the convention would be at the Del Coronado Hotel just outside San Diego. And he said, "You sell that much insurance and we'll take you and Kathryn and your four children to the Del Coronado with all expenses paid." And so I made that quota and at the Del Coronado they said, "All the insurance you sell during the next year will qualify you for the convention at Waikiki Beach in Hawaii in 1956. So that's what happened and so Kathryn and I qualified for that trip to Waikiki Beach in 1956.

[0:51:09]

Frank Ballard had interviewed me in the fall of 1955. Now I was thinking of Extension after I thought I was going to have to take this cut in pay at Deseret Livestock and things were working out very well but I thought I could make more money selling life insurance than I could taking a cut in pay to what they wanted me to take at Deseret Live Stock Company.

EU: Frank Ballard, then, was the director?

DF: Yes, Frank Ballard was the Director of Extension.

EU: In Oregon.

DF: Yes. And he interviewed me in Salt Lake and he said, "Well, I'd like you to come to work for us."

EU: And that was in 1956?

DF: Fall of 1955. And then.

EU: So he interviewed you in Salt Lake City?

DF: Yes. But I'll tell you how it happened.

EU: Okay.

DF: My Dad's younger brother, Dr. Carl Frischknecht, was the Director of Extension in Utah. And I went to talk to him and he said, "Well, I can't hire you because you're my nephew." But he says, "Frank Ballard....the Western States Directors are going to meet here in Salt Lake City at the Newhouse Hotel in September of '55." And he says, "I'll introduce you to Frank Ballard, he's the Director for Oregon." And he says, "I think Oregon is the best place in the world to do Extension work because nearly every county has a livestock association." And he says, "I think Frank Ballard is the best Director of Extension in the United States." He says, "I'll introduce you to him." And I said, "No, I'll introduce myself to him. You just well me when they are going to be here. I don't want you to introduce me and feel like he's obligated to you in anyway. Just let me handle it myself."

And so that's what we did and I called Frank Ballard, Director of Extension and told him who I was and that I would like to talk to him. Oh, because my uncle said, "Oregon is looking for an Extension Livestock Specialist." And he says, "I think you would fit." He says, "I'll introduce you to Frank Ballard." And I said, "No, I'll introduce myself to Frank Ballard and let him make up his own mind." And so after we got done talking for a few minutes, he said, "Well, I'd like you to come to work." He says, "How soon can you come to work?" And I told him that it would take me awhile to wind stuff up 'cause I would be moving to Oregon.

And so he called me and says, "I think we'll leave this position open for a little while," but he said, "I would like to have my associate director, Mr. Jean Scheel come to Pocatello and you and your wife come up there and have lunch with him, would you and your wife do that?" And I said, "Sure, we can do that." So we had lunch with Jean Scheel and he was heavy on the "Mr." because you could think of it as a lady named Jean. But Jean Scheel says, "Well Dean, we'd like you to come to work for us." He says, "Well, you could come now, come next week." I said, "We can't come that soon besides I've got this trip I won to Waikiki Beach." He said, "Oh well, our men will feel good about that; Extension is largely selling. That will be fine." He says, "Come to work the first of July after you get back from Hawaii." But he said, "I'm offering you employment now as an Extension Livestock Specialist." And I says, "Well, I'd like it; I'll take." And I told him what had happened at Deseret Live Stock Company and he wanted me to take a cut in pay which I didn't want to take and I was doing better; anyway, I was doing just as well selling insurance and it wasn't such hard work. But there was this thing about it; you kind of wanted to get a man and his wife together and that meant evenings and it's better if you have the man and his wife together if you are talking insurance. I learned that. (Laughter).

[0:56:14]

EU: Why do you think the Extension Service in Oregon had such a good reputation nationwide?

DF: Frank Ballard, I thought, was a businesslike man and he was much respected. And the other thing was, in Oregon nearly every county had a county livestock organization and this gave an animal science man, an animal man, a group to work with. And they had generally the livestock Extension man in that county was secretary of the livestock association so it was a direct working of the Extension Service with the county livestock association and that gave you a group to work with.

And there was one other thing that helped a great deal here. Years before that, when there was just one livestock Extension man, that was Harry Lindgren, and he and a few other people had organized the Western Oregon Livestock Association. Now they had different problems here, west of the Cascades than the Oregon Cattlemen, east of the Cascades. And Harry Lindgren was very much responsible working with Al Powers who was a timberman and a livestock rancher down on the southern Coast. Those two fellows helped organize the Western Oregon Livestock Association. And Harry Lindgren acted as their secretary to start with and treasurer and Al Powers was their first president.

I had been here, I came in 1956 and soon I was made their secretary of Western Oregon Livestock Association and just did that as part of my Extension work. And this gave us another group to work with and actually, it helped with the Oregon Cattlemen. They worked things together quite a bit; western Oregon with Oregon Cattlemen were quite a voice at the Legislature and it worked out very well. And actually, I was secretary of Western Oregon Livestock Association from 1958 until 1968, for ten years.

[0:59:29]

When I went to Argentina for five months in 1968, they wanted an Extension man from the United States to come down, and someone who had worked on large ranches. And so I had a call from Dr. Bob Temple in Denver asking if I would go down to Argentina. And he said that my work on large ranches would help me down there. And he wanted me to go down for five months and my experience there would be to help the people of Argentina raise a higher percent of calf crop and lamb crop.

EU: Was that with the UN?

DF: Yes, I was working then for the United Nations. And it worked out wonderfully well and people here at Oregon State wanted me to go down there for the experience and they thought I could do them some good. And my salary that I was making here at Oregon State as an Extension Livestock man was continued all the while I was in Argentina and that was a big help to me down there. Because Oregon State University Extension Service wanted me to be working for them too in Argentina and to represent the Oregon Extension Service in Argentina. But it was working for the UN; United Nations and that was a wonderful experience.

EU: When you worked for the Extension Service, were you always here in Corvallis?

DF: Yes. Now, then...I've got to think here a minute. After my retirement. I retired at age 65 in the month that I was 65 -- in April of 1985 I officially retired from Oregon State. But they had me go over to eastern Oregon and work with – I worked over there with the Oregon Cattlemen, I did some work at Union at the Experiment Station, and at Burns. And was headquartered in Burns for a few months. Now this was after I had retired, but I was actually doing Extension work.

EU: But when you moved to Corvallis in 1956 and you were the livestock specialist responsible throughout the state?

DF: Yes, well, there was one other one. Dr. John Landers. John Landers had been here before me and the way they had us arranged, John was to take the south half of the state and I was to take the north half of the state and that's how we worked it and we were both headquartered down the hallway here. Halfway down the hall on the left side.

EU: In Withycombe Hall, here?

DF: Yes.

EU: What kind of livestock did you work with?

DF: My work in Oregon was a little more with cattle than anything and beef cattle improvement was one of my huge projects. And we worked on that at the Hermiston Experiment Station and in Umatilla County at their other experiment station and at Burns and Union County. It was more beef cattle improvement than anything.

And when the Beef Improvement Federation was organized in 1968, Doug Bennett who was manager of Stone Herefords up in the west end of Umatilla County, he and I represented the Oregon Cattlemen at the Organization of the Beef Improvement Federation which was a federation of beef organizations in the United States and Canada; a little participation in Mexico, but not much in Mexico.

Doug Bennett and I. And then I was sent around to these different livestock meetings. Here's a meeting we had - Extension Livestock Specialists – throughout the country we met in Nebraska at Lincoln and Dr. Mast, here...

EU: We're looking at a picture – there's you on the right and Dr. Mast is on the left.

DF: Yes. He's from Virginia and Dr. Herrick was from Iowa and he was stationed in Washington D.C. Let's see what – he was western livestock marketing project at Denver. But I was good friends with these guys and so this, can you read that? I don't have my glasses on...

EU: Okay. Let's see, this was 1974, April.

DF: April 10th, '74. I had been retired for quite awhile, but I represented the Oregon Cattlemen at that time. And I think that's when I asked for a copy of this. Oh, this was April 9 and 11 for National Beef Cattle cow/calf workshop. State of the art beef cow production. Extension Educational Program recommendations for commercial beef cow producers. C.C. Mast.

He told us this story, he says, "I grew up in a little town out there in Virginia country, way out there in the Blue Ridge Mountains and we didn't have a regular preacher man, but he said, kind of an itinerant preacher who come by and talk to us about once a month on Sundays." And he said, "The man didn't read very well, he couldn't see very well to read, but he would open the Bible someplace and then read a few verses and get an inspiration and close the Bible and give a hell-raising talk." This preacher opened the Bible and said, "And there were five wise Virginians and there were five foolish Virginians...." And he said, "That seems to me to be a very high percentage of Virginians. " He said he gave us a helluva talk. (Laughter.) Oh jeeze, I've had a wonderful life.

EU: Let's take another break here. This will be the end of Part 2.

DF: Yes, let's do that.

[1:09:23]

Elizabeth Uhlig: This is part 3 of the interview with Dean Frischknecht.

Dean, do you want to now, talk a little bit about the beef improvement that you did. Talk about some of the projects you worked on and maybe if you tell us exactly what you mean by "beef improvement."

Dean Frischknecht: All right. I'll be glad to. Beef cattle, was a major livestock source of income in Oregon; beef cattle are the largest livestock industry we have in Oregon. And beef cattle improvement was already going on when I came. John Landers had been working on it and Harry Lindgren had worked on it and another fellow, Jim Ellings had been working on it. He left Oregon to go to California where he worked in the Extension Service and his work in California was much on beef cattle improvement.

But what it amounted to, back then was getting the calves weighed at weaning time and although several people in Oregon were having their calves weighed at weaning time, there needed to be one program for the state where calf weights were adjusted to 205 days. Now this was a national program. Calf weights were adjusted to 205 days which was the average time of weaning and cows were rated on the basis of the calves they produced. This is basic beef cattle improvement but then we wanted to start getting the carcasses of market animals figured into the equation in the beef cattle improvement.

We had what we called the "beef exhibit trailer" which was financed through the Oregon Beef Council. This was kept at the car pool here at Oregon State University and we would take it out when we wanted to demonstrate something educational about different carcasses.

About this time, the yield grade system came into existence where cattle carcasses were rated according to how fat they were and the amount of muscling they had in relation to the fatness over the outside of the body. Now, we had some carcass contests at the PI, Pacific International, carcass demonstrations we called them. But run actually through Oregon State University Extension Service. Animals were selected based on the "cutability" we called it, the meatiness of their carcass in relation to the fat in the carcass.

Here at Oregon State University we put out publications showing the rib eye area of a carcass and we also had it show the outside fat of this carcass and this gave a fairly good estimate of what we called "cutability." That is how much lean meat was this carcass going to produce. And we had demonstrations at county fairs, demonstrations at the State Fair and our beef carcass exhibit trailer was very much in demand. This worked out very well for us.

Now, John Landers, one of his responsibilities was to keep track of where the people had asked to have the beef council trailer so they could exhibit and use it. John kept a record of this and helped schedule it. I drove the truck many times out across the state and it was heavily used at the Pacific International Livestock Exposition. But people were beginning to learn that dressing percent was a little higher on an exceedingly fat animal would have a higher dressing percent but that might be extra fat. This beef carcass trailer made it so people could see the size of the amount of lean inside what we called the "rib eye" and also associate that with the outside fat on many animals.

[1:15:38]

EU: Dean's looking at a notebook to find a picture ... here we go. So, here we have a picture showing the cattle and this is the rib eye?

DF: These are rib eyes from the Pacific International Exposition. And these are USDA models. And here is a yield grade 1 and we can see that there's thin outside fat and this yield grade 2 has a little more outside fat. And here we got down to a yield grade 5 and he's very heavy in the brisket compared to these animals.

EU: We are looking here at diagrams or drawings of the different cattle.

DF: Yes, these are USDA models and the actual rib eyes to represent them, but these are actual Oregon State University pictures. But this is quite a contrast between a yield grade 4 with that outside fat and ...

EU: And this is a publication of the Extension Service.

DF: Now then, I sent a copy of this publication, let's see, it was reprinted soon after it went out because it was in demand and it was Extension Circular 752. It was put out earlier but was reprinted, then, in February of '73 because we ran out of them. If I could read just a minute here, it says, "Identification of breeding stock that will produce the most desirable market animals for all segments of the beef business is a major problem confronting the industry. The fast growing, high gaining well-muscled animal that will yield a quality carcass of the popular weight with a minimum of waste fat trim is desired by the breeder, the feeder, the processor, the retailer and the consumer. Fortunately for producers, the larger framed, heavier muscled kind also make faster and cheaper gains."

EU: Dean is reading this circular, here.

DF: "Cattle differ widely in their lean to fat ratio, even when the same age on the same feed and fed to the same slaughter weight. Degree of marbling largely determines quality grade. Some cattle will marble to choice grade with less than one-half inch of fat covered over the rib, while others may have an inch of outside fat by the time they reach choice. These differences are largely hereditary which means the lean fat ratio can be improved by selection. This also means that cattle producers should follow their cattle through the packing house in order to see carcass merit."

"In addition to growth rate and carcass merit, other areas of real economic concern to the cattle industry are fertility of breeding stock. Reproductive and mother ability of cows, skeletal and structural soundness and longevity of production and freedom from inherited defects. We can work on all of these things in our beef cattle improvement program. When judging live cattle, the point of the shoulder is probably the easiest area to feel in order to determine the amount of finish, that is the outside fat, carried by that particular animal. Also, the hip bone and the backbone are the vertebral column are all bones that have only a small amount of connective tissue and skin covering over them. As an animal fattens a layer of fat forms between the connective tissue and the skin layer. So by feeling these areas, it's possible to feel fat or the lack of it. The ribs, the loin edge, the flank, the elbow, the brisket and the cog are all areas that can be used to determine the amount of finish a beef animal is carrying."

[1:20:53]

Well, this particular circular, I sent copies of that to a few breeders and then they asked for more copies and said they would be glad to pay for it. One was Farrington R. Carpenter who was going to give a talk at our Beef Day at the Bull Testing Station in Klamath Falls. He said he would like to have 200 reprints to pass out at his own sale. He said, "This is the best illustration he has seen of live animals and their carcass yield grades, choice grades from 1, 2, 3 and 4." And so Mr. Carpenter said that was actually a help to him in his breeding program and to the buyers of his registered cattle

And he says, "We've got to educate these people so that they know what they are looking at." And he said this was the best publication he had seen up until that time demonstrating what yield grade 1 through 4 was and the amount of back fat associated with the lean of that carcass.

So we thought we had a very good publication there, a helpful publication. Still, we've got to have a live calf born, it's got to grow and grow rapidly and we know from experience since then that we can get cattle too big for the amount of feed available on their ranges. So there's a type of cattle, a size, where cows can live on the forage on the range and breed back when they should and have a calf every year. So that's the goal of the cattle producer, is to get a calf every year, and early in the calving season. So he's got to have his cows in good shape at breeding time so that they will be cycling and that they will breed. There are many, many objectives in beef cattle improvement but we've just gone over some of the main things.

So we record this and the breeds are recording this now and as an aside, although we hear a great deal about certified Angus beef now, only about 18 percent, 17 or 18 percent of the black cattle meet the specifications for certified Angus beef. And to be a certified Angus they want at least 50 percent of the breeding to be Angus. The other 50 percent can be Hereford and a lot of it is, or some other breed. But people nowadays are really trying to improve their cattle through breeding and selection. So the more we can help them with selection, and the more good cattle we have on breeding programs, the more we'll see in beef cattle improvement.

[1:24:53]

EU: So it seems a lot of the work you did was educational work and publications?

DF: Yes. And while we're on this, one time at Stone Herefords sale over in the western part of Umatilla County, they were going to have Stones - Stones were primarily a Hereford operation and the American Junior Hereford Association was going to have their annual meeting there at Stone Hereford Ranch. I was asked by the American Hereford Association if I would be responsible for putting on a leadership conference for these young Hereford breeders or whatever breed they had.

But we put out - I asked Vern Atwood, Washington County Extension Agent, to work with me and put out a publication that these junior cattlemen could take with them. And so, I'll just read a very early part of it. It says, "American Junior Hereford Association Leadership Conference; this was June 25-26, 1975 at Hermiston at Stone Hereford Ranch." I asked Vern Atwood, Washington County Extension Agent to help me and we have written here a publication that we used. And we gave a copy of this publication to each one of these junior Hereford members that were there, also to all adult breeders, parents and anyone who was there. We had enough copies made.

But just to start with, it says, "The greatest ability in the world is true executive leadership ability. Leadership is the activity of helping others achieve or work toward common goals or purposes. If you want to succeed as a leader of the American Junior Hereford Association, take time to do the job well. Socrates said 'let him who would move the world first move himself.' And Thomas Huxley, the great English scientist in talking about what it takes to succeed in life said, 'The most valuable trait you can acquire, is your unhesitant willingness to one, do the thing you should do, number two, do it when it ought to be done, three, do it whether you like it or note. Preparation is a vital ingredient of leadership, preparation precedes leadership. Professional skill and leadership coupled with intelligent enthusiasm makes for powerful leadership. ' "

"Let's look at a possible list of the American Junior Hereford Association's most wanted leaders. One, the leader who will plan, prepare and present, two, the leader who is skilled in carrying out an assignment, three, the leader who will delegate authority and responsibility, four, the leader who will follow through, five, the leader who is aware of others." This was given to all who attended that junior field day and so people were there from all over the United States but we had enough copies of this and it takes up in planning and preparing and presenting.

[1:29:13]

EU: So it seems you were teaching not only about the actual working with cattle and so forth, but also teaching people how to be leaders.

DF: Yes. And I could read a letter or two that came in. This is on American Junior Hereford Association stationary. Here is a letter I would like to read:

"Dear Mr. Frischknecht: I would like to extend my appreciation to you for putting on the leadership conference for our board of directors and also helping out with the all American field day. I know that I benefitted greatly from the conference. Every once in awhile, it's good to have a refresher course in something you take for granted. An eye opener of what leadership really is. We surely enjoyed our company and your advice on dealing with people. I hope you enjoy the rest of the summer. Thank you again, Amy Anderson." She's on the board of directors.

I would read another one:

"Dear Mr. Frischknect, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for assisting with the American Junior Hereford Association at the all American field day. I'm sorry I was unable to attend the entire leadership conference but I assure you the material I received will be put to use quickly. I enjoyed and gained from the morning session and I like your extremely positive optimistic outlook. Your state is beautiful. We drove from Hermiston to Portland Saturday evening and I enjoyed the scenic Cascade Mountains and the Columbia River. The field day was so successful; we are so indebted to the Stone Hereford Ranch. I was very impressed with their productive operation. Thank you for organizing the meat judging contest and assisting in so many areas. I appreciate your kindness." Well, that was nice, from a girl, Katie Knopp, who was on their board.

EU: So, you organized and presented these field days? And these were throughout the state for cattlemen and women?

DF: Yes, we usually had a field day associated with our work going on at Hermiston and had the field day there.

EU: That was an experiment station in Hermiston?

DF: Yes. And we've had huge crowds there. And it served us very well. And we could get many breeders right there close to bring cattle in. And we had the largest progeny testing station in the world there. Now by progeny, we would bring in eight or ten progeny from one herd sire. For example, Stone Herefords right there, usually tested progeny of four of their main herd bulls. These were cattle that went in at weaning time and were fed out and carcassed right there at Hill Meat Company in Umatilla County and they could see what each sire was doing. This was what we called a "progeny testing station."

And received actually, much attention throughout the United States and Canada. This was a well-known station for the programs that were put on there but for the actual cattle that were fed out and carcassed there. And herd sires evaluated on their progeny.

We had a great field day before the sale of bulls at the bull testing station east of Klamath Falls. This was an annual affair and we would have carcasses on display from some of the mates, some of the cattle of the same family, some of the bulls that were being sold or offered for sale. These were great field days.

And of course, here at Oregon State University, we used to have a field day here prior to our beef day activities which was generally held in the spring. The Oregon Cattlemen and Western Oregon Livestock Association would help us out a great deal on the field day programs that was held here and cattlemen like to come here to Oregon State University for a board meeting and also have a noon lunch here. This worked out very well for us but we find now that parking is a problem and it's not going to get better it's going to get to be more of a problem as time goes on.

EU: Let's take a break. This is the end of Part 3.

[1:35:29]

Elizabeth Uhlig: This is part 4 of the interview with Dean Frischknecht.

Dean, you were showing me some clippings and other articles about things you have been involved with. Do you want to talk a little bit about packing and the teaching you did?

Dean Frischknecht: Okay. Here at Oregon State University, we used to have an annual horseman's short course. And horsemen from around Oregon would come in for a day and we had enough horses here that we could have them go through a judging clinic and then we had time for demonstrations. And we had demonstrations of patterns - the horses would run for professional competition and the same courses that our 4-H students would go through with their horse in order to obtain the Dad Potter Horsemanship Award.

Arleigh Isley was actually the best professional packer I had ever seen. He was a county agent over in eastern Oregon; he was a county agent down in Jackson County. Arleigh and I put on several packing demonstrations. I had learned horse packing as I was growing up on our own outfit in central Utah where our summer range had no roads and we used packhorses. And we both learned how to balance each side of the pack horse, the load on each side; we could get it balanced so that we weren't going to have a pack tip over and fall off.

Dr. Ensminger who was responsible for the international horseman's short course each year in San Antonio asked me if Arleigh and I would put on pack horse demonstrations at his annual conference there. We did and we received wide acclaim for this and many people took pictures, although they probably weren't supposed to take pictures. But they did of the pack when horses were loaded. Now, we took our own equipment from here at Oregon State and we were supplied two gentle packhorses in San Antonio by the Texas horse people. Things worked out very well for us; and these demonstrations that we put on were given quite high marks according to Dr. Engsminger.

[1:39:44]

EU: One thing I wanted to ask you about was about using computers. Did you begin to use computers in your work and how did that happen?

DF: A gentleman over at Iowa State had developed what he called the "computer cow game." And people could enroll in this computer cow game and he ran it and I participated in it. Then he said this was the last time he was going to use this. I made arrangements with him for Oregon State University Extension Service to purchase the pattern for this computer cow game. Then we used it for several colleges and several individual cattlemen and several high school vo-ag classes. This was an excellent training for computerized records and we had excellent participation throughout the state.

Generally, we had this time so people could receive their awards, like if the winner was a class, we tried to have the Dean of Agriculture present this to a high school class during our beef day celebration here on campus. This was a public relations thing for Oregon State University and it helped many vo-ag classes throughout the state, also university classes from other states. Now this was generally - what was recorded here would be weaning weight and the objective would be to raise increase weaning weight and the cows and bulls were rated on the basis of the progeny they produced. These weights were adjusted to 205 days. We tried to make this so that it was easy for high school vo-ag classes to compete and so that university students could compete on their own. This worked very well in helping people to understand computerized records in beef production.

EU: I'm sure in your career, you've seen a lot of changes and using computers is only just one of the many changes.

DF: Oh, yes. Now it's easier to get carcass information; it's also easier to understand computer printouts. And the purebred associations run computerized records all the time now and several universities also in classes at universities will use computerized printouts based on the cattle they have maybe there at their experiment stations.

[1:44:14]

EU: One of the other changes I wanted to ask you about was the role of women in Animal Science, and then can you talk about some changes you've seen in the role of women over the years?

DF: Yes. We have more women now in Animal Science and maybe taking pre-vet. We have lots of women who are veterinarians. And this trend is continuing. And we have many, many competent girls in college who can do must everything. Our student body in Animal Science keeps growing and we keep getting a higher percentage of women. And these ladies have excellent futures, mainly associated with sales of products or in, it could be pre-vet or ag journalism. There are many, many places that women are now filling these capacities and there are more opportunities coming all the time. We feel that women who graduate in Animal Science have many futures of many kinds but all can be very successful. And their work in Animal Science, whether it's with computers or whether it's with pharmaceuticals, it can be a part time job - it can be arranged in most careers where women have the time to spend on a career with a basis of Animal Science.

EU: Why do you think there's been that change?

DF: There are just many more competent women in Animal Science and some of them are making futures for themselves. They may go to other institutions for a PhD, and then there's research and teaching, and in addition to private industry. But one of the main areas for women in Animal Science is they are taking a pre-veterinarian course. But ag journalism is a huge field and research and Extension and teaching are all great careers. And they are available to women as they are to men. And we really see more women veterinarians coming out; many more women veterinarians than there are men.

EU: When you look back over your career with the Extension Service and in the cattle business, are there other major changes that you've seen?

DF: Well, in Extension nowadays, we're just short on people. Our county agents are spread fairly thin doing livestock work in more than one county. Now this is possible. We have better communications, more instant communications, and there are just more opportunities and some are able to make opportunities for themselves. This is a marvelous time to be alive really. There are so many scientific, practical things that we now use that were not available a few years ago. But being in Animal Science can open so many careers in many directions, but feed companies can use nutritionists, they can use anyone who can make sales and can explain things. They don't have to be a scientific researcher in a particular field, but they may be. But being able to explain programs is essential to getting participation. But women are good at this.

[1:50:14]

EU: I think you mentioned, you told me before, that you have your own cattle that you ran?

DF: Kathryn and I had an opportunity to buy a small herd of registered cattle years ago. Cattle that were in Umatilla County, owned by Mark and Minnie May who were one of the first cooperators with Oregon State University on a beef cattle improvement program. Now, later George Bain who was the county agent in Malheur County and had a ranch that his uncle worked on. George Bain and I became partners in this Mark and Minnie May little cattle herd. And then George was in a position to raise bulls till breeding age and get them sold through the sales that were held in the Ontario area. This worked out well for George Bain and his family and it worked out well for our family.

And it helped us in our work with cattlemen to be involved to rather a small extent, but to be involved in the cattle business ourselves. This helped us. People figured that we knew what we were talking about, and we hope we did. Having the actual experience and actually raising the cattle, selecting the herd bulls, keeping the cows on the basis of their production, these are all practical parts of the cattle business and here we were getting firsthand information and firsthand experience and this was a help to us. And in 1998 I sold the last of our registered cattle, and we had owned them for a little over 40 years. They had been a great source of satisfaction to us to be a part of the industry although a small part, but involved in a very essential part. We enjoyed this and it helped all the way around.

EU: So, after you retired from the Extension Service, I know you continued to be active and you continued working then on your ranch in Redmond, right?

DF: Yes. And having those cattle and having to take care of them myself part of the time was very enjoyable and it was good for our family. And it worked out very well for us. Actually, my experience as an Extension Agent has been very positive. It's been very positive in most any way that it could be. Things always happening, programs always available, we were able to help some programs. But my career with Extension, I couldn't have asked for a better career and I would certainly recommend Extension work to any young person who is thinking about it. It's really a wonderful way to work with people in many, many areas. People are glad for help when they know you know what you're talking about.

[1:55:04]

EU: After you retired, did you continue to teach here at the university?

DF: Well, occasionally I would give a lecture to an Animal Science class. And I have worked rather diligently on the Diamond Pioneer selection committee and received a little award this last year. Jim Oldfield and I - Jim used to be head of the department here. He and I have worked quite diligently, he on the Diamond Pioneer Award that's through the College of Agriculture for people who have made an outstanding contribution to Oregon Agriculture. This is what the Diamond Pioneer registry is and we each gave a little presentation at the annual meeting held here on campus and each of us received a little plaque which we didn't know we were going to get but we prize it highly. And this gives us a chance to work and to see again some of the people we worked with many years ago, but we know that whoever comes into Diamond Pioneer is has actually contributed and done a top job in their career in Agriculture.

EU: Looking back on your career, what are you proudest of? What do you think was your biggest contribution?

DF: I think that having our programs recognized nationwide in 1972 and 1978 the Oregon Cattlemen's Association was recognized as having the top beef cattle improvement program in the United State and Canada and there was some participation in Mexico. We had the top program here and we worked closely with the Oregon Cattlemen's Association. And actually this beef cattle improvement program is the work of the Extension Service and the cattlemen themselves. It's a marvelous program and we have been highly recognized.

And another thing, I was recognized as being a Pioneer in beef cattle improvement and received such an award. And it's humbling I a way, but it's very enjoyable to think over the wonderful events we have attended, the results of our work and the work of the total Extension team along with animal scientists and people of authority in the different breeds and associations. It's been a marvelous career for me and one that I would certainly not want to change. I think there are a few areas where I would liked to have done a better job, but I'm happy that we were able to do as well as we did.

EU: Well, are there other areas that I didn't ask you about that you think we should have talked about?

DF: Oh, I don't think so. I think we've covered it pretty well. I feel good about it.

EU: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate your time.

DF: You're a pro. I appreciate you being here to do this.

EU: Well, thank you very much.

[2:00:10]