Email: [email protected]
Hometown: Terry
Elected: 2020
Industry Involvement: Lon’s grandparents homesteaded near his ranch in 1910 and raised eleven children. His parents began the current operation in 1958, and he helped manage the ranch throughout his life except during college at MSU-Bozeman, where he earned an Agriculture Production degree. He and his wife Vicki returned to the ranch in 1982 and helped grow the ranch roughly six times as large as it was originally. They have a son Thane and daughter Dr. Lynze Franko. Along with their son and daughter-in-law, they run mostly a cow-calf operation consisting of Black Angus-cross cattle. They keep replacement females with some AI and have retained ownership of calves and finish them in custom lots. They also purchase feeders to finish. Lon has 38 years of commodity futures trading experience. Their ranch has been a long-time Fish, Wildlife and Parks Block Management participant. They have implemented an extensive rotational grazing system with numerous proactive conservation methods and were the 2016 State and Region V Environmental Stewardship Award winner.
Leadership Service: Lon has served as director of the Southeastern Montana Livestock Assn., served on the Prairie County Weed Board, was a Montana Range Days speaker, an Environmental Stewardship Ranch Tour host, and has been president, secretary and director of the Terry Roping Club. He was a founding steering committee member and chair of the Montana Grazing Lands Conservation Intiative, served as representative for several counties on the Big Dry/Powder River Resource Area BLM Management Plan, and was chair of Montana Young Stockgrowers. He is a member of the National Public Lands Council. Lon is current chairman of the Prairie County Land Planning Board, founding member of the Prairie County Predator Board, Past Master and current Secretary of Terry Masonic Lodge #74, and past Elder and current Deacon of Terry Community Presbyterian Church.
Challenges facing the beef industry: There is a bottleneck at the beef processing phase of our industry that creates a huge farm to retail spread in prices. We need more ranch-direct sales to consumers as capitalism does not work without competition. I’m a vigorous supporter of the beef check off because continuing investment in product development and promoting the image of beef is extremely necessary for our future. Environmental regulations such as governmental climate change policy may be an opportunity or a complete disaster so we must be wary. The next few years, the biggest challenge for our ranch will be grasshoppers.