Local cattleman plays the bluegrass circuit

By Sheila Harris [email protected]

Like many Barry County residents, agricultural roots run deep in Doug Clifton’s family. 

Ever since he can remember, he helped his parents — Loren and Sharon Clifton — milk cows on the family’s dairy farm, southeast of Purdy. The Clifton farm was one of over 80 local dairy operations in Barry County in 1980. That number has since dwindled to three, according to MU Extension agent, Reagan Bluel.

After Clifton graduated from high school, he accepted a job with Jack Henry & Associates (JHA) in Monett, where he met his future wife Leslea on his first day of work. Aside from Leslea, who wrapped strings around his heart, JHA couldn’t hold him — farming was in his blood.

“I stayed at Jack Henry for five years,” Clifton said. “Then, I built four chicken houses and started raising pullets for George’s.”

Pullet farms, explained Clifton, entail raising chicks for six months, until they reach laying-hen size.

“Then, the hens are transferred to separate egg-laying operations,” he said.

Clifton operated the poultry farm while continuing to help his parents run their dairy operation until 2005, when the family called dairy farming a wrap.

“That’s when I switched over to a cow/calf operation,” Clifton said. “I have a mixed herd of 195 cattle right now, most of them cows with calves, and most of them black — my favorites.”

Clifton’s mother passed away in 2014 and his father in 2022, and Clifton continues with his own family’s farm on the same land he was raised on.

The Cliftons’ son Evan is 22, and their daughter Mallie is 19.

“We put up our own hay and pretty much do everything by tradition where farming is concerned,” Clifton said. “I can’t think of anything we’ve done, or do, that could necessarily be considered out of the ordinary.”

What Clifton doesn’t say, and what a person might not learn