This couple's hard work helped them build a farm. Their love for agriculture and educating others has launched them into ag-based tourism. Welcome to Rockin' H Ranch.

Managing 900 cow-calf pairs on 3,300 sprawling forage acres might seem like enough to occupy all the hours and acres available at Rockin' H Ranch. But Cody and Dawnnell Holmes have established new ventures in what Cody calls "agri-tourism."

"We started this 4 years ago and it has grown steadily," he said. "We began with a week-long cowboy gathering and trail ride stretched over the Memorial Day weekend. The first year, we had 300 people; last May, we had over 1,200 here."

Actually, Cody and Dawnnell made a fairly modest start a few years earlier, with family members and a few friends gathered at their home. The group recited poetry (both Cody and Dawnnell are members of the Missouri Cowboy Poets Association), sang songs, barbecued steaks and enjoyed a lot of visiting.

"As the gathering gained in popularity, we moved it to our land just north of Norwood and added a trail ride," Cody recalled. "Then, we added other events and attractions, such as a chuckwagon cookoff. This past year, we held an MRCA [Missouri Rodeo Cowboys Association] sanctioned rodeo, and that drew more people. About 350 contestants entered the rodeo. We work with a contractor who has top-notch rodeo stock. At the Missouri State Fair in August, MRCA awarded us a plaque as the best new rodeo in the state."

One nearby place the Holmes bought is a former dairy farm. The milking parlor was still in good condition, equipped with running water, so the couple converted it to a shower house for ranch guests.

"We built a bunkhouse adjacent to the shower building," added Dawnnell. "It houses 12 people very comfortably, or more than that not quite as comfortably. In addition, we offer camping at sites along the creek, near the center of activities. We get people from all over Missouri and from all surrounding states. A lot of them bring their horses and spend much of the week riding trails on the place."

Guests at the spring event are charged an entry fee that covers the entire week and activities such as camping and trail riding. In addition, Cody and Dawnnell provide hot meals daily; vendors are on hand to sell supplies, snacks and other items.

On the other end of the season, from mid-September until the third week in November, Cody and Dawnnell produce a fall festival. They grow a 3-acre field of sorghum-sudan and carve a circuitous maze through the field. Another maze, for smaller children, constructed from hay bales, has been dubbed the "Cowstle" by Taylor, the Holmes' 8-year-old daughter. At the fall event, the family sells pumpkins and mums for fall decorating.

"Everything we do is slanted to families and kids," said Dawnnell. "We produce a lot of games for children that combine fun and education. Mostly, these are simple things but they seem to make a hit, with adults as well as with kids. And we take kids on exploration field trips. Much of the educational material concerns beef, since that's the business we're in."

"In the short time we've done this, we've learned that there are not a great many people who are familiar with agriculture and with cattle," added Cody. "Even children from what I consider country towns have wide gaps in their understanding of things agricultural. We want to help educate young people (and their parents) about farming and ranching; agriculture and livestock. And we try to make education fun. We hand out a lot of prizes."

For example, kids going through the grain maze at fall festival encounter written questions at points along the route. Once through the maze, the youngsters can check their answers at the main pavilion. The answers are put into a hat for a grand prize drawing at the end of fall festival in November.

Neither Cody nor Dawnnell Holmes is a stranger to hard work.

"When I was 17 years old and getting out of high school, I owned seven cows from FFA projects," said Cody. "I leased 80 acres in Webster County and launched my cattle operation."

In the 1970s and 1980s, Cody worked as a builder in Springfield and earned a business and accounting degree from Southwest Missouri State University. He gained a CPA license and worked as an accountant until 1996. Dawnnell, raised in Newton County, Mo., worked for an investment banking company in Springfield. The two met, fell in love and got married.

Along the way, Cody steadily expanded the cow herd, and bought or leased additional land as the opportunity permitted.

"I haven't worked a 40-hour week since I was 17 years old," he said. "I put in a full day's work for somebody else, then went and worked for myself with the cow herd. If I had any spare time, I trained horses and conducted horsemanship clinics. By 1996, we were in position to run cows as a full-time career and we've been doing it ever since.

"We graze cows on about 3,300 acres," he added. "Our herd is about evenly split between spring and fall calving groups. We graze primarily fescue, with pastures rotated regularly. I put lespedeza and ladino clover seed on every time we spread fertilizer. We plan to graze 12 months out of the year. I budget one big round hay bale per cow for all winter. We sometimes feed a bit more; sometimes we have hay left over. But I want to get a cow through the year on $25 out-of-pocket expenses. This is truly a grassland operation.

Cody Holmes is dedicated to the grass-and-cattle business, but he admits to some concerns about the long-term future of the U. S. beef industry.

"The cattle business gets more risky and uncertain all the time," he mused. "There are too many forces we cannot control that can have a huge impact on our industry. For example, look at the market convulsions caused by a single outbreak of BSE [mad-cow disease] in Canada. If something like that happened here (and it could) it would throw our industry into a real economic tailspin."

That lack of certainty is a major reason Cody and Dawnnell got into the agri-tourism business.

"I don't even remember whose idea it was initially to get into these agri-tourism activities," said Dawnnell, thinking back. "I believe it just sort of evolved. We began small and we've added new attractions and more activities as we went along. It has been a lot of work, but it has been enjoyable."