were 12 boys divided into two crews. The routine was for one group to spend two weeks with him doing the outside chores and the other group would do the inside responsibilities and then they would rotate. It was during those hours after school and during the summer that Pallas taught them how to do just about everything on the farm and how to care for the livestock. “Today the residents are all from Nebraska, but when I started, we would have boys from Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado, South Dakota, New Jersey and of course our home state. Many had never been exposed to agriculture. The time each boy spends at the farm varies, but many are there for multiple years, with some staying their entire school career,” he recalled. Initially there were horses, sheep, and cattle on the farm, but that evolved to just cattle. Under Pallas’ direction, the boys began showing through the farm’s 4-H club and they showed cattle produced on the farm. He would take them to numerous small shows, the State Fair of Nebraska, Aksarben and of course the county fair, and on occasion, the American Royal and shows in Iowa. “As you might guess, our cattle couldn’t really compete. I went to the board, and we began a breed improvement program by upgrading our existing herd. We were blessed to receive generous donations of better genetics and after this we started winning some classes and I could really see that the boys saw how their hard work paid off,” he said. A cross section of breeds have been shown over the years as the herd represents the generosity of many donors. Pallas points out that Monahans Herefords from the western part of the state was one of the first to donate to the farm.
Pallas worked with three different generations of the family over his career and acknowledges that all the donated genetics contributed to a lasting impact on the boys. Pallas had two daughters when he started the job and in 1993, he would marry Cindy Cronin. Cindy and her daughter, Stephanie, would come to live on the farm and the couple would have another daughter as well. While all four girls showed, Pallas’ influence on Stephanie has greatly benefitted the beef industry. “Stephanie had bugged her mother for years to show, even threatened to raise a lamb in their garage in town. When she came to live on farm, I gave her a bottle calf to raise to test her interest. She lived with that calf and proved to me she was more than interested. Her first show calf was an Angus heifer and that summer she washed it four to five times a day. We would have to call the barn about 10:30 every night and tell her to come home,” he explained. She would go on to show many champions and today, she and her husband, raise purebred cattle across several breeds and have bred many champions. She has a very successful marketing company in the purebred segment, and they are huge supporters of youth in the show ring and mentor many beginning showmen. They have two sons, Keagan (10) and Carter (4) and the oldest has many championships to his credit. Pallas’ influence on Stephanie is evident in the way she gives back and the help she provides youth. The Stecks also have given heifers to the farm as a way to help and honor Pallas’ efforts. In the same way Pallas cultivated strong work ethic in his girls, especially Stephanie, he did the same for the boys on the farm. He taught them all the elements of caring for their show projects, as well as the responsibilities at a show. On the farm
they were taught mechanical skills and presented with daily life lessons and career experiences. He also mirrored desirable character traits for them and provided purpose. “At the farm, we were always concerned with preparing the boys for the future. We went into everything concerned about long term impact on them and how we could provide a foundation for them when they became adults,” he said. His wife, Cindy said, “I’ve always loved Mike’s dedication and honesty. He is the strongest man I’ll ever know in terms of character and physical strength. Mike is a leader and teacher. He always had high expectations for the boys and thoroughly explained to the boys how those expectations were to be met. He taught them to stand on their own two feet and led them to be successful. He led our family the same way.” Pallas’ influence didn’t stop at the gate to the boy’s home. There was a nearby girls’ home, and they became part of the Valley View 4-H Club and he helped with their projects too. He coordinated all the travelling and logistics to the shows and oversaw everything that transpired when there. “For the bigger shows, we might show up with 20-25 kids, 12-15 lambs and 25 calves. It was an undertaking, but the kids got so much out of it and that made it worth my effort,” he humbly said. Pallas says that he felt his purpose was to teach them the value of hard work, help them learn compassion and the importance of teamwork and self- respect. “Often, they would tell me ‘I can’t.’ So, my motto became, ‘I can’t-never did a damn thing.’ I wanted them to learn they could have accomplishments and replace that ‘I can’t’ with ‘I can.’”
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