Article and photos by Ethan Nahté
Like many farms and farmers, it’s typically a family affair handed down generation after generation. For Rodney and Samantha Sellers of Sellers Farm, that aspect is not much different from some of the previous Polk County Farm Families of the Year, but the Sellers have had some rare accomplishments. These include awards their family members have never had, and possibly an award that no other farmer throughout the western portion of Arkansas has acquired.
The couple began 14 years ago with 40 acres. They now own 220 acres spread throughout the rolling hills outside of Cove, sprawling over a mile or two, with family members owning several more acres of land in between Rodney and Samantha’s property. Additionally, they lease another 300 acres between the properties they own.
Of the property owned, 200 acres is forage and the remaining 20 are forest. Of the leased, the Sellers estimate 70 acres are forage and 230 acres are forest.
Samantha said, “When Rodney graduated high school in 2004, he worked for a logging company. They actually did a job that was 40 acres of timber. It came up for sale, so we were able to purchase that. It’s within close proximity to his parents. He is a fourth-generation chicken farmer in this area. We were able to grab that property up and do all of the improvements it needed.”
That was in June 2009, just a little over a year after Samantha graduated. Like Rodney, she graduated from Van-Cove High School, before it merged into the Cossatot River School District. In addition to the acreage purchase and chickens being part of what makes Sellers Farm an award-winning farm, the property holds other fond memories, as well.
“He actually proposed to me on that original 40 acres,” Samantha said. “It all started right there. We always go and center back to that right there.”
Although she did not have a farm background, she was aware of what was in store.
Rodney said, “I told her from pretty much when we knew we was going to get serious, that [farming] is my goal in life, and she jumped right in with my grandparent’s farm. She actually went up with me and worked throughout the week, helping them. I guess she decided it was something she didn’t mind doing. We’re all involved.”
The couple exchanged vows in September 2009.
“We acquired this right after that,” Rodney said, making a reference to the property their house sits on across the dirt road from the entrance of the 40-acre property. “I was over there working and trying to find a spot to build a house, and potentially build chicken houses over there. A guy came over and asked me if we would be interested in buying this place from him. They were wanting to move closer to town; his wife was getting in bad health.
“When we got ready to build the other two chicken houses, we had to have more land. So, there was another 40 acres of land that joined it. We happened to know the guy and he was already living in Mena and he was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll sell it.’ It just kept growing and growing.”
Samantha said, “That bumped us up from 40 to 57 acres and a house, to another 40. So, there’s 80 all together and 57.
“Later, we had done this gentleman’s hay for a really long time and he passed away. His kids approached us about buying his house place with all of the land we had already done all of the hay off for the last decade. We were able to buy those 36 acres and a house. Then we bought another 45 acres across the road.
“Between all of that, we got into a hay shortage. Our cattle started growing, the herd started getting larger. We couldn’t find any hay to do. We weren’t doing it for the public at that time and we were really in some dire need for hay for our own cows. We didn’t want to buy any hay. Rodney had done the Watson place, which is a 300-acre spread of land. Rodney had done hay on it growing up for his grandfather. His grandfather had done hay for the public. For whatever reason, they sold it to someone else. No one ever approached the new lady about leasing it, so we reached out to her and we were able to get that as part of the lease. That’s where we bale hay, do upkeep on that property, and where we are able to hunt and fish.”
They have been leasing the property somewhere around a decade, but it took a lot of work over a three-to-four-year period to get it to where they could hay.
Rodney grew up doing the farming life. “We had chicken houses ever since I was a baby. My grandma and grandpa had them. My great-grandma had chicken houses. I literally grew up in the poultry industry, just like my kids are doing. That’s all they’ve known.”
His great-grandma was a Lane Poultry Farm, which was acquired by Tyson Foods, Inc. Tyson is the company the following generations of his family has been with their entire careers.
“They were all broiler houses,” Samantha explained. “We’re the first generation to have breeder houses, which is the egg production.”
HPAI
The past few years have seen an increase in Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), which is easily spread by migrating birds, carrying the disease to poultry farms. It can be fatal to birds, especially in an enclosed area such as a chicken house where it would not take long to spread. There have been 56 reports in Arkansas between Oct. 31, 2022, through May 30, 2023, on the USDA’s website. The deaths range from geese and teal to American bald eagles, falcons and owls. The USDA reports that 58.79 million birds have been affected nationwide within commercial and backyard flocks.
836 flocks have been confirmed having HPAI throughout 47 states. Fortunately, there have been no detections reported in the last 30 days.
The last detection in Arkansas amongst chicken flocks was Dec. 1, 2022. The last flock detected in Oklahoma was Dec. 6, 2022. No cases have been detected in Polk County or adjacent counties, but the Sellers, like other farmers, have to be aware. Farms have become a part of the USDA Defend the Flock biosecurity. The measures require a great deal of cleanliness by the farmers, limiting visitors, disinfecting anything and everything so as not to spread pathogens, looking for signs of illness and reporting sick birds. It’s a lot of work for those such as the Sellers with four houses combining a total of 44,000 chickens.
“It’s still pretty bad. We’re all still on high alert with it,” Rodney said.
“We keep [the chickens] for 40 weeks,” Samantha said.
“We’re always with chickens, because none of our four houses are the same age. Are never without birds. We always have birds in at least one house at all times,” Rodney said.
“We don’t go on trips,” Samantha said with a laugh. “We go on day trips. Our kids are still involved in a lot of youth athletics, but we try to do one-day events We just leave early after we feed chickens and we get back late. Then we take care of the rest of what needs to be taken care of.”
“None of the four [flocks] are the same age, but we usually try to keep two the same age,” Rodney said. “We’ll get a new flock in as one is going out.”
Egg prices increased drastically in 2022 due to avian flu causing a shortage in egg supplies. There was also the increase with inflated feed and fuel costs to the farmers. Egg prices are beginning to drop as supplies are being replenished and HPAI seemingly under more control. Yet, breeding farmers did not benefit with the price increase.
“It has no effect on us, unfortunately. Ours go to the hatchery and go to the broiler houses,” Samantha said.
“Ours turn into chicken nuggets,” Rodney said with a laugh.
Slaking the thirst
When you have that many mouths to feed, it also requires a lot of water for the birds. Sellers Farm relies on well water as their source. They have seven wells supplying the four chicken houses with 4,000 gallons of water per day.
To obtain city water, the Sellers would have had to spend $14,000 – $17,000 of their own money to have the water department run water to their property a few miles from Cove to their farm according to a quote provided just before COVID-19 hit. That does not count the monthly water bill.
When there’s stretches of drought, it gets to be stressful, not only on the birds, but on the farmers.
Data analytics
“A lot of the things we do we were not expecting,” Samantha said. “Our experience with broilers wasn’t as data driven. With our egg production, it’s very data driven. We have to really analyze. It’s based on batches: how much feed they’re actually eating, whether they’re eating all of it, the time it takes for them to eat. All of that factors into the egg production and how many eggs they produce on a daily basis. We get paid by the dozen.
“Those are some of the ways we maximize that,” Samantha said, “analyzing the data on how much feed they’re eating, which converts into the egg production. Actually, with Cobb, we got the top producer last year with them.”
“We time the water now instead of letting them have free choice,” Rodney added. “It cleaned up the eggs. We weren’t anticipating it, but we found when it cleaned up the eggs it allows you to hatch more eggs.”
Samantha said, “Timing their water not only cleaned up the eggs, but for the longest time, no one wanted to clean up breeder houses because it was a soppy mess. It’s very dry and powdery now.”
Rodney said, “We clean the litter out and put it on the hay meadows and pastures. It doubles your production in hay, easily.”
“Right now, we are already more than halfway to what our goal is just after the first cutting with our hay this year.” Samantha said. “There’s no part of the farm that’s wasted; that goes unused.”
“The fertilizer has allowed the biggest part of that,” Rodney said.
Samantha explained their routine, “With the chicken houses, one thing that’s unique about our farm is Rodney and I do all of the feeding, and they only eat one time per day.”
“We feed at 5 o’clock every morning, seven days a week” Rodney said. “If there’s one little hiccup, you’re going to live with that for the rest of the term of that chicken. That’s how crucial the feeding is on the hens,” Rodney said.
Broilers may always have food available, but they don’t constantly eat. Rodney explained, “Broiler chicken houses are controlled on how much they eat by lighting, but ours is full light all day because it’s a stimulation thing. Broilers control how much theirs eat so they don’t choke out and die. They eat just enough to gain enough weight.”
Having grown up on a broiler farm, Rodney explained a bit of the difference in the houses and schedule. “We’ve sort of got the same as broiler houses with equipment running. We’ve got egg rollers running all day long to gather the eggs. The broiler houses have feed lines that run all day. We just feed once in the morning and it lasts about an hour, and two hours by the time we get feed weighed up for the next day.”
The rollers are computer controlled, allowing the speed and length of time they operate to be programmed.
“We have to scale every feed every day so we know how much they are eating that day and how many pounds per hundred we are feeding the hens,” Rodney said. “The broilers are kind of similar, the same way. They try to get them to eat the most they can in the time that they can.”
“With them only eating first thing in the morning, we also walk [the facilities] at that time,” Samantha said. “We’re able to see if they ate well. Was it an environmental factor? Was it something going on with the feed? Did they eat exceptionally well?”
Compared to his childhood days on a chicken farm, methods and technology have changed when the farmers would have to physically look each day, sometimes several times per day, to ensure the houses were running properly. The new tech doesn’t tell the Sellers what’s wrong, but it does alert them via cell phone there is an alarm and which house is affected.
Rodney said, “We monitor the ventilation, make sure the birds have plenty of fresh air. It’s all computer run. It’s got a program that tells the thermostat what temperature to keep the house. It pretty much runs flawlessly until it don’t. We have an alarm system on all four houses. There’s 10 fans in one house. Something as simple as one fan not working, it will let me know.”
The computer system also controls the amount of water provided each day, from 5 in the morning until 10:30, then it’s off. The computer shuts it off and kicks it back on from 3 – 5 p.m. The computer will warn them if something such as low water pressure occurs, as low as 2 pounds difference. It will trip the alarm and alert the family.
It also controls the ventilation, the cool cells to lower the temperature inside. Their houses do not have heat. The chickens are big enough and the houses are insulated well enough that at 30 degrees outside, the house interiors are still at 68 degrees, which is the constant temperature they keep the houses. The litter is also a big heating factor.
Egg collection
Egg collecting on a large scale is not like smaller farms or backyard flocks where someone goes out with a basket filled with straw and reaches with their hand beneath the hens in the nest to gather eggs. The eggs move along the aforementioned rollers.
After the morning feeding and prepping of the next day’s feed, the Sellers take a break from the chickens, then are back at it around 8:30 a.m. to gather the eggs. They’ll gather until 10:30 or 11. It depends on the age of the chickens. It requires planning other events around the egg gathering.
Rodney said, “At the early age of the flock, you’ll probably get 80% of your eggs gathered in the morning. The older the flock gets it’ll turn more 50/50 in the morning and evening. You’ll gather for a couple of hours in the evening.
“Right before that, you go in and walk, pick up your mortality, turn your egg tables on. They come to two tables in each egg room. We take them and put them on the egg rack,” which holds up to 5,040 eggs when filled. “They go to our egg cooler. Tyson comes twice a week to take them to their hatchery. Once they leave our farm, it’s 21 days until that chicken is hatched.”
Samantha said, “For someone who doesn’t have a poultry background, this is how I describe how it works. There are actually three sections to the chicken house and two of them are parallel. In the middle of the chicken house, you have two short cement walls. The middle part is what we call the scratch. That’s typically where the egg production occurs. Then there’s nests on each side where the hens are sitting on flats. There are nests on either side. Those nests have the conveyor belt underneath them. They pull those eggs down to the egg gathering table on the left side and the right side.”
Cobb Award
As Samantha mentioned, Sellers Farm were the 2022 co-winners for the Cobb700™ Sold Flock Survey Award for Top Flock Producer for top egg production. The Sellers’ hens produced 174.03 adjusted total eggs per hen housed. On average, every hen was producing at that volume.
“It’s a big award to win,” Rodney said. “They call it the top producer in the United States. It’s not just Arkansas. To get that, you have to produce the most amount of eggs per heat. They have a goal, what they want you to achieve. They have above average, and they have the top producer award.
“We didn’t even know that award existed until 2019. A pastor in Oklahoma was the first one to have won it around here. We thought that was pretty cool. Let’s shoot for that. We really started focusing real hard on what we could do to improve ourself.
“I’ll be the first to admit, with hen houses, you have to require help or you’ll go insane trying to do it seven days a week,” he said. “We were very fortunate to have a lady, Teofila Alarcon, come on board with us who had gathered eggs for 16 years. She said she could help us out and she’s still with us to this day.
“I owe a lot of credit to her for that award. She showed us a lot. We took some of what we’ve done and some of what she’d done and put it together.”
Samantha said, “After many years of doing the same thing, we just tweaked it and had some conversations about ways to maximize the egg production. The cleaner they are the more you can pick up out of the scratch you don’t have to cull. We worked on some strategies on ways to reduce that and what we needed to do differently at the beginning of the flock.”
“We’d never heard of it because nobody around here had ever won it,” Rodney said. “Tyson comes and does a deal with you, puts you in a magazine… it was a great accomplishment, especially for us not growing up in a hen operation. When our breeder manager first called us, it took seven years to get the first set of houses open. He asked if we would be interested in breeder houses. I just instantly told him absolutely. I had never been in a breeder house. I grew up in broiler houses and knew nothing about [breeder].
“I called my dad and told him, ‘Hey, dad, I’m in the chicken business. We’re fixing to build some breeder houses.’ He said, ‘Have you lost your mind? That’s a lot of work.’ I said, ‘It ain’t no worse than a broiler house.’ He said, ‘Yeah, it is, too. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.’ What’s funny is he has been over and helped us out. He will tell you now that if he had it to do over again, he would try the breeder side of it.”
“The breeder side has really opened a lot of doors for us,” Samantha said. “We’re older parents but we had young children at the time. Having the egg room — that sanitized clean area — allowed us to take them to the chicken house with us. So, they got to go to work with us. It was a big deal because I work away from the farm, so Rodney was able to keep the kids with him in the egg room.”
He said, “They can stay with me and be entertained. We didn’t have to hire a babysitter. I got to spend with my kids. Family is all we know. It’s all we know. We do one thing together; we do everything together.”
An aside, Mena will be seeing a lot more of Samantha this coming school season. “I was a teacher for 10 years. This last year, I was the principal at Cossatot Primary School, and I just got hired at Louise Durham Elementary as the principal.”
She is also member of both the Arkansas Association for Educational Administrators and the Arkansas Association for Curriculum Administrators.
Cattle
The Sellers also have 85-90 head of cattle. In addition to being a Farm Bureau Member, Rodney is a member of both the Polk County Cattlemen’s Association and the Arkansas Cattlemen’s Association.
“We started out with 13 head. That’s all we could afford at the time,” Rodney said. “They were crossbred cows. We started keeping heifers out of that and growing. We always knew we wanted to get into the purebred stuff. We went a different route, initially wanting to go full Brahman, which is what makes up Brangus, which is a registered breed.”
Samantha said, “They worked for replacement heifers. They are very hardy for our area and very pretty to look at. Great stock.”
American Brahman are known for being great in areas of high heat and humidity. The hybrid cattle are from cattle originating in India and introduced to the United States in 1885.
“Around here, people prefer black” Samantha said.
“Brangus is a crossbreed of Brahman and Angus. It is a recognized breed, now, which brings more money. The Brahman will put more weight on a calf than about any breed I have found. You mix them with Angus, which can put on the black color everybody wants and the Angus title, you have in my opinion, the ideal animal. We switched gears and was all involved for two years, transitioning everything to a Brahman. Once we started comparing the prices and number values, it wasn’t comparable. We’re at 25 head of purebred Brangus right now, with one purebred Brangus bull. We’re using that as the ‘Grow Your Own.’ We’re using that as replacements. When we get older heifers, I’ll sell five to 10 and replace them with Brangus eventually. We’re about three years out of being full Brangus on this farm. That’s the goal.”
“The Brangus come in heavier,” Rodney said. ‘You get the hardiness. They do well with the heat for here and do well in the winter. Full-bred Brahmans struggled in a couple of cold winters. They didn’t transition as well to the winter in my opinion.”
Compared to the chickens, Rodney is old-school when it comes to the cattle. He has a binder to keep up with the herd. “When a cow has a calf, we tag it, we write the tag down, it’s tagged with the momma’s number on it.”
That allows to keep track with which cow had which calf, the weaning weight at what age. Or, if a cow weaned one at a significantly lower weight, they know they don’t need to keep that heifer if it appears to be the standard outcome.
His grandfather had a similar binder, but he added photos of each cow as his health got worse. He knew someone would have to check his herd for him at some point. He’d instruct whomever to get his binder, show them a picture and the tag number and send them on their way. Rodney laughs as he said, “It worked. I haven’t gotten that far along yet. I can’t say I’m not any tech. I do have a picture of every cow we have and tag them.”
Speaking of family and cattle, their nephew, Zach McCormick of Cossatot River FFA showed one of their cattle last year at the Polk County Fair, taking the prize for American Heifer. It was the first time they had ever had one of their livestock shown.
“She was a very pretty animal. Her mom was one of the animals we started with — one of the original 13,” Rodney said. “When he picked her out, we were like, ‘Absolutely!’ That’s probably not your best bet to win anything.’ She is actually in my pasture today. We turned her back out. That was neat.”
Rodney used to show calves when he was in junior high and high school. There’s a lot of money that goes into showing livestock, but there’s a lot of prize money that can be earned.
Grow Your Own
Grow Your Own is a practice growing in popularity, and a practice that allows the farmer to have more knowledge and control of either their produce or livestock.
“Not all cows are going to be the same,” Rodney said. “I can take a group that we raise ourselves as heifers — take a group of 10 — and I can sell them to somebody that I would consider be top of the line. There will be some in that group that will not produce or won’t produce as well as the rest. Our philosophy is if we keep tallies on what every momma does on weights and how well the calf grew from start to finish — if it can get the weight on in five months or if it takes seven months to get the weight on, that’s the route we chose to keep up with tally marks to keep up with. That way we know which ones to keep and which ones to retain and grow our own herd.”
Samantha said, “We’re able to keep tabs on that group from start to finish. If we go out and we buy a large group, we don’t know what age they were really weaned. You’re taking the word of somebody on what age they are when you go to breed them.”
Rodney said, “Our philosophy was we knew what we had when we kept it. We took pride in that. That’s why we decided to take that route in growing our farm instead of going out, borrowing the money and buying from somebody.”
The family also waits on selling any of their herd, weaning them at six months but waiting 10 months before going to market twice a year.
“We will harvest them, vaccinate them and feed them until they get to the weight we’re after. Here lately, the market has changed. It’s not what it used to be. Now, they’re paying nearly as much for one that’s been weaned for 30 days vs. 90 days. Your money used to be at a 90-day wean. If you can prove that you have vaccinated it and it’s been weaned for 30 days, that’s the optimal market right now. We’re still a 45-day weaning for us.”
Cross Fencing
With the size of their pastures and number of head, Sellers Farm uses cross fencing to maintain healthy pastures. They put six fields in themselves.
“It allows you to rotate grazing. It’s better for the ground and grass,” Rodney said. “It’s better for the animal. If you keep an animal eating grass that’s not down in the dirt, you’re going to have a better end product. The animal won’t be starved.
“We spray each pasture as we rotate it around so it is just grass. There’s no broadleaf weeds. There’s nothing but something edible for the animals. No kudzu.
“The main purpose of cross fencing is that the animal always has plenty of grass. It gives the grass a chance to rebound.
“It’s a better product for the animal because it has more nutrients in it by being able to rebound instead of being chewed off all the time.
“It allows you to spray a field without having to worry about an animal getting into the spray because the animal ain’t there. That’s a big thing to be able to fence an animal on this side and take care of that side, let that side grow and get plush, and bring the animal over.”
Hay production
“That kind of business just kind of took off in the past year. I baled hay for the public when I was 16 with my grandpa,” Rodney said. “I enjoyed it because I was a kid getting to hang out with grandpa all day. What better life could you ask for? When he passed, we all kind of got out of the business and just did our own.
“A few years ago, a man come to us and asked if we would be interested in doing his hay. We went and looked at it, made a deal, and we started getting our feet wet again. Then one day my father calls me about a guy wanting us to do his hay.
“That’s how it starts. Once you do hay for somebody, it snowballs, and it’ll get bigger and bigger. It’s a hard market to be in and to be fair in. The price of hay right now is the most expensive thing you can feed an animal. You have to be fair because farmers can’t afford to pay. I know because I am a farmer and I’m feeding it and I know what I’ve got in it.
“It started with one guy calling my father and I started doing his hay. The next year, we added three, and then the next year, his best friend who did hay for the public, went out of business. We inherited all of his clients. When he asked if we would do his, that meant his whole clientele.
“We’re up to seven people. A good year, we can do 2,800 to 3,000 bales. A bad year, like last year, we can do just as minimal as 2,000 per year. The market’s as picky as the cattle industry is itself. Fuel goes up. The cost of the net wrap has went up. To be fair, I’m not a person like a lot of people you see they’ll charge $150 for a bale of hay and send it Texas. I’m not that guy. Just because they need it down there, I don’t see that as a profit for their misfortune that they can’t control. Last year, I was ‘that guy’ who needed the hay. I couldn’t lay my head down at night knowing I did that to somebody.
“We usually sell some every year, but I’m not going to change [price] just because somebody’s having a drought a county over. We charge per bale. People in other counties I’ve sold to know I’m going to be fair and I’m not going to charge them an arm and a leg because they have to pay it and can’t get it anywhere else. I know when I’m in need and I ask if I can buy some off them, I know they’re fair to me about it. That’s kind of an old system, but that’s how I’ve done it. It’s worked well for us.”
Samantha added, “One of the things we do that’s different is that we don’t hold clients to us being able to do all of it for a set price. If someone wants to cut it and rake it, and Rodney just bales it, we can do that. Or, if they want to cut it and Rodney rakes and bales it, we can do that. If they just need it tedded, we can do that. That helps the client and the farmer be in control of how much they can spend, budget-wise.”
Although the Sellers had equipment for baling, they had to upgrade their equipment to take on the new clientele to keep up with the amount of hay they were doing per year. They currently average baling 40 bales per hour.
Family life
Rodney and Samantha have three children, 9-year-old fraternal twin daughters Audrey and Gwen, and 7-year-old son Kye, who has a keen interest in farming and the livestock, already setting his sights on the family business.
In addition to helping about the farm, the children are also active in sports. But the Cossatot River area did not have any steady baseball, softball or soccer organizations. The school district itself had nothing at that time.
Samantha said, “We developed the Cossatot River Youth Athletics, and that allowed the Cossatot River students to able to play with their own team and go enter into a De Queen league or a Mena league they could play with.”
“We would start them out as early as pre-school,” Rodney said, speaking of the various sports the couple coached.
“There was an organization somewhat semi in place,” Samantha said, “but their parents sort of phased out as their kids got older. There was a few years where there was a lag, right around our nephew’s age where there was not a group of kids playing anything. And our kids were coming up. We saw a need for it with another couple and developed that.”
The Sellers have passed the torch, more or less. When Samantha comes to Louise Durham, the children will also be transitioning to Mena schools.
“We were already stepping back this year. There’s another couple taking over.”
Both parents played sports in their youth and continue to stay active. “If we’re not farming, we’re playing baseball or basketball,” Rodney said.
“Being someone who grew up in a really rural area,” Samantha said, “kids have to have a purpose. They have to have an activity they look forward to. One of the things that is missing now is the ability to work cooperatively within a group and come together for a common goal. Sports is a way for them to come together with a common goal, regardless of their differences in their past and to be able to achieve something.
“Whether or not they made it to that goal, we always tell our kids and the kids that we coach it’s always about progress, not perfection. As long as they can celebrate that progress, they’re going to be successful. It helps set them up for success later in life.
Rodney added, “We teach all kids that winning is relevant. You may not win the game, but as long as you learn something from that game, you won. That’s the most important thing in life, to us, in growing up. As long as you take something away from whatever you were doing, that’s a win.
“That’s how the award came from the Farm Family and the Cobb. We took every day, and as long as we learned something from that day, it was a win for us. You have to learn something every day. In our experience, sports allowed that. If you can entice a kid to learn a game and still learn life lesson, it’s a double win.”
“Every opportunity we have, we try to put a basketball in a kid’s hands,” Samantha said. “We want to encourage them to get out in the yard and play with their parents or their extended family.
“Sports were a huge contributing factor for Rodney and me. It really helped us. The farm is our lifestyle, but it’s also our business, and it helped with this business endeavor. We learned how to deal with wins and with losses.”
“We like to compete,” he said. “We’re competitive. When we found out about the [Cobb] Award. It became our goal,” Rodney said, “and we just need to achieve it. We’ve been very blessed.”
“Once Mitch Sikes with Farm Bureau contacted us, several years ago to get our very first health insurance policy when it was just $60 a month for two people and told us about the [Farm Family] award, he said, ‘You know what, this is something I could really see y’all doing.’”
The family is also active with the Cove Revival Center Church.
“We’re not very musically inclined,” Samantha said with a laugh. Rodney’s sister and family are very talented musically. “We like to go support. They’re part of the praise and worship team.
“Any time we can do some volunteering, we try to do that, and any activities for the kids. Just supporting them and being a presence there.”
District decision
Although the Sellers were chosen as the 2023 Polk County Farm Family of the Year, the next step for the Western District winner, went to the Tucker Family of H&D Tucker Farms in Conway, Faulkner County.
The Tuckers will then be in the running against seven other district winners during the state judging finals near the end of July. The state Farm Family of the Year will be announced in December at the Farm Family of the Year luncheon.
The state winner will then represent Arkansas at the Southeastern Expo Farmer of the Year event in Georgia. Arkansas has had two Southeastern Farmer of the Year winners, in 2008 and 2016.
The Sellers were positive and happy with being chosen for their region, whether they won district or not. “It was a win,” Rodney said.
Samantha agreed, “It has been a big honor for us. It’s one of our goals we’ve had for a long time and we’ve achieved that goal. We’re very, very humbled. We look around and we feel there were several other people more deserving than us, who are more established. It’s an honor to be recognized as an aspiring family coming up.”
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