George Forbes Ellis

George Forbes Ellis (born May 11, 1903 in Portales , New Mexico , † 1972 ) was an American rancher , pioneer in the field of beef production and author .

Livestock

George Forbes Ellis graduated from Kansas State Agricultural College (now Kansas State University ) in Manhattan , Kansas in animal husbandry . He worked in the livestock sector and agricultural consultancy for 20 years until he joined the Bell organization in 1944 as Albert K. Mitchell's deputy managing director . He ran the Bell Ranch , owned by the Keeney Family of Lubbock , Texas , from 1947 to 1970 .

Ellis pioneered production testing on commercial livestock farms. In 1948 he opened the ranch's testing program in collaboration with John H. Knox and others at the New Mexico State University Animal Husbandry Department. He was keen to increase the weight gain potential of annual calf rearing and to improve the nature, quality, and compliance of the ranch's production. He applied practices of tonal range and water protection , expanded and improved the network of ranch roads and the maintenance of fences and pens and underground tanks and developed the "Perra Corrals". In 1952 he was voted New Mexico "Cattleman of the Year" for his work. Ellis was a member of the Cattle Sanitary Board of New Mexico and a director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association and the New Mexico Wool Growers Association. He has written articles for various publications such as the New Mexico Stockman and American Hereford Journal, and has given presentations at various meetings such as the Hereford Congress in Colorado Springs in August 1954. He was a member of the Board of Regents of the New Mexico State University of Agriculture, Engineering, and Science from 1956 to 1958.

Fonts

In May 1970, Ellis retired from Bell, coinciding with the change of ranch ownership from the Keeney family to William Lane of Connecticut . He lived only two years, but during that time he wrote The Bell Ranch As I Knew It. This book won the 1974 Wrangler Award for Western Heritage from the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum of Oklahoma City Oklahoma for best non-fiction of the year .

Awards

The museum is donating an original bronze sculpture by the artist John Free to the Wrangler . It is given annually during the Western Heritage Awards to winners in specific categories of Western literature , Western music, film, and television.

In 1988, Ellis and his wife Martha Downer Price (Mattie) Ellis were honored by the Beef Improvement Federation with the Pioneer Award for Lifetime Achievement in Industry . The effects of his work are documented in the book Courageous Cattlemen by Robert C De Baca as one of 50 breeders and researchers who have most profoundly influenced the performance movement in US beef production.

literature

• George F. Ellis: The Bell Ranch As I Knew It. The Lowell Press, 1973, ISBN 0-913504-15-7 , Illustrated by Robert Lougheed. Photos by Harvey Caplin.