Lessons Well Learned
We all have people who have made a tremendous difference on who we are and what we have accomplished. The influence of Deb’s parents – Sterling’s grandparents – is a story worth knowing.
Back: Deb, Tim, Tracy, Sharlet; middle: Sterling, Peg, Glenn; front: Taylor and Austin
Glenn Allen Brown (1935-1996) and Peggy Delphine (1938-1997) Thune were married in 1960.
Glenn grew up near Scranton, North Dakota, loved the soil and respected what it provided. He was the eldest son and took on tasks of a grown man when just a boy because of his father’s health issues.
Peggy had 7 sisters, who all herded sheep and could work “as hard as any man but lots better to look at,” as her father Walton Thune was fond of saying. Thunes lived near Ladner, South Dakota.
Peggy, Deb's mom and Sterling's grandma, died 24 years ago at only 59 years old from brain cancer. Yet her influence on her family and community lives on. Peggy only owned 1 saddle in her entire life. It was made at the famous Miles City Saddlery and her dad, Walton, bought it used. Peggy spent thousands of hours riding in that saddle.
She could use a 7 ft sheep hook to catch a running ewe in the pasture while horseback. Peggy was about 5 years old when she started spending weeks living with one of her sisters in a sheep wagon tending to the lambing flocks. As a registered nurse, she cared for hundreds of people. She and daughter Deb took a huge risk and started Preferred Home Health so that rural people could stay on the land they loved as long as possible. This included her husband, Glenn.
Glenn with Sterling
Sterling now has Peggy's saddle. Deb has successfully grown Preferred Home Health to serve more than half of South Dakota, with more than 50 employees.
Even though he didn’t formally graduate high school because he was needed at home, Glenn was an exceptional mechanic, stockman and visionary. He took risks. Some turned out better than others. Like importing scourable sheep paint when no one else would. Today, Siro-Mark is the standard. Or giving turnips a try as something called a “cover crop” in the 1980s. Glenn was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) when he was about 56. He died 4 years later, just 11 months before Peg.
Together, they pioneered sheep production and natural resource conservation techniques, many of which are now considered best practices, but at the time were looked upon with raised eyebrows. They raised registered Rambouillets like most commercial ranches. For more than 30 years, they sold from 350 to 600 range rams every year. Today, son Tim and wife Tracy have further evolved the sheep and ranch.
So much they strived to achieve to help America’s sheep industry has become reality:
- The ability to select superior sheep based on genetic potential and production records. Glenn & Peggy increased their flock’s weaning weight 5 lbs. and fleece weight 1.5 lbs. compared to the previous 5 years because of using production records. Peggy perfected the record system and was the lambing barn boss. They were the first to use the Ohio State computerized production program, starting about 1975.
- A national infrastructure for government affairs, market development, and promotion of lamb and wool. Glenn was influential in the National Wool Growers Association, chairman of the National Live Stock and Meat Board Lamb Committee, and a sought after international and national speaker.
- A hopeful future that encourages continued improvement with leadership integrity, and a place for the next generation to make their mark. They would embrace many of the production improvement programs but also be dismayed at how little many things have changed.
The Long Pines ranch, its horses and cattle, and people are possible because of the role these two incredible parents and pioneers played decades ago.
