The bawling of weaning calves echoed off the metal round top and adjacent machine shed as 26-year-old Kevin Pope walked around his family farm located southwest of Roxbury.
Though the air was chilly, the sun shone brightly, melting the snow in the farmyard and turning the dirt to mud that caked his boots.
He seemed at ease and content. Agriculture is his passion.
“I’ve been farming pretty much my whole life,” he said.
His dedication to ag production was recognized recently when he received the Grassland Conservation Award from the McPherson County Bankers Association.
Pope won the honor for clearing trees out of an overgrown pasture located southeast of the entrance to the Maxwell Wildlife Refuge near the intersection of 27th Avenue and Pueblo Road.
Doing so restored the grass and made it useful for cattle grazing.
“It was nasty. Just solid cedars,” he said. “I mean, you couldn’t even walk across the pasture without hitting a tree.”
According to Natural Resource Conservation Services, a mature cedar will use 20 gallons of water a day in the summertime, taking valuable resources from the soil.
The award was announced Jan. 26 during the 81st Annual Meeting of the McPherson County Conservation District, which was held at the McPherson County K-State Research and Extension Office. It recognizes landowners whose efforts in stewardship ensure resources can be used to produce food.
According to K-State Research and Extension Agent Shad Marston, the award aims to highlight how area producers are being good stewards of the land.
“What he did was take a piece of ground that was neglected, and he made big improvements,” Marston said. “He’s going to see benefits.”
Pope indicated he already is.
“The grass just flourishes now,” he said.
Different banks that are part of the McPherson County Bankers Association, which was founded in 1945, take turns sponsoring the award each year. This year, the State Bank of Canton was the sponsor. Tommy Kueser, of Canton, presented the award to Pope.
Past winners include local producers such as Herb Macklin, Lawrence Bullinger, Harry Weelborg, Dwight Decker, John Crumpacker, Duane Walker, and Don and Sharon Unruh, among others.
Though the award is handled through the county’s U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service field office rather than the Extension Office, Marston has been involved with the process before.
He said individuals get nominated for the award, and then a committee drives around the county to look at the work done by the nominees.
Producers can be recognized for various conservation efforts. These can be focused on grasslands, wildlife, shelter belts, soil health or conservation, water quality or conservation, or energy conservation.
“With a plan and hard work and some insight, anyone can do this,” Marston said.
Tending to the Land
Along with his 35-year-old brother Brian Pope, who works with him, Kevin Pope is at least a third-generation farmer, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather.
“I’m not 100% sure how much further back it goes,” he said.
Regardless, Pope has worked full-time in the agriculture industry since 2018 after graduating from Smoky Valley High School in Lindsborg.
When he and his brother aren’t tending cattle or cultivating the fields, the duo operates a tree removal service as a side job, which came in handy for clearing the pasture.
Pope said he and his brother used a 32-inch saw blade attached to a skid-steer loader to chew through the trees.
Clearing the 80 acres of pastureland took 160 machine hours, Pope said, spread out over a month and a half.
“It’s about conserving grasslands so the ground doesn’t get taken over by everything but grass,” he said.
To finance the work, Pope received federal funds through the McPherson County Farm Services Agency, which is a program of the USDA.
Now, the focus is on maintaining the pasture for his cows, which he raises and sells at livestock auctions.
“A little maintenance goes a long way,” Pope said.
Between him, his brother, and his father, who currently farms too, the Popes have 150 cows. Kevin Pope’s 80-acre pasture can handle 10 cow-calf pairs at a time.
To fully graze all of their livestock, Pope said they have to rent or buy other pastures, but buying isn’t easy because of cost and availability.
“They’re not making any more land,” Marston said.
That is why conservation efforts are so important.
“We have to make the ground better than we found it,” Marston said.
Raising More Than Beef
Pope’s primary focus is on livestock production due to high prices in the cattle markets.
“It’s pretty much the cattle that’s keeping us all afloat,” he said.
Still, Pope is also a grain producer. He focuses on wheat, but he also plants beans, milo, and sometimes corn.
Though most of the grains are sold on the markets, Pope said they plant a type of milo called “sweet graze” that grows tall and is harvested for silage, and by using a special type of wrapper, he said they can bale this crop while it is still wet.
Apparently, the cows like it.
“You just set bales out and let them attack it,” he said.
Pope said they produce approximately 1,000 bales of this wet hay each year, and they also swath prairie hay, resulting in about 500 dry hay bales.
By taking these steps and relying on his own animals to reproduce and keep his herd going, Pope said many aspects of his farm are self-sustaining.
Marston said such efforts were important.
“Producers have to do more with less,” he said. “There are different ways producers can keep up with the times.”
Being a Responsible Steward
With his passion for agriculture, Pope demonstrated a desire to promote farming and raising livestock.
“Every person in the world has to eat,” he said. “It’s important for people to know where their food comes from.”
One way this could happen is through education.
Pope suggested requiring classes in school that teach students about farming and the way food is produced. An understanding of where different types of crops are grown, kind of like a “farming geography” class, would help too.
“People need to be more knowledgeable about the world,” he said. “Then you can enjoy what the world has to offer.”
Marston agreed.
“Farming is very important. Not just to our county, but to the world,” he said.
For farming to continue existing and providing food, though, new generations of farmers have to pick up the baton, or pitchfork.
“There’s fewer and fewer family farms,” Pope said. “We need to keep them as long as we can.”
Pope and his wife Hannah don’t have children. If they do eventually, he said he would want them to take over the farm if they wanted to.
“At the end of the day, you just want what’s best for your kids,” he said.
Even so, Pope believes family farms and agriculture in general keep communities alive and strong by caring for the land and raising healthy food.
“Being good stewards is something that’s going to pay off now and in the future,” Marston said.
It just takes a little passion.
“You can at least try,” Pope said.
NOTE: This feature story was written for the Santa Fe Way newspaper serving the central Kansas communities of Canton and Galva. It was published Feb. 6, 2026.
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