We became Hopewell Farms in 1986 when we purchased 323 acres south of Indianapolis, IN. The farm had been one of several owned by a local doctor and as it was located at the edge of the Hopewell/Big Springs community, it had always been referred to as “The Hopewell Farm”. The name stuck and came with us when we relocated to Northeast Missouri in 1999.

By the time we moved to Missouri, the cow herd, which had started at Hopewell as an “almost” Angus based commercial herd, had changed to a solid, productive group of purebred Angus females. Those changes began in 1989 when we spent the week after Thanksgiving looking at some of the finest Angus cattle in Montana. That week contains several major Montana Angus sales: N Bar, Vermillion, Sitz and at that time, the combined sale of the Stevenson, Basin and Diamond Dot ranches. It was at Basin that we found the quality of cattle and people we wanted. The first sale, we returned with the best heifers we had ever owned; the next year with more heifers, and sons of three of the best bulls the breed has seen: GT Maximum, QAS Traveler 23-4, and GDAR Rainmaker 340. Both the Hopewell cow herd and our friendship with Doug Stevenson and his family have grown from there.

Our goal is and always has been to produce Angus cattle which pass on traits that are truly important to the commercial cattleman’s bottom line. With today’s feed costs rising, and our consumers demanding a better product, we focus on producing bulls and heifers that consistently provide calving ease, early growth, exceptional carcass quality and feed efficiency. Because private treaty sales allow us to better know our customers, their cattle and their needs, we continue to market our bulls private treaty year-round. Our bred cows and heifers are also sold directly off the farm in the spring and the fall.

We are highly committed to quality assurance, environmental stewardship and animal welfare. We maintain a BVD-PI free and Brucellosis negative herd. We test every animal that is not free by pedigree for AM, NH and CA, and steer the bulls that test as carriers. We are also a level 2 negative Johnnes herd, and monitor for BLV to ensure that our animals are free of those conditions which reduce profits.

Hopewell Farms today is a combination of row crop and pasture totaling about 5000 acres. It is a combination of 550 spring and fall calving Hopewell and Basin owned cows. It is a combination of two generations of family: Bob and Lynn, sons Bobby and Alec, and their wives Patty and Annie, and luckily, great help in Trevor Cockrell. It is a combination of the hardest work and the best way of life in the world.