BOGUS CREEK RANCH The Legacy of Stepping Up to the Challenge by CCA Director of Communications Malorie Bankhead
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ogus Creek Ranch is a cow-calf operation in Montague, located in northern Siskiyou County. Some of the ranch land has been in the family since 1871 when John Frederick Bloomingcamp purchased 140 acres situated on Bogus Creek. Several generations later, when John Neville Foster was three years old, he moved to his grandparents’ homestead on the Bogus Creek Ranch. When the ranch was divided into shares for estate planning purposes, his son, Harold Foster ended up with the larger percentage of the ranch between his siblings, and each of 10 grandchildren also got a share. Over time, some of the shareholders have changed, but today, the ranch still operates with many of the same family shareholders. After losing their dad suddenly in 2016, today Cheryl Foster and her brother, John Foster, are responsible for the day-to-day operations on the ranch. Their sister, Julie Kimball and her husband, Scott, help with gathering cattle and branding and provide wonderful assistance. Cheryl lives in the home that her great-greatgrandmother built as the second generation on the ranch. Two other Foster sisters, Charlotte Legallee and Pam Willey, live out of town, but come to help with the ranch too, especially while Cheryl has been traveling to keep up with her duties as president of the California CattleWomen, Inc. (CCW). Cheryl appreciates her siblings’ help more than she can express in words. “When I signed on to serve for CCW, I thought my dad would still be here, but you can’t always write that script,” she said. The ranch operates a commercial cow-calf herd, running three breeds including Hereford, Red Angus and a little bit of Simmental, to further establish crossbred vigor. When thinking about her passion for cattle ranching, Cheryl loves her grandfather’s story, and says it has inspired her since she was a little girl. He came to the ranch to learn about cattle and ranching at three years old. She says her great-great-grandmother thought the ranch was more important than anything, and her passion rubbed off on 22 California Cattleman October 2017
Cheryl’s grandfather, whose siblings would come to spend the summer with him, because they lived in Cottonwood. It was an all day train ride, but they would meet the train and then after the summer was over, they would go back to school in Cottonwood. But John still stayed on the ranch. Knowing that story puts the ranch in a more special place, Cheryl says. She says as he got older, he was always looking for more ground, and made it through the Great Depression acquiring homesteads for what he could at that time. Some people even gave him their land just because they knew it was going to the right person to take care of it. “You hear those stories as a kid and it makes it all come to life,” Cheryl said. “He was a very quiet man, and he wasn’t real vocal, but when he did talk, you had better have been quiet and listened. He was my biggest influence.” Of course, her father was always a shining spot as her passion for ranching grew, too. Harold was always looking to improve the land and did a lot of infrastructure work on the ranch. Although the fences he built when he was younger are due for renovation today, Cheryl says when you look at the location of some parts of the fence, you have to wonder, “How did he even do this?” with the steep and rugged country that the fences cover. They built mile