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2014 Fall Cattlemen’s Edition
Farson – For the Applequists of Farson, the ties of family and ranching weave through four generations in the “Gateway to the Eden Valley” of northern Sweetwater County. This is especially true for Marvin Applequist, known as “Trip,” whose proper name ends with the Roman numeral III. His full name is one tradition passed from his grandfather to his father and then to him. The love of ranching and closeness of family are also part of the legacy. Trip runs the hay and cow/calf ranch started by his grandparents, Marvin and Betty Applequist. Around this large undertaking, he dovetails a veterinarian career, running, family, coaching and public service. Betty is as much a partner now as she was to her husband, who died in 2004. She does all of the bookkeeping and “has the veto power on any decision,” Applequist says, adding they “never battle.” She supported her husband’s dream of having a cattle ranch in Wyoming and now encourages her grandson and enjoys an abundance of quality time with her family. “Family – that’s what it’s all about,” Betty says. Cattle ranch dreams Marvin Nathaniel Applequist was born in Nebraska in 1922. As a boy he moved to Casper, and then to central California where he milked cows through high school.
After a World War II stint in the Aleutian Islands for the U.S. Army Air Corps, Marvin returned to California where his high school sweetheart, a young Scottish girl named Betty Ann Thompson, awaited his homecoming. Although they’d written often, both were nervous about seeing each other after years apart. However, they married two weeks later. The couple acquired a small dairy farm in the San Joaquin Valley, where they raised four children, among them Marvin Applequist II, Trip’s father. Apples are American The Applequist brand is an M over an apple, and the unusual family name has an unusual origin, Trip explains. His Swedish great-grandparents settled in Kansas along with many other Swedes. “Their name was originally Nelson, and everybody in town was named Nelson,” he says. “The postmaster couldn’t keep it straight, and they made up the Applequist name. The ‘quist’ is Scandinavian. They just added ‘apple’ to it because that was American, and they were in America now.” Coming true Betty says her husband’s dream was to have a cattle ranch in Wyoming. They achieved that goal with great timing. “My grandfather was a veteran of World War II, and at that time there were several projects in the country
where they opened ground first to veterans to buy pieces of Bureau of Reclamation ground in 1959. He continued to add to that until they had the place that’s here today,” Trip says. Their first parcel was an entire section of 640 acres. The original 640-acre section cost $16,000. Other veterans moved to the Eden Valley due to that water project, as well. Applequists now have Angus cattle, a transition from the original Herefords, and 900 irrigated acres watered by recently installed center pivots rather than the original flood-irrigation ditches. A large new shop, calving shed and corrals built this summer make chores more efficient. Leap of faith In 1962, the Applequists learned of water charges from the new Big Sandy Reservoir whether they used it or not. “We decided if we had to pay for the water we might as well use it,” Betty says, “so we said ‘why not’ and moved back here. We went back and forth for quite awhile.” Trip smiles, saying, “She doesn’t really tell the full story. It was a struggle at first, so she kept working in California and helped support the ranch in Wyoming to make the whole ranching thing possible.” Betty and the kids traveled every summer between her bank job and Farson by train, bus, car and airplane,
Puzzle pieces sibilities also consume much attention and dedication, turning his schedule into a giant jigsaw puzzle. He became head coach at Farson-Eden in 2012, having already coached his son in middle school football and his daughter in basketball. This Pronghorn football season began with an undefeated record. Basketball comes later. Jennifer, a teacher, also coaches the classroom and on the court. To accommodate spring coaching, Trip breeds his cows to calve in April, a bit later than his neighbors and with nicer weather. He turns them out in June onto the Sands Allotment shared with rancher Gary Zakotnik, and management mainly depends on which of four water wells are turned on.
In the fall, with the pairs grazing desert hard-grass, Trip catches up on haying after recent rainy days. He also runs. Last summer, he completed his first 50-mile race, three half-marathons and a triathlon. “I like to stay active,” he says. “I needed something to keep in shape and long-distance running is good.” Trip is often recognized for another race in 2004 – as a contender for the U.S. House of Representatives seat then held by Barbara Cubin. He says with a laugh, “I should have started somewhere smaller. At the time, I thought the ranching industry in western Wyoming was kind of being taken advantage of – we had wolves, we had grizzly bears, the brucellosis was a huge thing. That was my motivation.”
both commercial and private. Moving to Wyo In 1986, she retired and moved to Farson full time. In the meantime, their son Marvin cared for the cattle winters after he finished college and stayed in ranching for awhile. Marvin married Lorna Harns, daughter of a couple who moved up to Farson from Rock Springs. Lorna’s mother Sylvia came from Yugoslavia and her father Lee worked cattle on the new place. That gave Marvin and Lorna’s children, Trip and his younger sister Gentian, two sets of doting grandparents just two miles apart across the fields. Now Trip and wife Jennifer live on the Applequist place with daughter Trilby and son Braxton. Gentian and husband Darin Scheer bought the old Harns ranch, where their daughter Aden and son Eli are growing up. Now the great-grandkids run between the two ranches. Betty welcomes at least one every day for breakfast. Do what you love “My dad actually worked on the ranch until I was about in high school,” Applequist says. “Then he kind of ran his course with the ranch work and decided he wanted to go in a different direction.” Marvin worked for Sweetwater County, then for the Department of Revenue in Cheyenne and later the Wyoming Farm Bureau Federation. Trip lived with his grand-
parents for his senior year of high school when his folks moved and cherishes that time with his grandfather. “We were very close,” Applequist recalls. “It was a great time.” Heeding his grandfather’s advice for a “fallback” career, Trip attended University of Wyoming and completed his veterinarian degree at Kansas State University before moving his family back to the ranch full-time 15 years ago. “I always thought I just wandered into it, but a couple years ago a high school science teacher showed me a paper I written as a fresh-
man and it said, ‘What are you going to be doing 15 years from now?’ and I’d written, ‘I’m going to be a rancher in Farson, and I’m going to be a veterinarian.’” Confident and experienced, Trip credits his grandfather for his caring and wisdom and his grandmother with helping her family move forward. Ranching together keeps the generations closer, which brings the whole family great pride. Joy Ufford is a correspondent for the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to roundup@wylr.net.
Family ties - Marvin “Trip” Applequist III and his grandmother Betty Applequist of Farson, share a closeness that represents their dedication to their family and to the ranch that Betty and her husband Marvin Nathaniel Applequist started with a land purchase from the Bureau of Reclamation in 1959. The ranch's headquarters are set along the Lower Farson Cut Off Road. Joy Ufford photo
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