Sheep Industry News December 2024

Festival Reminds Growing City of Livestock Roots, Traditions

T he intersection of Cross Hollow Road and Interstate 15 in Cedar City, Utah, might be the busiest in Iron County. A modern, diverging diamond traffic pattern was put into use a decade ago, but steady growth and urban sprawl have assured regular congestion in the area. Traffic routinely snarls at the spot, and that's be fore area sheep producers coming off the neighboring mountain range decide to push thousands of sheep through the underpass on multiple occasions in the fall. But the drivers will have to wait a few extra minutes for their over-priced Starbucks coffee. After all, the sheep were here first. And the road – like most in the county – is a “Designated Livestock Trail.” Routes from the moun tains on the city’s East side to winter ground on the West side are absolutely necessary, while also serving as a nod to the area’s agricultural history. The Cedar Livestock & Heritage Festival – which took place Oct. 25-27 – looks to bridge the gap between urban newcomers and multi-generation farmers and ranchers whose families have called the area home for more than a century. And sheep are the stars of the three-day event each year.

Settled in 1851, cows were the predominant livestock in Cedar City’s early days. They were milked to create butter and cheese. Women and children tended to them on the mountain in the sum mers while the men farmed in the valley below. But keeping cows alive on the mountain proved difficult thanks to abundant larkspur, which is poisonous to the species. Before long the entire mountain range was covered with sheep. To this day, more than 30,000 sheep call Iron County home. “Sheep seem to do pretty well on it,” said producer Jake Benson of nearby Parowan, Utah. “When they realized sheep could eat it and utilize the entire mountain, that's when sheep really took off in Iron County.” In addition to running 400 ewes, Benson serves as a conserva tion planner with the Utah Department of Agriculture and the National Resources Conservation Service. It’s his job to work with area livestock producers and farmers, but it was his passion for raising sheep that helped him develop friendships with those who continue the area’s agricultural traditions. He started in sheep at an early age and spent most of his life trading work for sheep and ac cess to pastures. And he’s a huge proponent of the festival’s goal to celebrate those who continue to farm and ranch in the area. “The sheep are the biggest part of the festival,” he said with pride. “We call it the Livestock & Heritage Festival because we don’t want to exclude the cattlemen and the farmers. We want to celebrate the entire ag industry in this county. That’s why the amount of farm equipment in the parade will blow your mind.” But there’s a reason they save the sheep for last. For the thou sands who’ve assembled along Main Street – some of whom arrived

more than two hours before parade time to stake out their favorite spots – the smiles get bigger and brighter when the sheep come into view nearly an hour into the parade. “We’ve provided the sheep all but three years,” said Paul Nelson, a fifth-generation sheep producer along with his brothers. “We missed the first year and the two Covid years, but other than that it’s been our sheep. My great, great, great grandfather when he came over from Europe, he was a brick mason. He put brick on a house and was paid with six sheep, and that’s how the family got into the sheep business.” The family runs approximately 1,000 head through town after holding up in corrals on the side of Cedar Mountain the day before the parade. After all these years, the flock knows its way around and doesn’t take long to make the two-mile trek north on Main Street. “They actually travel three to four times faster than most of the parade,” said Nelson. “The first year or two, we were right on top of the parade and had some trouble holding them back. So, we’ve learned to let the parade get ahead of us a little ways before we get the sheep going.” There is some pressure to being the center of attention during the Saturday morning parade. “In the real world, if something went wrong, we’d just push everything back an hour or a day and it wouldn’t be a problem. But with the parade, we have to be on time.” Sheep producer Scott Stubbs of Parowan was chosen as the 2024 grand marshall. He led the way on horseback, assuring that the area’s sheep industry was represented from start to finish during the parade. Stubbs is a fifth-generation rancher, member of the Public

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