Wheatland County ranchers honoured at Calgary Stampede

By Janet Kanters Times Editor

Wheatland County ranchers Johnny and Madonna Kalbhen and their family have won the prestigious BMO Farm Family Award. The award was presented to the Kalbhens at the Calgary Stampede on Monday, July 8.
Every year, the Calgary Stampede and BMO Bank of Montreal recognize outstanding farm families in southern Alberta. The awards program was created to promote a renewed urban-rural relationship and to recognize outstanding southern Alberta farm families who best typify the value of the family farmer to society. The program focuses on recognizing the contribution to the enhancement of quality of life as a family unit. Wheatland County’s Agricultural Service Board nominated the Kalbhen family for the 2019 award.
Growing up, Johnny Kalbhen and his older brother Billy would trail his father’s cattle from the family farm in Rockyford to the Strathmore area. He didn’t know it then, but that grazing land 30-plus kilometres away would one day become Kalbhen’s own family operation, the Saddle Ridge Ranch.
“I loved the cowboy lifestyle and that became my dream. There was nothing else that I ever wanted to do different. My dad was a stockman, but not into the cowboy life because he didn’t grow up with it,” Kalbhen said. “It was new to him, but I was picking it up from different people and then just continued on.”
Both of Kalbhen’s parents came from Germany: father Anthony in 1926, and mother Helen Kathol in 1928. After marrying in 1937, the couple started a farm from scratch in Rockyford. In 1958, they bought land next to that grazing land in the Strathmore area and slowly started reclaiming it. As they got older, Kalbhen and his brother bought a three-quarter section of their own alongside their parents’ land and set to work improving it as well.
After Kalbhen graduated from Olds College, he married Madonna Koester. The couple settled on an old ranch site on his parents’ land. In 1972, the brothers bought out their dad and started the Sturgeon River Ranch. For two decades, they built the operation, adding pivots on the reclaimed land in addition to operating a feedlot and cattle business. In 1992, the brothers split the operation, with Sturgeon River Ranch now operated by Billy’s son Warren, and Johnny establishing the Saddle Ridge Ranch.
Since then, Johnny has added 11 quarters to the ranch, in addition to renting three sections of grassland. They work their 600-head herd on horseback.
“We spend a lot of time on the horses. It’s kind of a lifestyle, too. We have a lot of good cowboys in the area and we’ll work together. And we enter ranch rodeos, with the roping and everything else. It’s a culture we really want to keep alive,” he said.
Son Dusty and daughter-in-law Dawn are taking over the daily activities and books of the Saddle Ridge Ranch. Their four children have always been involved in ranch activities, including calving, working cattle and haying. The couple’s other son, Jeff – the family’s “full-time cowboy” who did a lot of rodeoing – died in 1996 while crossing a river on horseback.
Daughter Brandy, son-in-law Scott Schiffner and their three daughters live just down the road on their S Bar S Ranch. The two ranches work back and forth, including selling their calves as one package at the Calgary Livestock Team Auction.
The family are longtime members of 4-H – Kalbhen is a big believer in the organization’s motto “Learn to do by doing” – and Dawn is currently the leader of the Rockyford 4-H Beef Club. Kalbhen has been involved with the Strathmore Rodeo Committee for 15 years and the Strathmore and District Agricultural Society (SAG) for 25 years. Son Dusty is past president of the ag society, and has coached hockey locally for a decade.
“We’d like our grandchildren to be the fourth generation to continue ranching. It’s all about having faith, family and friends to keep the ranching heritage alive and thriving,” said Kalbhen.