The Johnson family ranches in Harding County: Bill, Laura, Carty, Amy, Brad and Adley.
Ask five-year Adley Johnson what she enjoys most about life on her family’s Harding County ranch and without hesitation the fifth-generation rancher says, “riding horses.”
Her favorite? A palomino named Custer.
Adley is the reason her dad, Brad, is happy he returned home after a more than a decade career as a professional steer wrestler.
“I enjoy it when Adley comes out and helps me. When we are tagging calves, she writes the tag number and date in the calving book,” Brad said.
Amy, Adley’s mom agrees. “We like having the girls with us when we are working. Sure things get done a bit slower and we have to revolve working cattle around nap time – either so they are sleeping or so they can help us – but we enjoy having our family together,” Amy said of Adley and 7-month-old Carty.
Like Brad, Amy grew up on a South Dakota ranch. In addition to raising cattle, her family trained horses on their place east of Hot Springs. Rodeo is also very much a part of her life.
“We are rodeo people. My dad was a World Champion Calf Roper and my mom was Miss Rodeo South Dakota,” Amy said. “I did everything – barrel racing, pole bending, goat tying, breakaway and team roping – I did not know any other way. My dad always said rodeo will pay for college. And it did.”
Amy loved the competitiveness of rodeo and the sense of family.
Brad agreed. “I still have lots of friends from everywhere. Because of rodeo, I can be in nearly any state and call up a friend,” he said.
Like Amy, rodeo paid for Brad’s college tuition. He rodeoed for Eastern Wyoming and Gillette College and then hit the professional circuit until he decided to return to his family’s ranch fulltime in 2020.
“Amy and I got married in 2019 and we had Adley in 2021. My priorities became different.”
Today Brad and Amy remain connected to rodeo team roping together.
“We are both very competitive, so it is nice to be competitive together and push each other,” Amy said.
Amy works as the Executive Secretary for the South Dakota High School Rodeo Association and trains horses for her family. “Anytime I ride, it takes me back to home and family,” Amy said. “I love training horses for my daughters’ future riding and rodeo needs.”
As Brad and Amy visit, Adley draws a picture for her Grandma Laura and Grandpa Bill. Along with a fence, grass and trees, the picture includes a horse – probably Custer.
The family is sitting at Bill and Laura’s kitchen table enjoying a lunch of beef stew and rhubarb bars. Brad’s parents’ home sits just a few yards away from the original homesteader’s house.
“My grandma, Nina Klovdahl, homesteaded here around 1909,” Bill shared. “Grandpa, his name was JR Johnson, had homesteaded in Reeder, North Dakota and sent grandma here by wagon to homestead by herself. They were not married yet. She and her two sisters all came down here and homesteaded their own places. After she proved up her homestead, they got married and had five kids.”
Out loud Bill wonders what attracted Grandma Nina to homestead at this exact location. The Johnson Ranch sits in the middle of rolling hills of native rangeland with the scenic Slim Buttes off to the west.
The ranch is 10 miles from Reva, a one-stop-shop for local ranchers and travelers along South Dakota Highway 79 with a general store, feed store, gas station and post office all under one roof and owned by a local family.
Named after the daughter of its first settler, Reva Bonniwell, Reva is among the many unincorporated ranching communities that make up Harding County. A ranching community that is currently thriving thanks to young people like Brad returning home, explained Laura.
“Harding County is pretty unique in the fact that there are a lot of places like ours that have been here for generations. It is a big sense of pride, not only for our generation, but for the future,” explained Laura, who recently retired from a career teaching music education in rural schools in Perkins and Harding Counties. “Right now, Harding County School kindergarten class has 24 little people.”
When Brad returned home to ranch fulltime, Bill says letting his son take over the big decisions was not difficult. “I was plumb comfortable with stepping back because I think there are always two ways to do something and if two people are trying to figure out how to do something it just makes it complicated,” Bill said. “And the improvements that have come to the ranch since Brad came back are amazing – the fences, the buildings, the pipeline, the grazing rotation, the genetics.”
Brad is one of four children Bill and Laura raised on their ranch. His three sisters are Robin Zebroski, Keri Casteel and Katie Martin. “We are lucky to have 13 grandchildren that all live within a few hours,” Laura said. “It is so nice to have Adley and Carty so close. We see Adley every day. She calls me up and asks, “grandma are you home. I want to come over.”
Growing up, Bill’s family raised Hereford cattle. Today, it’s Black Angus. Nearly finished with Calving Season 2026, the family said it has gone well due to cooperative weather, in other words, no blizzards.
Over the last decade, the family has implemented a more intentional rotational grazing system. “Each year we start and end in different pastures. We move the cattle depending on how much moisture we have received and have a take half, leave half rule,” Bill explained.
Access to dependable water made rotating through more pastures possible. To accomplish this, the Johnsons worked with Natural Resources Conservation Service programs to dig wells and install miles of pipeline and fence.
“When I do something to benefit us today, I also do the work looking further down the road for our girls who are the fifth generation,” Brad said. “What makes our ranch better today, also make it better for tomorrow.”
To view more photos and a video of Brad and Amy, visit www.sdfu.org and click on the SD Farm and Ranch Families link under the About Us Tab.
