Ray Dittmer of Lacona and the late Tom Murray of Oxford Junction are the newest members of the Iowa Hereford Hall of Fame. They were inducted at a ceremony during the Iowa Hereford Breeders Association banquet at the 2018 Iowa Beef Expo.

Each year, the Iowa Hereford Hall of Fame honors people who have had a major impact on the breed in the state. Here are the stories of this year’s two winners.

Dittmer starts herd with 4-H heifers
When Ray Dittmer joined 4-H at age 12, he had every intention of showing hogs. Fortunately, his father, Iowa Hereford Hall of Famer Lester Dittmer, persuaded him to show Hereford cattle, as well as Landrace hogs. Ray started his show career at the county fair; then in 1954 he took heifers to the Iowa State Fair, where he showed for four years.

DITTMER HONORED: Iowa Hereford Breeders Association President Marilyn Lenth presents the 2018 Iowa Hereford Hall of Fame award to Ray Dittmer of Lacona, Iowa.

From those first 4-H heifers, Ray began building a registered herd, which he first kept on a rented farm a half mile from where he was born. When he was still in high school, he began handling the registrations for his dad’s herd. When he moved to his own place in 1966, he bought his own membership in the Polled Hereford Association.

In the 1960s to1980s, Warren County had both a county Hereford Association and a county Polled Hereford Association, both of which held annual sales. Ray served as secretary-treasurer of the Warren County Polled Hereford Association for 13 years, until the two groups merged. At one time, he consigned bulls to seven different association sales: the Southeast Iowa Polled Hereford Association, Hereford Breeders of Warren County, Wayne County Hereford Association, Hawkeye Polled Hereford Association, Io-Ne-Mo Polled Hereford Association, Iowa Beef Improvement Association and the state Hereford sale.

By 1977, his herd had grown to 140 registered cows, but with the advent of the Conservation Reserve Program, Ray says he started “slacking off” and trimmed the size of the herd. He and son Jason now have about 25 registered cows plus an equal number of commercial ones.

Dittmer has enjoyed studying ways to make improvements in his herd and says DNA testing and EPD’s make it much easier, especially in determining what traits are most heritable. When he started his herd, he didn’t buy a calf puller because he was determined to breed a herd that doesn’t have calving trouble and he’s been successful at it.

“Some people think if you have easy calving cattle, they’re not good show animals, but that’s not true,” he says. “You can have both.”

Perhaps Ray’s greatest contribution to the Hereford breed in Iowa has been in the form of preserving and promoting its history. He has been chairman of the Gammon Barn since 2013. In this capacity, he’s in charge of staffing the museum for the 11-day duration of the Iowa State Fair every year. He spends time calling and lining up volunteers and fills in any vacant shifts himself.

He says he “lives” on the state fairgrounds for the entire fair, staying at the Youth Inn. Ray has put a lot of time into organizing the museum, cleaning it and maintaining the exhibits. For the last few years, his project (in the off-season and during the fair as well) has been to mount more than 100 Pioneer Breeder pencil portraits (by state) onto a flip stand so they can be viewed by visitors. He strives to document the number of visitors each day, maintaining a guest book.

Ray has also installed lighting in some of the cabinets and made improvements on existing lighting. He also works to identify pictures and other artifacts in the museum and has been researching ways to cool the museum so visitors will stay longer and look at the exhibits.

Ray is also one of two IHBA members who voluntarily mow and maintain the original site of the Gammon Barn near St. Marys in south-central Iowa, during the spring and summer. A very active Farm Bureau member for most of his life, Ray has served his county association in various leadership roles over the past 50 years.

Ray married his first wife, Rosemary, in 1971, and they had two children, Jason and Karen. Rosemary died in 1988. He married Jan, an orchestra teacher for Indianola schools, in 1990, and they have two daughters, Heidi and Chrissy, both of whom have taken shifts in the Gammon Barn museum over the years.

Murray starts with 6 registered Herefords
On a cold winter day in 1927, Tom Murray attended a farm sale near Oxford Junction, Iowa. He made a decision that would have a major impact on his career and his family for four generations. A friend told him to buy six registered Hereford cows so they could quickly return to their homes and get out of the cold. Tom decided to take a chance on the cows, which he purchased for $72 each.

MURRAY HONORED: The late Tom Murray’s daughter Carol Murray Hodgden (left) and grandson David Hodgden (center) accept Murray’s Iowa Hereford Hall of Fame award from Iowa Hereford Breeders Association President Marilyn Lenth.

The next morning Tom re-thought his investment. His other cows were in the barn; however, the Herefords were gone. Looking around he found the Herefords out in the field happily grazing cornstalks in the cold conditions. At this moment, Tom realized the hardiness of the breed. He said to himself, “I have something special.”

His herd grew from that start. In 1947 Murray Herefords produced the grand champion steer at the Iowa State Fair. The herd also produced the Houston grand champion Hereford bull exhibited by the Wiese family of Manning, Iowa.

In the 1950s, production sales were held. One year his cattle were sold to producers in 16 states. Tom wrote short articles for the Hereford Journal titled “This and That.” At the time, his son Jim, and son-in-law Delbert Hodgden were showing the Murray Herefords at many area fairs. 

During the 1970s, Jim purchased the herd and added polled blood lines. Commercial bull sales were made a priority. In 1978 the herd produced the top-indexing pen of Hereford bulls at the Platteville, Wis., bull test. Tom passed away in 1976.

Today, his grandson Kevin Murray operates the herd on the family farm at rural Oxford Junction. The Murray Herefords herd was one of several recognized by the IHBA at the 2005 Iowa State Fair as having been in business for 75 years or more. Grandson David Hodgden and great-grandson Ben Hodgden also have a small herd near Iowa City, and Ben has had success showing Herefords at the Johnson County Fair.

Source: Iowa Hereford Breeders Association