On Friday, Sept. 15, the OSU Alumni Association will be honoring six graduates with the Distinguished Alumni Award. One of those honorees is Terry Stuart Forst, the general manager of the Stuart Ranch—Oklahoma’s oldest ranch under continuous family ownership- which celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2018.
Forst graduated from OSU in 1976 with a bachelor’s degree in animal science. She then attended the ranch management program at Texas Christian University in 1992.
After graduation, Forst returned to Stuart Ranch to work for her father, running the horse program and helping with the cattle operation. Forst has evolved the horse program to be one of the American Quarter Horse Association’s leading breeders.
Forst was the first woman president of the Oklahoma Cattleman’s Association and its first woman recipient of the Cattleman of the Year Award in 2007. She was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 2007, Oklahoma Quarter Horse Hall of Fame in 2012 and the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 2020. Forst was also recognized as the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture Food and Forestry 2017 Significant Woman in Agriculture.
Besides Forst, two of the other six honorees are alums of the College of Agriculture- Ken Starks who graduated with an Ag Economics degree in 1976 and Lieu Smith who graduated with an Agricultural Engineering degree in 1954.
To learn more about Forst – click here.