
During the Oklahoma Cattleman’s Ranch Rodeo at the Lazy E Arena in Guthrie, OK, Terry Stuart Forst was officially inducted into the Agriculture Hall of Fame. Farm Director KC Sheperd spoke with her after the ceremony.

Forst, her two sons, and their families operate the oldest family ranch under continuous family ownership in Oklahoma. The 45,000 acres across southeastern and southwestern Oklahoma have been in her family since 1868. She also became the first female president of the Oklahoma Cattleman’s Association in 2009, and the first woman named Cattleman of the Year two years before that. She also earned OSU’s Master Breeder Award in 2008, was named a “Significant Woman in Agriculture” by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food & Forestry in 2017, and Induction into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 2007.
“It is truly humbling,” she said. “I am so honored. I was not expecting this in any way, shape or form. I got choked up.”

Forst admitted that when she was growing up female ranchers were rare, but that never affected her desire to take over ranch operations when the time came. “I never wanted to do anything else,” she said, “And I didn’t care if I was a woman or not. This is what I wanted to do, and I worked very, very hard to get here. It wasn’t easy at all as there were a lot of obstacles, but I have a lot of faith in God and I know that if I let Him run the show, I get along a lot better.”
Legacy is important to Forst, and her goal, and that of her sons, is to keep the ranch in a good position for her grandchildren to return to should they ever choose to. “They may not ever want to, and that’s fine too, but I think leaving the legacy and letting them know how important it is, heritage, tradition… We have a lot of broad shoulders to stand on and if we can ingrain that commitment into our grandkids, then we’ll be in good shape.”