The American Angus Association® 142nd Annual Convention of Delegates gathered November 2 in Kansas City, Missouri. Five members were re-elected to a second term on the board of directors. They are Rob Adams, Union Springs, Alabama; Art Butler, Bliss, Idaho; Alan Mead, Barnett, Missouri; Henry Smith, Russell Springs, Kentucky; and Roger Wann, Poteau, Oklahoma. The delegation also elected new officers; Jim Brinkley, Milan, Missouri, president and chairman of the board and Darrell Stevenson, White Sulphur Springs, Montana, vice president and vice chairman of the board. Smitty Lamb, Tifton, Georgia will serve as the treasurer for the fiscal year 2026.
“It’s encouraging to me that we have new people coming into the breed; that is something we learned in our recent member survey,” said Jim Brinkley, president and chairman of the American Angus Association® Board of Directors. “Membership has requests, and we want to make sure we are aligned with what they need, the tools they need, and the tools their commercial customers need.
Directors can serve up to two, three-year terms on the board and, if elected, they serve an
additional one-year term in office as president/chairman and/or vice president/vice chairman.
More about the elected directors:
Robert “Rob” Adams, Alabama
Adams has been a lifelong resident of Union Springs, Ala., where his grandfather established their current farm in 1936 and bought the first Angus cattle in 1939. He only lived off the farm while attending Auburn University earning his bachelor’s degree in animal and dairy science.
Adams has been involved in the day-to-day operations since purchasing his first cow at 8. The farm has transitioned over his lifetime from a diverse cattle and row-crop farm to registered Angus cattle and timber.
After college, Adams returned to the farm, but due to the difficulties of the agricultural economy in the late ’70s-’80s, there wasn’t room for two families on the farm at that time. Still living on the farm and working there every day, he entered the world of finance, working as a financial advisor for the last 37 years.
Adams is married to his wife of 31 years, Connie, and they have four children.
Art Butler, Idaho
Butler is the third generation to raise registered Angus cattle at Spring Cove Ranch in Bliss, Idaho. Spring Cove Ranch was settled in 1912 by his grandfather A.H. Butler, who chose to make his desert homestead around a natural spring in northwestern Gooding County, purchasing their first Angus cattle in 1919.
Attending the University of Idaho, Butler earned a degree in animal science in 1978, was a member of the Farmhouse Fraternity, Block & Bridle Club and was on the Livestock Meat Animal Evaluation Team. He participated in livestock 4-H as a member and later as a leader for more than 20 years and was inducted into the Idaho 4-H Hall of Fame in 2011. He served on the Gooding County 4-H & FFA Market Animal Sale Committee and was beef superintendent at the county fair for more than a decade.
After college graduation in 1978, Art returned to Spring Cove Ranch to continue the family tradition of raising Angus cows and kids. He and his wife, Stacy; son, Josh; and daughter, Sarah, manage the 350-head cow herd.
Alan Mead, Missouri
Mead is a third-generation Angus breeder from Barnett, Mo., working for his grandfather and parents on their family farms until leaving to attend college. After completing his undergraduate degree, medical school and his residency, Mead returned to the area in 1994 as a board-certified anesthesiologist practitioner, servicing his local community while harboring a new vision for Mead Farms.
Beginning with approximately 20 cows, Mead persevered to reach his production goal to be a performance-oriented herd focusing on the needs of commercial cattlemen. Since that time, Mead Farms has been one of the leading Pathfinder® herds both in Missouri and nationally. Under Mead’s leadership, the farm has grown to more than 7,000 acres and close to 1,500 registered Angus cows in addition to Charolais, Hereford and Red Angus cattle.
Mead has two daughters who are actively working as the fourth generation of Mead Farms.
Mead currently serves on the 2024-2025 Finance & Planning and Communications & PR committees and the Angus Foundation Board for the American Angus Association. Mead previously served as chairman, Angus Foundation Board.
Henry Bryan Smith, Kentucky
Smith is a fourth-generation Angus breeder who grew up on a diversified family farming operation in south-central Kentucky. The farming operation consisted of a registered Angus herd, burley tobacco, corn, soybeans, wheat for feed and cash market. The Smith family settled and began farming in the Fonthill community in 1810. Smith’s great-grandfather and his sons began the registered Angus seedstock operation in 1940, and it continues today with Smith raising the fifth generation invested in the Angus industry.
Growing up, Smith was active in 4-H, FFA, the Kentucky Junior Angus Association (KJAA) and the NJAA exhibiting Angus cattle. He graduated from Russell County High School and furthered his education in agriculture and animal science at Western Kentucky University. He purchased his own farmland at the age of 18 and began growing his own Angus herd. For 33 years, he has successfully operated Smithland Angus Farm with his late father, Charles “Bud” Smith.
Smith married his wife, Melissa, in 1997. They have two children, Bryanna, 20, and Blane, 17.
Roger Wann, Oklahoma
Wann is a native of Poteau, Okla., and was raised on a multigenerational family commercial cow-calf ranch. The early breed makeup of the family ranch did not include Angus. After the purchase of a dozen commercial Angus cows from a family relative and the addition of an Angus bull from Belle Point Ranch in Lavaca, Ark., the benefits of Angus genetics became clear, and a direction was set.
While a student at Oklahoma State University (OSU), Wann was an employee at Oklahoma Beef Inc. (OBI), a multibreed central test facility. Later, he was a student worker at the OSU Purebred Beef Center. The value of the Angus cow herd at OSU was the last step in a learning curve that would lead him and his family into the Angus seedstock business. After completing a bachelor’s degree in animal science at OSU, Wann earned a master’s in physiology of reproduction from Texas A&M (TAMU).
To learn more about the American Angus Association Board of Directors visit www.angus.org/about/board-of-directors. To learn more about the voting process visit https://www.angus.org/convention/association-business.
