Beef Legend Passes Away

A giant in the U.S. beef industry passed away last week — Henry Gardiner of Ashland, Kansas. A long-time Angus breeder who truly understood the needs of the commercial cattleman and produced the kind of cattle that improved ranchers’ bottom-line.
I know that my grandpa counted Gardiner as a friend and held a deep respect for Mr. Gardiner and his long-time Angus breeding program.
According to an Angus news release, in his pursuit to continually improve beef genetics, Gardiner and Gardiner Angus Ranch served as a research partner with many land grant universities developing and improving technology such as artificial insemination, embryo transfer, expected progeny differences, carcass ultrasound, feed efficiency and DNA marker assisted genomic information.
These technological advancements enabled Gardiner Angus Ranch to grow and expand to currently sustaining nine families, with partner herds in nine states and one foreign country.
Although his list of honors and awards is long — that certainly wasn’t what motivated him. It was more about advancing the Angus breed and helping other cattlemen improve their beef genetics.
Gardiner was passionate about many things, most of all his family, his community, educating tomorrow’s youth, improving the beef industry, sustaining and protecting the environment and his alma mater, Kansas State University.
Whether or not you knew him — if you are in the cattle business you are assuredly benefiting from his dedication to the beef industry.