Lyons Ranch is a family-owned cattle and grass operation located in the Flint Hills of Kansas. Jan and Frank Lyons started their Angus herd in Kansas over thirty years ago, but the tradition started long before that. Jan grew up on an Angus farm in Ohio where she preferred being out with her dad and the cattle to being inside cooking and cleaning.

In March 2008, Jan and Frank and Karl and Amy will host their 20th annual Lyons Ranch production sale of performance and fertility tested bulls.

The Lyons family has served the cattle industry in many ways. Jan has held the reins in several organizations. She was the first woman to serve as president of the Kansas Angus Association. In 1994, in the organization’s centennial year, she served as president of the Kansas Livestock Association. She served on the Kansas Beef Council in the 1980s and 1990s, including a stint as chairman, and on the Cattleman’s Beef Board where she served as vice chairman and chairman of the group that oversees the national beef checkoff. In 2004, Jan was the president of the National Cattleman’s Beef Association.

Amy and her sister Debbie grew up active in 4-H, where both girls were state beef project winners. They showed and participated in countless Kansas Junior Angus Association and the National Junior Angus Association. Amy got to see much of the nation and even toured Japan on a beef promotion as Miss American Angus in 1988. She is currently a member of the board of directors for the Kansas Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom and is in the process of helping that group write and publish a teachers’ guide to the natural resources of the state, including information about the native prairie, farm ground and wetlands.  Karl and Amy have both served as directors of the Wabaunsee County Cattlemen’s Association. Debbie and her husband Duane Blythe and their family raise Angus cattle as well --- Debbie is following her mother’s example as an active committee member in the KLA and the Kansas Angus Association. All of Jan and Frank’s seven grandkids, Meghan, Allie, Trent, Tyler and Eric, and Tanner and Trey, are learning their grandparents’ way of life.

Lyons Ranch has grown over the years. From the ranch headquarters three miles south of Manhattan – the site of the annual production sale – if you travel south and east 35 miles into Wabaunsee County, you come to Karl and Amy’s place. They run around 200 cow-calf pairs there. The Manhattan ranch and the ranch near Alta Vista have both been recognized with grassland conservation awards. The south ranch and the cattle were featured on some National Beef photos, and if you’re paying attention, you can sometimes catch Karl riding across the pasture on an RFD-TV commercial!

Karl and Amy and their sons Tanner and Trey are active in Karl’s family’s operation as well as Lyons Ranch. Howard and Ann Langvardt and their sons own and operate two sale barns in Kansas, JC Livestock Sales Co. in Junction City and Clay Center Livestock Sales Co. in Clay Center. Over the years, Lyons Ranch customers have sold thousands of commercial cattle within the Langvardt’s regular and special calf sales.

Lyons Ranch has a history. They are here for now and for the future. Let them help you meet your goals and carry your operation forward.