OKLAHOMA CITY – A sixth-generation rancher from southwest Oklahoma has been named to the Oklahoma Conservation Commission (OCC). Clay Forst was nominated by Gov. Kevin Stitt and endorsed by the Oklahoma Senate to serve as the Area IV Conservation Commissioner.
Forst succeeds the recently retired Deanna LeGrand from Reydon, in Roger Mills County, who was appointed by former Gov. Mary Fallin and served on the OCC for four-and-a half years.
STUART RANCH
Clay Forst, his mother and his brother Robert Forst operate the Stuart Ranch, which is comprised of two divisions: 32,000 acres near Waurika in Jefferson County and 11,000 acres in Bryan County, near Caddo.
The ranch includes a cow-calf operation, yearling cattle, American Quarter Horses, and a hunting operation. The appointee manages the latter, Stuart Ranch Outfitters, which conducts guided hunts; he also oversees the ranch’s diverse wildlife populations.
JEFFERSON COUNTY CONSERVATION DISTRICT
Forst serves on the Jefferson County Conservation District board. He will represent the Area IV Conservation Districts of Comanche, Jackson, Kiowa, Stephens and Tillman, as well as Cotton, Custer, Deer Creek, Grady Greer, Harmon, Jefferson, North Fork of Red River, Upper Washita and Washita, plus North, South and West Caddo. “Without proper management, of which conservation is a major part, we don’t exist,” Forst said.
CONSERVATION AND RANCHING
In reference to conservation and ranching, “Without proper management of your grasses, your brush control, your weed control, and without everything that goes with having native range,” he said, “we don’t have cattle to put pounds on to be able to sell to pay our bills.”
WILDLIFE
In addition, “Without conservation, you don’t have wildlife,” he said. “If we don’t manage our habitat of the ranch, we are not able to capitalize on the commercial or economic benefits of that.” Without conservation, said the father of two young sons, “we are not going to be able to pass this on to the next generation.”
1868 BEGINNING
Forst’s great-great-great-grandfather started the ranch in 1868. The original land in Bryan County eventually was passed on to Forst’s great-grandmother and then to his grandfather, R.T. Stuart Jr. Forst’s mother, Terry Stuart Forst, graduated from Oklahoma State University with a degree in animal science and completed Texas Christian University’s ranch management program. Her father hired her in 1992 to be the ranch manager. “The ranch is a part of the lineage of this family,” Clay Forst said, “and we all want to keep passing it on.”