KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Austin Snedden, Maricopa, Calif., officially took the helm of the American Hereford Association (AHA) Board of Directors Oct. 25 in Kansas City, Mo., during the 2025 World Hereford Conference and AHA Annual Meeting. Austin will serve a one-year term leading the 12-person Board, which governs and provides strategic direction for the AHA. The Association boasts more than 7,500 adult and junior members from across the U.S.

Austin is a full-time fifth-generation rancher in central California, where his family has been raising cattle in the same county for more than 150 years. Snedden Ranch was founded in 1867 by Anna and Samuel Snedden and has been passed down through the generations. It continues a family business with family members of all ages working in every aspect of the operation. 

Austin grew up on the ranch in southwest Kern County, California. He graduated from Azusa Pacific University in 2005 with a degree in business administration. Austin and his wife, Sarah, met in college and married in 2004. They have four children: Ryah, Rainey, Sonora and Ezra. Austin and Sarah partner with his parents, Richard and Susie, to operate Snedden Ranch. 

Snedden Ranch consists of 350-400 commercial cows, 120 Hereford cows and 40 Red Angus cows. The Snedden family raises bulls for their commercial herd and their annual production sale, held on the second Saturday of October each year. In addition to the cow herd and hosting a production sale, Snedden Ranch markets a select group of commercial replacement females annually. Their steer calves are merchandised at weaning or yearling age and sold off the ranch through auctions and video markets. 

Snedden Ranch has raised primarily Hereford cattle for more than 100 years and registered its first cattle with the AHA more than 50 years ago in 1972. The ranch received Gold Total Performance Records (TPR™) Breeder status from the AHA in 2022 and was also honored as 50-year Golden Breeder that year. Austin and Sarah served as advisors for the California/Nevada Junior Hereford Association in 2017 and 2018. 

Austin has been involved with the Kern County Cattlemen’s Association for many years and served as president from 2014 to 2015. He was appointed to serve on the Trump Administration’s Rural and Agriculture Advisory Committee. Austin served as a delegate for the California Republican Party from 2021 to 2022 and is a contributing columnist to the Valley Ag Voice, a regional agricultural publication. 

Additionally, Austin was recognized as the Kern County Cattleman of the Year in 2020, and Snedden Ranch was recognized in 2013 as California’s 18th Senatorial District’s Small Business of the Year.

Sullivan to serve as vice president 

Scott Sullivan, Grannis, Ark., was elected vice president by the AHA Board. Scott is a fourth-generation rancher from Grannis, Ark. He and his wife, Sherry, are the owners of Triple S Ranch, where they run 150 Hereford cows and 300 head of commercial cattle, along with a backgrounding operation. 

Scott graduated from Southern Arkansas University in 1983 with his bachelor’s degree in agricultural business. A large part of his education occurred on the ranch, learning from his father and grandfather. Scott and his wife do not have children of their own but are active with their local 4-H and FFA chapters. Scott and Sherry work to get local youth involved in the cattle industry. They offer cattle at an affordable price and help with the breeding process if the kids purchase a heifer. Scott has a buyback program in the fall where he purchases and backgrounds approximately 500 calves from his bull customers.

Scott’s goal is to offer his customers worry-free calving, while providing genetics that create profit opportunities from pasture to plate. Scott and Sherry work to find replacement heifers and AI bulls to continually improve their herd’s genetics.

Scott is a fourth-generation farmer who has been involved with the Hereford breed his entire life. He served on the board of directors for the Magnolia Hereford Association from 2008-2022 and served as the president from 2011-2022. He was the president of the Sevier County Cattlemen’s Association twice and was a member of the Arkansas Cattlemen’s Association (ACA) board of directors twice. Scott also served on his local church board and was a council chairman. 

Before returning to the family ranch, Scott worked for the Arkansas Farm Bureau for 14 years. Since 2009, he has been serving as the legislative officer for the Farm Credit Associations of Arkansas and Southern Arkansas University. Scott is currently a member of the Magnolia Hereford Association and the Northeast Texas Hereford Association. He is serving on the ACA executive committee and on the Sevier County developmental board. He is also a member of the Arkansas State Fair board. Scott received the ACA Lifetime Service Award in 2018. 

Triple S Ranch earned recognition in 2022 from the American Hereford Association (AHA) as a Platinum Whole Herd Total Performance Records (TPR™) Breeder. From 2003-2009, Scott served as an Arkansas State Representative. During his term, he served as speaker pro-tempore. He also was the chair of the legislative council.

Newly elected directors

Outgoing president Chad Breeding, Miami, Texas, and Directors, Lou Ellen Harr, Jeromeville, Ohio, and Travis McConnaughy, Wasola, Mo., completed their terms on the AHA Board.

During the AHA membership meeting, delegates elected three new directors to serve four-year terms: Bryan Blinson, Buies Creek, N.C.; Joe Ellis, Chrisman, Ill.; and Joe Dan Ledbetter, Wheeler, Texas.

“Today’s growing demand for Hereford genetics is the result of breeders’ dedicated commitment to genetic improvement with the needs of commercial producers in mind,” says Jack Ward, AHA executive vice president. “However, current breed opportunities are also the result of the selflessness and foresight of the men and women who have guided the AHA over time for the benefit of Association members. The new Board members, like those they join, have proven their dedication to the Hereford breed across decades.”

Bryan Blinson

Bryan Blinson and his wife, Beth, operate Blinson Hereford Farm, a small seedstock operation split between Buies Creek, N.C., and Lenoir, N.C. Calving about 20 cows annually, the farm’s focus is selling a few select bulls each year as well as offering females private treaty and through the North Carolina Hereford Association (NCHA) sale. They work hard to manage their pastures, improve soil health and breed cattle that can efficiently perform in their environment — through those practices the Blinsons provide more adapted and efficient seedstock to their customers.

Bryan and Beth live on the farm near Buies Creek, and his parents help manage the cattle on the farm in Lenoir. Breeding, marketing, pasture management and other decisions are a family effort. The couple’s daughters, Rossie and Mason, both served on the National Junior Hereford Association (NJHA) board, and Beth served on the National Hereford Women board. The Blinsons have always tried to be involved in the Associations that supported their family.

Bryan was named distinguished alumni by North Carolina State University (NCSU) and has a bachelor’s degree in animal science from the university, in addition to graduating from the Forrest School of Auctioneering and Mendenhall Auction School. He finds his greatest educational opportunities working alongside and advocating for farmers and ranchers, having served as the executive director of the North Carolina Cattlemen’s Association and Beef Council for 24 years. 

He helped organize and served as president of the Feed the Dialogue Foundation (a multi-organization advocacy group). Bryan also served as secretary of the NCSU Agricultural Foundation for two decades, along with serving on numerous NCSU advisory boards. He was named president of the Auctioneers Association of North Carolina and the Harnett Area Board of Realtors.

From serving as chairman of the National Junior Polled Hereford Council to holding various leadership positions on the NCHA board and auctioneering the NCHA sale, Bryan has been involved in all levels of the Hereford industry.

Bryan hopes to serve producers large and small and use his experiences to unify all segments of the Hereford breed and make each breeder stronger.  

Joe Ellis

Joe Ellis, Chrisman, Ill., operates Ellis Farms Beef Genetics, a three-generation family business, which raises row crops and cattle to support four family households. Hereford cattle have always been the operation’s primary focus. Today, the family runs 200 momma cows.

The Ellis family has raised registered Herefords for 143 years. The first registered stock were brought into the family operation as a wedding gift in 1883: two cows and the imported sire, Beekjay Hero.

The EFBeef program provides seedstock genetics to the commercial cow-calf producer and purebred sector. EFBeef genetics have been utilized on four continents and nearly all 50 states. They strive to produce a low-cost female with high fertility, which will thrive on fescue grass pastures, while also making a steer of the highest value that garners carcass weight and yield and quality grade incentives. The operation emphasizes producing a pound of beef more efficiently than prior generations through feed intake testing. EFBeef invests significant time and resources gathering genetic information each year. They’re committed to providing commercial cow-calf producers with additional data to help make decisions when marketing offspring sired by EFBeef bulls.

EFBeef is a two-time winner of the Beef Improvement Federation Seedstock Producer Honor Roll of Excellence. Joe’s parents, Phil and Joyce, previous directors of the AHA, were recently inducted into the Hereford Hall of Fame. EFBeef has been named the Illinois Hereford Breeder of the Year multiple times, along with being the winner of the Illinois Beef Seedstock Breeder of the Year and winning multiple grand championships at the national show in the ’70s and ’90s. EFBeef has received multiple honors and designations from the AHA and American Polled Hereford Association (APHA) for Sires of Distinction (SOD), CHB SOD, Gold Seal Sire and Gold Trophy Sire.

Joe has served on the nominating committee for AHA Board candidates and the committee for genetic evaluation updates. He was a member of the 2005 Young Cattlemen’s Conference and was active in the APHA youth program during the 1980s.

Joe is retired from a career in the material handling industry. He currently serves as treasurer and is a past president of The Vermillion RISE, a 7,000-acre redevelopment of a former World War II Army base. He’s served on the County Area Plan Commission, Board of Zoning Appeals and is serving his 18th year as treasurer of the Hopewell Friends Meeting.  

Joe and his wife, Lauri, have three daughters: Audrey, Hannah and Lauren.  

Joe Dan Ledbetter

Joe Dan Ledbetter owns and operates Ledbetter Cattle Co., Wheeler, Texas, a progressive herd consisting of around 50 cows — 35 Hereford females and 15 commercial recip cows. As a smaller breeder, Joe Dan threads the needle each year by producing bulls that perform with limited input while maintaining functionality, eye appeal, fleshing ability and style that will impress any cattleman and be problem-free. Ledbetter Cattle Co. markets these bulls through the Indian Mound Ranch Annual Production Sale every October.

When it comes to females, udders and disposition are at the top of the operation’s selection criteria, along with a mother cow that’s earned her keep. Some females are marketed as show heifers to local and regional customers; everything else is sent to wheat pasture. Once they come home, anything that won’t be a Ledbetter replacement is bred to an Angus bull and marketed as a commercial bred heifer.

Ledbetter Cattle Co. is a family operation. Joe Dan and his wife, Hope, their sons and their wives, Ceaton and Erin, Grant and Lauren, and Grady and Lindley; two grandchildren, Knox and Tandi Jo; and daughter, Caton, all chip in on the ranch from time to time.

Joe Dan was born and raised in Wheeler. He attended West Texas A&M University and graduated with a degree in animal science in 1997. He’s been a member of the Texas Hereford Association for 30 years, serving as director for more than 15 of them. He’s currently serving his second term on the executive committee. Joe Dan is a past member of the Texas Association of Sports Officials and was a high school football official for almost 20 years before retiring due to injury in 2021.

Ledbetter Cattle Co. is an AHA-recognized Gold Total Performance Records (TPR™) Breeder, and they regularly go the extra mile to collect and report data at all levels of production in a timely manner. 

The 19th annual World Hereford Conference, Oct. 22-26, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo., features an educational forum, a celebration of high-achieving and influential Hereford breeders of all ages, an international sale and National Hereford Show. 

The World Hereford Conference takes place every four years when delegates of the World Hereford Council meet to conduct official business aimed at breed improvement and opportunity development. It is a time for Hereford breeders from around the world to network and learn from one another — the U.S. is hosting for the first time since 1996.

View the press release and photo here.

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The American Hereford Association hosts the World Hereford Conference (WHC), presented by Merck Animal Health, in Kansas City, Mo., Oct. 22-26, and the Young Breeders Competition at Kansas State University and in Kansas City Oct. 19-25. The World Hereford Council convenes every four years at the WHC — in different council-member countries — where delegates conduct official business aimed at breed improvement and opportunity development.