Value added, it’s a concept economists write about all the time, but when the rubber hits the road, it’s a lot harder to accomplish in reality. Shane and Cathy Rosenthal and their two children, Bennett (Ben), 10, and Annabelle, 8, put the value-added concept to work every day on their farming operation on Cooper Road northwest of Riverton.
With sheep, a greenhouse, a thriving presence on the local food market in Fremont County, and now a line of hats, scarves, blankets, and sweaters, all made from the wool of their flock, they’re busy people.
Cooper Family Farms is the fitting name of their business, since Cathy was Cathy Cooper, daughter of Craig and Carol Cooper, and granddaughter of Dale and Darlene Cooper, the couple who Cooper Road is named after.
Dale and Darlene purchased the place where Shane and Cathy live in 1947, after Dale returned from service in World War II.
The operation was originally a dairy farm, with a concrete silage pit, but that all changed over time.
Cathy graduated from Riverton High School in 1999, where she was a standout in cross country and track for the Lady Wolverines. Shane graduated in 1990 from Bennington High School, a few miles from Omaha.
“Bennington was a town of 600 when I went to high school,” Shane said. “It’s now thousands since Omaha took over.”
Cathy has an associate’s degree in Range Management and a BS in biology and geography, and began her professional career working with mapping and GIS.
Shane is an archaeologist with an interesting educational pedigree. He has degrees from Nebraska Kearney (the former Kearney State) and Rhode Island College.
Shane came to Sheridan during the coal bed methane boom to verify possible drilling sites were free of historical significance. Cathy was mapping and working through regulations in Sheridan as well. That’s where the couple met.
They were married while living in Sheridan but couldn’t find anything affordable to own in the growingly popular town. They moved to nearby Buffalo in 2013.
In 2012, Grandma Darlene passed away, leaving the home where Craig grew up vacant.
“We drove from Buffalo to Riverton often,” Cathy said. “Is it time? I grew up in the country and was longing to get back.”
Buffalo wasn’t ideal for a couple who grew up in agriculture in a rural setting. It’s a small town, but it has its problems when it comes to peace and quiet.
“There were so many dogs in town,” Shane said. “They barked all the time, no one paid attention, and it was too noisy.”
In 2015, Ben was born.
“We decided to move into Grandma’s house,” Cathy said. “Ben and Shane moved here in 2016.”
She soon followed after they sold their house in Buffalo.
“We looked at a lot of homes here,” Shane said. “But there was nothing to buy.”
Doing the math, they soon realized it would be less expensive to expand the original two-bedroom home than to purchase or build something new.
As a kid, Cathy grew up around Columbia sheep. Craig eventually sold the flock to Mark and Becky Bappe, who live on 8 Mile Road. Becky and Craig are cousins.
The original farm was five acres. They purchased an additional 15.
“We had all this pasture and I didn’t want to mow it,” Shane said.
“My dad always wanted to get back into sheep,” Cathy said.
In 2020, the sheep came home to Cooper Road.
“When we wanted sheep, Cathy went to the Bappe’s and bought five ewes from the original line,” Shane said.
Three of the original five ewes remain on the place, Lucky, Fernando, and Nibbler.
The herd has swelled to 54 head and the couple looked for a way to market them effectively. They found two revenue streams, one from market lambs, and the other from wool. This is where the value-added component comes in.
They just didn’t shear and sell the wool to bulk buyers, instead they used their connections in Buffalo to find another market for their wool.
“We started with quilts. Quilt batting,” Shane said. “What it cost to make, and what you had to sell it for in Riverton, this wasn’t the place for that.”
They took a step back from the batting idea.
“We bought a comforter from England,” Cathy said. “It weighed five pounds.”
That’s when the idea of reaching out to Karen and Ben Hostettler in Buffalo, a mother and son operation, came in.
Some of the wool products produced by Cooper Family Farms – h/t Cooper Family Farms
Mountain Meadows Mill in Buffalo is the Hostettler business, a mill that takes raw wool and turns it into yarn, and then other products such as wool caps, blankets and sweaters.
“We called them about batting and they couldn’t do it, “Shane said.
The roadblock became an on-ramp for their present product line.
“We went back there for apparel,” Cathy said.
They took their first 100 pounds of wool to the mill in 2022. A hundred pounds of raw wool produces between 50 and 60 pounds of processed yarn.
“The first year we sold a few items but mostly gave them away to family and friends,” Shane said. “It was a viable product. The price point is difficult. These are great, but people around here don’t want to spend $175 for a sweater.”
Their first production run produced 15 sweaters.
“We could sell them, but they’re really nice and we kept most of them or gave them away as gifts,” Shane said.
By 2024, their flock had grown significantly, and they were ready to produce more products.
“We’re going to do it,” Cathy said of the decision to expand. “We ordered 30 sweaters and a bunch of hats.”
As any businessperson soon realizes, when you have a supply chain that is out of your control, bad things can happen.
“In November we got a call from the mill. We have good news, your hats are done,” Cathy said. “The bad news is that our sweater machine broke. We received our sweaters in May.”
With livestock, you get on average a 50/50 percentage of male and female lambs or calves. They kept back most of the ewe lambs but sold the wethers as market lambs.
“We sell market lamb to friends,” Shane said. “But we sell them in Story, Gillette, and Denver too.”
Lamb and wool production are just half of their value-added farming operation. If you’ve driven along Cooper Road north of Riverton, you’ve probably noticed the large greenhouse on the south side of the road near the intersection with College View Drive. That’s the second half of their operation.
“We started out right off. We experimented with a bunch of different vegetables,” Cathy said. “We sold them at the Farmer’s Market at St. John’s Lutheran Church. We found out it is a lot of work.”
Some of the quality produce grown at Cooper Family Farms – h/t Cooper Family Farms 
They sold at the Riverton Food Hub for a while but now take their produce to the Fremont Local Market at 524 East Main Street.
“We sold at Farmer’s Markets on and off, it’s difficult,” Cathy said.
One promising way to sell baskets of produce has been on Facebook via their Cooper Family Farms page.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100069881186620
“Last year it was nice to have the local food market,” Cathy said.
Tomatoes are their best seller, but they do well with green beans and a wide variety of other produce. They grow both heirloom and hybrid tomatoes.
Sometimes, happenstance takes over, along with a bit of serendipity.
They sell sheep hides from their slaughtered lambs.
“We took some lambs to Genuine Meats and told them we wanted the hides,” Shane said. “When I went to pick them up, they didn’t have them, they’d sold them to a guy in Lander. I called the guy and he tanned them. He now tans all the hides for us. They make great rugs next to your bed.”
Ben and Annabelle are active in the operation as well. Helping start seeds in planting boxes, harvesting vegetables, and moving sheep with their two dogs, the venerable Sam and the precocious puppy Sullivan.
Annabelle won a wool judging contest last year, and Ben finished third. The genes are there for yet another generation of Darlene and Dale’s offspring to keep the family farm going.
“We were lucky to have the opportunity to own land with a house,” Shane said.
They’ve developed the property heavily since. Building a barn over the existing silage pit and expanding the house by about 300 percent in size.
They both have full-time jobs.
Cathy works as the district manager for the Lower Wind River Conservation District, a position she’s held since 2022.
Shane works from home as an archaeological contractor, currently with four energy-based clients.
The green beans, peas, onions, corn, carrots, and pumpkins are just beginning to rise from the ground. Inside the greenhouse, the plants already have small green tomatoes growing.
Value is where you find it.
Shane and Cathy Rosenthal have found value in hard work, in family traditions and in working closely with the land. It’s a gift that Ben and Annabelle learn every day.