Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
When he heard a car horn honking around midnight outside the house, Gordon Moore didn't really pay it any mind. It was unusual, but he went back to sleep.
Come morning, he figured out what all the commotion was about.
The gate holding back his small herd was wide open and five of his black angus cattle were out touring the neighborhood.
He and his wife, Bettie, got busy tracking them down, calling the sheriff who sent out animal control officer Jerry Clase.
A neighbor was notified and the 800- to 900-pound animals were discovered a mile away from home.
Of course, every time Moore and his herders got them close to home, they turned tail and took off.
"I was scared," the 60-something farmer said. "They were close to the road. Someone could have gotten hurt."
In addition to cattle, Moore raises chickens and turkeys on his five-acre hobby farm.
"We've got everything running around here," he said. "We really enjoy it."
Except when they get loose, of course.
Before moving to CR 300N near Chapman Lake 10 years ago, Moore was a city dweller - from the city of Chicago, to be exact.
Moore knew back in Illinois the sheriff would have come out, shot the animals and called a rendering company.
Frustrated and worn out, Moore considered calling the sheriff to put the ornery critters out of his misery.
After a while a truck came up slowly and stopped. The occupants, two "young men," introducing themselves as Jeremy and Jim Reiff, asked what the trouble was, assessed the situation and said they'd be back in half an hour.
Gordon Moore, now standing in a field two miles from home, didn't give their pledge a second thought.
Thirty minutes later the truck returned towing a livestock trailer. The Reiffs opened the back and unloaded two quarter horses, which they commenced to saddle.
Within minutes, without too much fuss, the men herded the five head into a tight bundle and drove them back to their pen.
Bettie came out with her checkbook, which the Reiffs refused. Gordon tried to press steaks on them, an offer they also declined.
"They wouldn't take anything," Moore said. "That's very unusual where I come from. They were just so neighborly, I'm so grateful for their help.'
On the telephone this morning Jim Reiff didn't make too much of the gesture Moore so appreciates.
He and his brother work for their father, Mike, on the family farm.
"We'd have done it for about anyone," Reiff said.
