Forst to Be Reckoned With
Appeared in 2026 Fall Ranch Record. Story and photography by Ross Hecox.
Stubborn bulls know how to crash into creek bottoms and hide among the thick briars, blackberry bushes and locust trees that will skewer cowboys with their sharp, three-inch thorns.
With no hesitation Terry Stuart Forst dives in, dodging low limbs and hollering at the 2,000-pound beasts that refuse to leave the pasture they’ve occupied for the past two months. It’s the first of July, and Forst and her crew still have a handful of hard-headed bulls left to pull off cows that should all be bred by now.
The Black Angus brutes dash into the creek several times, but the cowboys keep chousing them out. Eventually, one of the bulls requires some “nylon intervention.” Lathe Benton’s loop finds its target, and Terry’s son, Robert, delivers a deft heel shot from the back of a 3-year-old bay filly. Terry watches the action while holding up two bulls in a clearing about 100 yards away. The morning sun glints off the sweaty neck of her 4-year-old sorrel mare. A warm breeze rustles through the trees and bends the stalks of tall, bluestem grasses.
“It’s been a beautiful morning,” Terry observes. “People ask me why I don’t take vacation. But look at this. Who needs a vacation when you live here and get to do this?”
Terry has run her family’s 7S Stuart Ranch in Oklahoma for 30-plus years. Established in 1868, it’s the oldest continuously run family ranch in the state, and for decades it has been highly regarded for its quality beef, rangeland management, standout horses, modernized operations and marketing savvy. Terry has remained deeply involved in all of it, especially any job that involves grass, cattle and horses.
“It’s all she’s ever wanted to do,” says Clay Forst, her son. “She’ll never retire. She’s still saddling her own horses, getting up every day and going to work. She’s probably going to outlive us all. We’ll have to get a little crane to crank her up on a horse when she’s 120 years old.”
The petite, unassuming rancher has been attracting plenty of hefty honors in recent years. Just to name a few, she was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, named a Distinguished Alumnus of Oklahoma State University, elected president of the Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association (serving from 2009 to 2011), and inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame. This October, she receives the prestigious National Golden Spur Award.
It’s quite the list of accolades, especially for someone who wasn’t even involved with ranch life 35 years ago. She was raised on her family’s cow-calf operation and absolutely loved it, but her life made a couple of surprising turns that left her living in town as a single mom with two little boys. Once she made her way back to cattle and horses, she brought a new perspective that has taken Stuart Ranch to new heights.
Unexpected Hiatus
In the spring of 1991, Terry no longer had a clue where her life was headed. She had grown up on her family’s historic ranch, established near Caddo, Oklahoma, by her great-great-grandfather Robert Clay Freeney. Terry loved every aspect of it—the horses, the cattle, the land, the hard work. After earning a degree from Oklahoma State University in 1976, she came back to the ranch to work for her dad, Bob Stuart. Later, she married horse trainer Tom Forst, and they had two sons, Clay in 1986 and Robert in 1988.
Raising a family, managing a successful horse program, and living on the ranch where she was raised, Terry couldn’t have asked for a more ideal way of life. But things changed when she took on a bigger responsibility.
“Daddy was an absentee owner at this point, taking care of another business interest that my grandfather had,” Terry says. “I had been staying out of the way of his cattle managers, but I didn’t think it was working out well. I said I would be happy to try to handle that, but I stepped in way over my head. I didn’t really have the managerial skills I needed. Daddy and I had a confrontation, and I’m not sure if I quit or if he fired me, but it ended."
“It was 1989. I think I hated leaving the mares as much as anything. You work hard to get something going, then all of a sudden, you have to walk away.”
She and Tom moved with their two boys to Ericson, Nebraska. In April of 1991, Tom tragically took his own life. Terry doesn’t like to talk about it.
At that point, she had already been accepted into the prestigious Texas Christian University Ranch Management program, and despite getting advice to the contrary, she moved to Fort Worth and began taking classes for the grueling, one-year program in the fall of 1991. Clay attended kindergarten and Robert went to a day care on the TCU campus.
“I didn’t have a dime, and I had no idea how I was going to do anything,” she says. “I just knew I was going to do it. I wanted back into a life that I knew was for me. I had got my real estate license, but I didn’t like any part of it. God orchestrated all of this.”
After graduating first in her class from the TCU Ranch Management program, Terry began considering her next move. She had opportunities in real estate, but her father had asked her to come back to the ranch.
“He had offered me a job back at the ranch multiple times, but this horrible little thing called pride was waving its nasty hand in front of my eyes,” she says. “Family dynamics are tough sometimes. I was thinking, ‘I can make it on my own.’ It took me a while to be willing to come back. But I wrote Daddy a proposal and said I would come back on ‘these conditions.’ I had a time frame that I was going to make changes and get this ranch in a profitable mode. Daddy had a source of outside income, but I needed Stuart Ranch to stand on its own legs. This operation meant so much to me that I didn’t want to lose it.”
In addition to improving cattle genetics, tightening up calving dates, and stepping up the overall performance analysis of the Stuart, Terry proposed the purchase of 11,000 acres near Waurika, 100 miles west of the ranch’s longtime headquarters in southeast Oklahoma.
“The only structure was a cattle guard on Highway 70,” she says. “We have built everything from scratch as we could afford to do it. There is no groundwater here to speak of. Only surface water, so I had a lot to learn. I don’t like to haul water, and I don’t like to feed hay in the winter, so we’ve figured out how to manage the land so that we don’t haul water and we don’t feed hay.”
With several barns, arenas, an office and houses, the Waurika division has become the headquarters for the Stuart Ranch. The Forsts still own and operate the Caddo Division, but the entire family lives in Waurika. Along with Terry, that includes Clay, his wife Lindsey, and their boys Arlington, Rogers and Ford; and Robert, his wife Lauren, and their children Coleman and Bea.
Ranch Integration
After Robert and Lathe tie down the ornery bull, they join Terry, Clay and Bob Benton to drive the two other bulls to a stock trailer near the pasture’s gate. The Stuart-bred horses they ride represent six or seven generations of careful breeding. Robert’s bay mare by ranch stud Seven S Grand Slam impressed Terry in how she handled roping a bull as a 3-year-old.
“Whether she goes to the show pen one day or not, that mare proved her worth today,” Terry says. “Today, we needed some good horses because we had to do some cowboy stuff. So, we are trying to produce a product that can go to the show pen and also do a job. We have a generational mare band. It’s more important to me to sustain the integrity of our program than to win big prizes.”
To those in the horse show business, the Stuart Ranch is a familiar name. Most of its horses trace to AQHA Hall of Fame mare Miss T Stuart, including Genuine Redbud, who won the AQHA Superhorse title at the 1995 World Show. The same year, the ranch was honored with the AQHA Best Remuda Award. In 2004, it campaigned Real Gun to the AQHA Superhorse title, and in 2022 it showed Seven S Crazy Horse, or “Batman,” to a national title in the Ranch Horse Association of America and to the Top Horse award at the Western Heritage Classic ranch rodeo. Many other successful Stuart horses have proven their worth in the
arena and on the ranch, which underscores Terry’s philosophy for running a ranch. It’s not just about diversification; it’s also about integration.
“Whether it’s the beautiful lodge they built, the hunting operation, the cattle—all those things feed into a business model that is set for success,” says Michael Kelsey, a close friend and executive vice president of the OCA. “Yes, the ranch is diverse. But all those segments work fundamentally together to support the family legacy.”
The beef herd features Angus-Hereford cross cows, but a Corriente herd is utilized in Caddo for brush and pasture maintenance. It also supplies team ropers with sport cattle and provides calving-ease bulls for Stuart first-calf heifers.
The outfitting business offers hunts for whitetail, turkey, hogs and waterfowl such as ducks and geese. Last year they guided hunts for 500 guests, many of them staying in the newly constructed lodge.
“Waterfowl development here is full-time,” Terry says. “They plant, they build sloughs, they document, they strategize. There’s a lot of work that goes into it.
“Building the lodge was an integral part of being able to expand. Before we went to the bank with the business plan, we asked ourselves, ‘Do we want status quo, or do we want to grow?’ And all three of us—Clay, Robert and I—decided to do it. One of our bankers said, ‘We’ll grant this loan, but one requirement is that it’s first-class.’ And it is. The parable of the talents in Matthew 25 [which teaches stewardship] is written on the cornerstone.”
Spotlight Duty
For someone who genuinely doesn’t want to be the center of attention, Terry finds herself in the spotlight often. Aside from times she’s being recognized or receiving an award, Terry steps up, front and center, because she can’t bear to stand on the sidelines.
“Right is right and wrong is wrong,” she says. “I don’t have any gray area in my life. There are certain things I believe in, and I’m willing to fight for them.”
As an example, a few years ago, a bill was presented through Congress to designate the historic Chisholm Trail for federal lands. Although it appeared the legislation would celebrate and preserve an important piece of Western heritage, Terry found a clause that threatened the property rights of landowners along the Trail.
“It looked very attractive from a Western heritage standpoint,” Kelsey says. “Led by Terry, we started asking questions. Her wisdom and leadership helped us curb the wording in that bill. In setting up those trail designations through Congress, we could have inadvertently eroded some property rights.”
The bill, amended in 2023, still has not passed.
“I believe we have a duty to serve, and we have an obligation to steward what God has given us,” Terry says. “I’m supposed to take care of the place and the resources I’ve been given. Our founding fathers gave us property rights, and I’m a huge advocate for that. Huge.”
Terry continues to volunteer on multiple association committees and task forces, speaks at various conferences and conducts interviews with the news media, seeing it as a responsibility to explain her way of life to the general public. Western television personality Pam Minick says Terry carries a unique appeal on camera and on stage.
“She is authentic,” Minick says. “She’ll show up at the most elegant event wearing her boots and jeans. She doesn’t put on any airs. And what she does is not for the attention or for the personal gain; she does it because it’s the right thing to do for the industry.”
Kelli Brown of the RA Brown Ranch in Texas adds that Terry has also influenced many fellow ranchers in one-on-one settings. Not only did Brown purchase her first mares from the Stuart Ranch, but she buys into whatever advice she can get from her friend of more than 30 years.
“Terry has become more than a mentor to me,” Brown says. “There are just a few individuals in my life who I can count on for Godly counsel. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about breeding horses, standing behind a product, entrepreneurship, patriotism, faith or family. Whatever it is, her words are sprinkled with such wisdom. Most of it is because she has navigated those landmines herself.”
Part of navigating landmines these days is stepping more into the public eye. Terry and her sons believe having a strong social media presence is necessary. They have revamped their website, increased posts on Facebook and Instagram, and hired professional content creators.
“We feel like we have a good story to tell, and social media opens up opportunities to expose people to what we do,” Terry says. “Yes, we get some negative comments from animal rights activists and environmentalists, but for the most part everybody is in our corner. They know that we take care of the land, the resources and the animals that we make a living from."
“What we do isn’t unique. We just happen to have a voice, and we want to use it to bring what we do and what we stand for to the forefront. You would not believe the calls we get from organizations who want to tour our ranch, thanks to social media.”
Of course, visitors to the ranch may have to saddle up and dodge locust trees if they want to get a glimpse of the outfit’s star owner and perpetual driving force.
“She’s famous,” Clay says. “She is incredibly impressive and as humble as can possibly be. She does not want any of this attention, but she deserves all of it.”
Thank you American Hat Company for being the 2026 presenting sponsor of the National Golden Spur Award Honors and to Chas. S. Middleton and Son for being the 2026 National Golden Spur Award sponsor.
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