Feb 16, 2026
By Rick McNary
Cassondra Basinger told herself she would never marry a farmer. Having grown up on a farm near Moundridge, she wanted a different path for her life so she attended Tabor College in Hillsboro to study accounting. By her junior year, she realized she missed the farm life and then she met Chad Basinger on a blind date.
“And the rest is history,” she laughs. “Chad was a few years older than me and already established as a farmer near Pretty Prairie. I’m so glad I changed my mind because now we have four children that who we share farm life with every day.”
Their children, Wyatt, Aubrey, Barrett and Kinley, range in age from 13-years-old to 5.
“What I loved about the farm I grew up on and now can teach our children is the work ethic, the love of being outside and the responsibility of having another living creature depend on you,” Cassondra says. “Our kids love to get their hands in the dirt, raise bottle calves and learn about the cycle of life.”
The Basingers live in an unusual part of Kansas that attracts special attention because they are part of the Cheney Reservoir drainage, a five-county region whose water runoff supplies the city of Wichita and surrounding areas for drinking water.
Once the Kansas territory opened up in the late 1800s, people settled near rivers. However, as cities sprung up along the rivers, they were subjected to torrential flooding. As more cities became devastated, an appeal was made to congress for federal solutions, so they started building reservoirs along major rivers in the 1930s. All federal reservoirs in Kansas are managed by the Army Corps of Engineers — a federal agency that often leases portions of land to the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks for State Parks. Cheney Reservoir was completed in 1965 to help with flood control and supply drinking water.
A spokesperson for the Cheney Watershed District says, “The life expectancy for a reservoir was initially 100 years, but in 1994 the City of Wichita began working with farmers to extend the life of the reservoir. Farmers and ranchers have implemented many sediment-reducing practices such as no-till, cover crops and planting cropland back to perennial vegetation with financial assistance from the City of Wichita. The result of the cooperative efforts between farmers and the city is that today Cheney reservoir is at only 7 percent siltation.”
“There is a lot of education, and promotion for cover crops and cost sharing for differing practices,” Cassondra says. “For example, we planted one of our fields in our no-till system into a cover crop of Sudan, German millet, mungbeans, forage soybeans, sun hemp, sunflowers, rapeseed and buster radishes. It has grown so tall our cattle get lost in it. When we go to check them, we can hear them before we see them.”
The Basingers were some of the first farmers to use Shop Kansas Farms as a way to sell direct-to-consumers.
“We had been selling quarters, halves and wholes to family and friends, but we decided to build out our direct-to-consumer sales,” she says. “We began offering value-added products like beef jerky, beef sticks, summer sausage, bratwursts and beef hot dogs. We sell our beef sticks to the local school at wholesale, then they mark it up for students to purchase. The kids love our beef sticks!”
They’ve also added the ability to sell individual cuts such as steaks, roasts, ground beef, minute steaks, short ribs and briskets. All of these can be purchased directly from their website, LocalKansasBeef.com
Another popular item is their holiday gift boxes, which include items from others like Bruce’s Bullseye Farms, Jason Wiebe Cheese, GG’s Honey and Knackies BBQ Sauce. They shipped out nearly 400 boxes last Christmas to people all over the U.S.
“One of the things we enjoy the most is working with our customers,” Cassondra says. “We were surprised at how excited people get when they discover we finish feeding our beef with milo we raise on our own farm.
“Everything we do regarding our beef has the consumer in mind. Nothing makes us happier than a happy customer who loves our product. While we love the life we live, the beef products we offer connect us to people in meaningful ways. We’re not just out here on the farm by ourselves. Instead, we have built a community of customers that have become our friends.”