I used to attend the annual meeting of the Alberta Beef Cattle Performance Test Association and met Travers Smith who was an active member of the organization. Prior to 1967 at the ABCPA meetings he always stressed performance and progeny test information vs. confirmation and showring (p. 106).
With all his new ideas about performance possibilities, Travers began to read and search for the best performing breed. He received information from H.F. Peters, geneticist with the Lethbridge Research Branch of the Canada Department of Agriculture under date of March 29, 1965, showing that in a 1962-63 U.S. experimental test at Miles City, Montana, the Hereford/Brown Swiss cross out-performed in daily gain, every other bred including the newly imported Charolais and Charolais/domestic crossbreds. Travers decided to pursue that course—Hereford/ Brown Swiss crosses. But good cattle cost good money and the banks were often “at the door,” not always impressed with big ideas; so even with all Travers’ dreams, financial realities kept knocking, and knocking loud.By mid-1965 things got so bad financially that Travers seriously considered selling his ranch. With six children, born in the space of 10 years (1947-1956), he wondered how he was going to help provide for their college needs and their self-funded, 2-year church missions that he hoped they would all serve for their faith.
With the banks not very inclined to more loans, Travers was stymied as to where to turn to finance this venture with high performance cattle and crosses. He had tried so many ways to clear the ranch debt—that inescapable companion to ranching. He had tried cattle. He had tried sheep. He had tried horses. He seemed to be repeating the frustrating cycle of his fathers’—chasing financial security that seemed always just out of reach. Then, in the first week of January 1966, Travers read a 1964 report by that same Hobart F. Peters, geneticist, about Peters' travels in Europe to study animal breeds, including the Simmental; and with that new information, Travers’ Simmental dream began.
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Note: Above news clipping is from an unknown source, probably dated sometime in the mid-1960s.
