We don’t often see our business alums in a cowboy hat.

Probably the favorite part of my job is meeting students and hearing their career dreams and talking to alums and learning about their successes. Jeff Crosswell caught my attention.

After sharing his story with my sister-in-law, she said, “Oh Robin, why do you torture me so? Talk about a dream!”

“When I started my journey as an MBA student at UALR, I had visions of working my way up the corporate ladder. After a merger, I began evaluating starting a family-centered business. It lowers the mystique about starting a business. It allows you to be more confident,” said Croswell on completing the program in 2008.

Incorporating sustainability and economics studies, last year he and his wife Sarah formed Turtle Rock Farms LLC with “big plans, big dreams, and a big family.”

“We were both city-dwellers for most of our lives and desired to return to a simpler life patterned after our visits to the grandparents’ farm,” their website says. “So our family left the city to find a place where our children can experience and enjoy the wonders of nature and we could all learn how to live connected to the land.”

Their family-centered, pasture-based diversified farm on top of Petit Jean provides fresh products, “stressing the importance of supporting local, natural, and transparent farming methods for the benefit of our environment,” Jeff said. “When I say we are a family-centered business, we literally incorporate all six of our children into the business in some way.”

With Avery’s experi”mint”al chocolate, orange, and peppermint mint garden, she keeps the family stocked for tasty ice cream. Photo courtesy of Turtle Rock Farms.

Turtle Rock’s organic products include turkey, chickens, eggs, and tomatoes. Herbs and flowers include mint, stevia, comfrey, gladiolas, sunflowers, tulips, and irises. Fruits grown are blackberries, figs, pears, persimmons, and muscadine grapes. Fresh-milled grains include spelt, oat, kamut, and wheat flours and fresh-rolled organic oats. And bakery goods offered are bagels, breads, and granola.

They sell online at Conway, Little Rock, and Russellville farmers’ markets. The Croswells are founders and market managers for the Russellville Community Market — one of a few online farmers’ markets in the state. They are also partners in Farm2Work, a physical/online market at UAMS and recently began selling poultry to restaurants.

Levi is proud of the season’s first tomatoes. Photo courtesy of Turtle Rock Farms.

The couple homeschools their children, who are learning life lessons beyond what books can teach. They do quite a bit of the feeding, watering, and gathering — saving for trips and treats from egg sales.

Cute kiddos probably make for a good selling tool to customers.

“We have had some successes and many failures so far, but that is always the challenge of owning your own family-centered business,” Jeff added. “I feel so blessed to work with my family as we toil together to help customers “taste the difference a family can make!”

Kendall shows off blackberries. Photo courtesy of Turtle Rock Farms.

Follow the Croswells’ farm and family progress on their blog — a must read on escaping goats, battling Mother Nature, and Apple Butter Day.