Montana has been home to the Weaver family for more than 130 years. Stan Weaver’s great-grandfather, William Weaver, came west from Tennessee in the 1850s on the Oregon Trail. His family went all the way to Oregon, but after William’s mother and sister died, he and his brothers came back to Montana. They cowboyed in the Judith Basin near Lewistown. Among the great cowboys William worked with at the time was legendary cowboy artist Charlie Russell.

William then drifted up to the Bears Paw Mountain country, about a hundred miles north of Great Falls, Montana, and cowboyed there until he opened a bar in Chinook. Stan’s grandfather, Elmer, was born there in 1895.

At 18, Elmer started breaking horses and then trailed them – up to 300 at a time – the hundred miles from Geraldine, Montana, to Canada, where he sold them, bought more unbroke horses and made the return trip. And, of course, he had to cross the wide Missouri River both ways.

In 1925, Elmer bought a ranch in the Bears Paw Mountains south of Chinook. Through the years, he bought even more land. When he died in 1952, he was able to leave a ranch to each of his four sons, including Stan’s father, Arthur, who passed away in 1981.

“My dad got this ranch,” Stan says, “and then he bought out one of his brothers. Later, he bought some more land and made it a little bigger, and that’s how we got started.”

The Horses

“Even though my grandad was big into horses, my dad was more of a cowman than a horseman,” Stan says. “I’ve always liked horses, and I’ve always had an interest in Quarter Horses. I was getting The Quarter Horse Journal even before we had Quarter Horses. My dad bought our first Quarter Horse, a mare, in 1970, but we didn’t breed her. He just rode her. (My wife) Nancy and I bought our first Quarter Horse mare in 1980, and that’s really the start. After that, every horse we bought was a Quarter Horse.”

Today, the ranch is breeding five stallions, each of which is turned out with a band of mares. One is Perkster by Dash For Perks by Dash For Cash; while another, Smart Topaz, is a son of WR This Cats Smart and out of a daughter of Paddys Irish Whiskey. Another stallion is Originally Smooth by A Smooth Guy by Frenchmans Guy and out of a daughter of First Down Dash, and there are two Tuf N Busy sons, Genuinely Busy and Ima Tuf Lena. Tuf N Busy was by Bueno Chex by King Fritz.

The President

Stan became an AQHA director in 2011, after having served on the board of directors and as president of the Montana Quarter Horse Association.

For AQHA, he has served on a number of committees, and he was the first chairman of the AQHA Ranching Council. He was one of the founders – along with Jim Hunt of South Dakota – of the AQHA Ranching Heritage Breeder Young Horse Development Program, where selected AQHYA members receive a donated weanling from a Ranching Heritage Breeder and compete for scholarships and other awards.

Stan was elected to the AQHA Executive Committee in 2015 and was elected president in March.

But back in the Bears Paw Mountains, alongside 30 miles of gravel road that leads from the small town of Big Sandy, Montana, Stan saddles a horse in a barn that was built in 1915 – it was here when Stan’s grandfather came.

As he steps into the saddle, he says, “We’re just ranchers. That’s all we do. But the horses have been really good to us, so Nancy and I will keep on raising them. Maybe the kids will, too. I hope so.”