2025 Black Hills Stock Show | Hugh Ingalls Inducted to South Dakota Hall of Fame 

Meade County, South Dakota rancher Hugh Ingalls was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in September 2024. The grandson of pioneer homesteaders, Hugh’s family has called the gumbo, prickly pear and buffalo grass of western South Dakota home since 1908.   

Tenacity. Grit. Neighborliness. Deep roots in agriculture. Over a century of registered Angus cattle. From a horse-drawn five-foot sickle mower to modern machinery, EPDs and genetic testing, Ingalls and his family embody South Dakota’s agricultural and cattle industries.  

“I didn’t get here by myself,” was Ingalls’ response to the nomination. “Really I’m nobody special, but I got to work with a lot of special people.” 

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Hugh and his wife Eleanor raised their six children on the ranch west of Faith, working together to care for the cattle. 

“My family pitched in and worked to get things done, and when I say family, I include Eleanor,” Hugh said.  

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The couple will celebrate 75 years of marriage on June 1, 2025. Whether she was in the saddle or in the garden, helping move cattle or putting a meal on the table, Eleanor has supported Hugh and worked beside him in every endeavor. 

The Hall of Fame nomination tops the list of a lifetime of achievements for Hugh. It’s a list of well-deserved honors, yet he asserts his most important accomplishment is knowing the Lord.  

“I’ve had a lot of help from the Lord along the road,” Hugh said. “There have been some big bumps. He helped me through. My faith has given me purpose in life.” 

Some of the Lord’s help came through Eleanor’s prayers, carrying Hugh and hired men through devastation as drastic as the Atlas blizzard of October 2013, the April blizzard of 1997, or the March blizzard of 1966.  

“I’ve always maintained that if the base herd was good enough it would carry you over some of those losses,” Hugh said. 

In spite of the loss of a substantial percentage of his own herd, Hugh offered to loan cows to young ranchers to help them recover from the shattering losses of the “Atlas” storm. 

Ingalls Centennial Angus cows are known as the oldest Angus herd in South Dakota. The family has owned registered Angus cattle since 1895 when Hugh’s great- grandfather, James L. Ingalls, purchased an Angus bull with the registration certificate number 19975 and a handwritten pedigree.  

Hugh’s father, Lawrence Ingalls, gave him a heifer calf when he was eleven. The black-hided heifer stood out among the Herefords and won a blue ribbon at the Western Junior Livestock Show in Rapid City. She was the first Angus calf entered in the show and the foundation of Hugh’s herd, raising a calf for him every year until 1957.  

“She had heifer calves for quite a few years in a row,” Hugh said. “That was how I got my start.”  

Lawrence Ingalls had a strong impact on Hugh’s life, instilling values of honesty, hard work, perseverance, and a striving for excellence in his children.  

“My dad taught me how to work,” Hugh said. “He taught me honesty. He was pretty firm.” 

Hugh was only nine years old when his mother Marie died. Mable, only a year older than Hugh, took on quite a role as the oldest sister, and Grandma Ingalls, who lived just down the road, “was always there.” Hugh, too, shouldered responsibilities beyond his years. 

Lawrence took over a double role as a parent.  

“I thought he did ok,” Hugh said. 

Hugh Ingalls was recognized as the Black Hills Stock Show (BHSS) Stockman of the year in 1995 for his work and involvement in the cattle industry. He received the BHSS Hall of Fame Silver Spur award in 2010. Ron Jeffries, General Manager of the Central States Fair and BHSS and Rodeo, supported Ingalls’ nomination to the South Dakota Hall of Fame.  

“For 20 years, Hugh served on the BHSS Livestock Committee. He was the ‘Livestock Ambassador’ from the committee to the thousands of cattlemen involved over those years. He kept communications flowing and kept the heart of the show –the cattle shows –a priority in the growth plan. Hugh served as a committee chair, breed representative, livestock steward and consignor for the show,” Jeffries wrote. 

Ingalls believed there was value in getting his cattle out for people to see, although he did not show a lot.  

“Competition is good,” he said.  

The BHSS also provided an opportunity for people to see different types of cattle.  

“You get a cross section of the breeding cattle as well as the show cattle, and there’s a difference,” Ingalls said.  

In this digital age, the BHSS continues to provide an opportunity for people to gather, compete and collaborate. While just about everything can be done online, there are still some people who don’t rely entirely on the computer, and nothing can replace seeing livestock in person. 

Production records have been an important part of Ingalls’ breeding program since 1956. Hugh was one of the first cattlemen in South Dakota to incorporate production records into his ranch management practices. 

Beginning in the 1980s, Hugh and Dr. Robbi Pritchard, South Dakota State University, began collaborating on research projects. The University purchased Hugh’s steer calves for over 30 years, using them in over 20 nationally recognized research projects. According to Dr. Pritchard, Hugh provided the biggest and most productive herd resource for South Dakota State University’s Animal Science Department.  

“I am not aware of anywhere else in the United States where someone has made that kind of a contribution to land grant university research on such a large scale,” Pritchard said. 

Ingalls has seen a lifetime of changes in agriculture.  

“One of my mottos is: ‘Change for the sake of change is no better than tradition for the sake of tradition.’ It applies either way you say it.” 

Still, Hugh said, most of the changes have been positive for the industry.  

“People take better care of their pastures, they don’t overgraze as much,” he said. “People do a better job of selecting replacement females.” 

Mechanization radically changed ranching in Hugh’s lifetime. His early years involved an extraordinary degree of manual labor. Teams of horses pulled mowers, rakes, buckers, wagons, plows and bobsleds. Hay was pitched by hand, grain was shoveled by hand and carried to livestock in buckets. Modern machinery came, in time: tractors with loaders for moving hay, mower-conditioners, balers, snow-blowers: bigger, better equipment that made the tasks of animal husbandry less physically daunting and more efficient. 

“We didn’t have anything to load hay with till probably when I was in high school,” Hugh said.  

The Angus breed, too, has changed. More than one fad has come and gone, but Hugh believes that overall, it has improved through selection. 

“We have always tried to balance selection for multiple traits,” Hugh said. “You can’t select too heavy on one trait or you will sacrifice other traits. Our cows don’t have the luxury to follow fads. The closest we’ve come to following a fad is selecting for weaning weights; that’s what pays the bills.” 

Hugh and Eleanor dispersed their herd in 2020, but a few special cows stayed on the ranch. Hugh is still actively involved in management decisions for his cows, and there will be another crop of Ingalls Centennial Angus calves next spring. Although he’s not doing the day-to-day work on the ranch, Hugh’s passion for land and livestock is still strong.  

Ingalls Angus cows set the bar high. They excel in maternal traits, growth and fertility, and do well both on the range and in the feedlot. 

“Through fad and fashion, good years and bad, the Angus cow has been, is today and will be tomorrow, the pattern of excellence for others to follow and attempt to attain,” Hugh once stated.  

Teddy Roosevelt said, “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.” 

Perhaps, even more than the public accolades, it is the unseen, unsung, everyday, down-to-earth work of a lifetime in agriculture which makes Hugh Ingalls exceptionally worthy of a place in the South Dakota Hall of Fame. 

Investing in quality genetics. Walking the line between pushing the bar just a little higher and maintaining balanced traits. Caring for livestock while working with, or at times, fighting against mother nature.  

Ferrying a pickup load or two of neighbors and family all helping with branding or sorting or working cattle to the house for a meal; rows of boots and hats lining the porch.  

A battered and stained gray felt hat in the blue Dodge or the cake pickup or the bidirectional. Mechanic work in the shop, a tractor or piece of machinery taken all to pieces and put together again; oil and grease and grime and getting the pieces all back in place.  

Saddling a horse and donning a slicker to go turn bulls out in a much needed and very welcome rain. Sorting pairs in a dance between spring and summer with May clouds and blue sky and sagebrush for the stage; humans and horses and cattle each with their place in the choreography. A whirring propeller and the happy hum of an airplane, lifting off on an early summer morning to check pastures.  

Laying windrows down across the hayfields; loading machinery to find hay to put up to ride out a drought. Gathering bales in; rows on rows of stacks filling the yards and standing sentinel on the hill between summer and winter pastures.  

Dusty fall shots, frosty mornings, the music of weaned calves bawling, truckloads of steers headed up the hill past Horse Butte. Green hay rolled out on brown grass or across the snow.  

Sorting bulls. Covering the dining room table with records. Bull buyers walking the pens and coming to the house for coffee. 

Pregnancy testing; freeze branding; AIing. Bringing cows home through a blizzard. Heifers bedded in deep straw in the barn. Checking every hour through dark nights and driving snow. Pairing out after a storm. 

Mud and slick gumbo in the spring bringing green grass and a hay crop and weaving through the seasons once again.  

In these, the day in and day out tasks of ranch work, Hugh Ingalls represents farmers and ranchers throughout South Dakota. His place in the Hall of Fame expresses the significance of the part each individual plays in our agricultural industry, and the tenacity, resilience, determination and respect of South Dakotans past, present and future. 

“South Dakota is cut out to be an agricultural state,” he said. “I don’t mind saying ‘I’m from South Dakota.'” 

His ancestors chose South Dakota and chose Angus cattle; Hugh chose both. 

Dr. Pritchard summed up Hugh’s legacy well.  

“Hugh represents the dignity, integrity, determination, willingness to learn, and the sense of adventure that inspires. He has lived as an example of what we imagine when we tell others what is good about South Dakota ranching. I haven’t met anyone involved in the state’s cattle industry who is more widely known and respected.” 

Congratulations, Hugh, on joining the South Dakota Hall of Fame.