Food Fit for a Cowboy

Lisa Rossow met her future husband, Wayne, in a seemingly perfect way for a girl from western North Dakota: at a boot-scootin’-boogie country bar after a Valentine’s Day rodeo. Besides the cowboy charm, it didn’t take long for the pair to find even more common ground.

Lisa grew up on a dairy and grain operation in Flasher. Her mother, Jackie Miller, is a longtime employee of Mor-Gran-Sou Electric Cooperative, and when she met Wayne, Lisa was working for Roughrider Electric Cooperative.

For his part, Wayne raised Black Angus cattle, soybeans, corn and alfalfa alongside his father on the fifth-generation family farm and ranch, just past the North Dakota border in Herreid, S.D. Wayne’s family also has cooperative roots. His dad, Dwight Rossow, serves as a director on the Cam Wal Electric Cooperative (CWEC) board in South Dakota. Dwight was preceded on the CWEC board by his own father, Dennis Rossow.

“We both grew up in families and cooperatives, working together with friends and neighbors to make things better for our community,” Lisa says. “The democratic member control (principle of cooperatives) allows everybody a voice.”
 

‘GAME FOR ANYTHING’
“I’ve been cooking since I was little,” Lisa says. “It was kind of how we (as family) visited.”

When Lisa was in middle school, Jackie went back to school to earn her college degree. Lisa stepped up to help in the kitchen.

That summer, Lisa also took a culinary class at Bismarck High School, where she was introduced to new techniques and honed her cooking skills further.

“I like to make things more upscale,” Lisa says. “When you don’t live in town, you can’t just go out to eat. I try to bring the restaurant home.”

Luckily, she married a man who’s “game for anything” when it comes to food. Of course, living on a ranch, beef is often on the menu. The Rossows also enjoy bison, pork and chicken, and Mexican cuisine is a personal favorite.
 

ROOTS RUN DEEP
The Rossows are introducing their 2-year-old daughter, Kaydence, to this farm and ranch lifestyle, too. They recently built a house on the family homestead, surrounded by cows on all sides! And the cooperative roots still run deep. Lisa enjoys her job, a 30-minute commute away, as a data/communications analyst at KEM Electric Cooperative in Linton.

When asked if she’ll let Wayne serve on the local electric cooperative board someday, the answer comes easy.

“Yes!” she says with a big smile. “In Campbell (County, S.D.), the (Rossow) family was the eighth to get electricity. The line was 1 mile from the farm, but the (power provider) wouldn’t get them electricity.”

But the co-op did. For the Rossows, they know what the co-op has done for the life they’ve chosen to live, as a farm and ranch family. It seems a fact they won’t soon forget.