Jerry Franklin (Minco, Okla.)
While many veterans were coming back from Vietnam in 1971 with no job leads or ideas of what to do after their tours of duty were over, Jerry Franklin, CJF, knew exactly what he was going to do.
He grew up in Oklahoma working for his dad on their ranch raising cattle, shoeing horses with his dad and whatever it took to raise a family. He was drafted and served two years in Vietnam. He came home to marry the woman, Dana, he’d met only briefly before leaving to serve his country (to whom he’s still married today). After receiving a degree in Animal Science, he found that shoeing horses was a good way to raise his soon to be son and daughter. After a brief stint working at a ski resort and guiding hunting trips while starting his shoeing business, he was able to go full time as a farrier.
For many years, Jerry shod horses without a forge, an old railroad tie for an anvil and a bucket of tools. Those “toys” evening transitioned into a shoeing truck full of tools but still no forge. He has told of the times that farriers didn’t work together, didn’t exchange ideas or let others see their work for fear of competition for customers. He would work from early morning until late at night every day plus most weekends to support his family and to allow his two kids to show paint horses around the country. They made him proud by winning several world championships on horses that they trained themselves or worked for trainers to pay for training. Jerry knew about certification and competition but it wasn’t something he had time or effort to do.
As his oldest son, Dusty became a teenager, he started shoeing horses with his dad after school, weekends or during the summer. It wasn’t what Dusty thought he would be doing as a career as he wanted to be a horse trainer. Their concept of shoeing horses was to nail as many shoes on as many horses as they could in as little time as possible and still do a good job. At that time was a typical father/son relationship where the son and father didn’t share the goals for the future but they made it work.
When Dusty moved away to become a trainer for a horse farm in 1991, Jerry was proud of him moving forward with that career. In late 1993, Jerry received a phone call from Dusty asking to borrow $90 for a forging class at the local community college. Dusty had seen the farrier come into his barn and make more money in one day than he did in an entire week and realized that his dad might be on to something. Jerry sent Dusty the money and he began an 8 week forging class with Charlie Comstock in Nevada, Missouri.
Dusty started the forging class and starting learning about the forge and acquiring forging tools and eventually worked enough to earn a forge of his own. As he was able to buy new tools, he bought one for Jerry. When Dusty got a forge, Jerry got one too. Dusty had found a driven group of farriers that were big on certification and competition and he fell in love with forging and competing and soon pulled Jerry into it with him. Dusty passed his CJF at 24 and Jerry passed his at 50.
Jerry started out teaching Dusty to how to handle horses, how to get around them in a quiet manner that some never could adapt to. He taught him how to shoe horses in the most basic manner. As time went on, the teacher became the student and Dusty was teaching Jerry about forging and more advanced aspects of shoeing horses.
Dusty opened Five Star Horseshoeing School in 2007 in Minco, Oklahoma while Jerry still lived in Texas with a full time business. Jerry moved to Oklahoma in 2013 and joined the school as an instructor as well as still shoes horses full time.
Jerry and Dusty now work side by side at the school, shoeing horses and educating future farriers. They also are teaching the 4th generation Franklin, Cody Franklin, to shoe horses between his junior and senior years of high school.
There are many hard working farriers out there that have made a difference in the farrier world but Jerry Franklin has had an impact of so many farriers in so many small and large ways. He always takes time to help those in need whether they are new to the trade or have been doing it for years. There aren’t many father, son and grandson teams working side by side shoeing horses but I can proudly call them my father-in-law, husband and son. I definitely feel they are farriers worthy of a spotlight.
— Staci Franklin (Minco, Okla.)
