Five Interns, One Summer: What It's Really Like to Intern at Jorgensen Land & Cattle
Jorgensen Land & Cattle ·
The campfire had burned down to coals by the time the last of the crew turned in. A few slept in the stock trailers. One slept in a pickup cab. One, against all good advice, strung up a hammock on a 50-degree night with rain moving through. At sunrise they saddled up and pushed a set of heifers six miles home.
Nobody had to do it that way. The heifers could have ridden on a trailer. "People ask us why we did that," said Phil Jorgensen, JLC's feedlot manager. "Why not? Because it was fun."
For the five college students who interned at JLC this summer, that overnight drive was the memory nearly all of them named first. It also captures what the internship is about: real work, done right, alongside people who love doing it.
Meet the 2026 intern class
They came from California, Nebraska, and both ends of South Dakota. Two grew up on family feedlots. Two had never worked cattle before. One had never sat on a horse. By August, all five were sorting bulls, riding pens, and roping calves.
Nathan Williams grew up in California, in the heart of one of the biggest dairy regions in the country, but not on a farm. At Fresno State, he switched his major from business to livestock management and threw himself in, loading hay at a feed store after class and volunteering at the university beef unit, where he hand fed cattle on 100-degree evenings when the feed wagon broke down. He met the JLC team at the California Cattlemen's Convention in Reno and still keeps their business cards in his wallet. "It's hard when you don't have the background," he said of his internship search. JLC gave him a shot.
Mack Mlnarik grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, but spent every chance she could at her grandpa's feed store and cow-calf operation in the northern part of the state. A high school job at a horse farm gave her the horse bug for good. Today she studies animal science and plays softball for Northwest Missouri State. Her cousin Aleyna, a former JLC intern who now works here full time, told her to apply. Mack had other offers on the table. "Coming here is one of the best decisions I've made," she said.
Annie Henderson grew up near Somerset, north of Rapid City, riding her aunt's horses but rarely around cattle. She studies animal science and agricultural business at Mitchell Tech and spent the previous summer at a horse collection facility. This year she wanted cattle, and she wanted a challenge. "I knew I needed to get out of my comfort zone and go somewhere I didn't know anybody," she said. She met Reagan Nielsen at an internship fair and handed over her resume.
Zach Connor grew up on his family's feedlot and farm between Madison and Howard, South Dakota. He started with bottle calves and 4-H cattle, built a small herd of his own pairs and feeders, and worked at the local sale barn in high school. Now heading into his junior year in animal science at South Dakota State, he was recently elected assistant manager of Little International. A former JLC intern encouraged him to apply.
Joe Steffen comes from a growing family operation near Hartington, Nebraska, with hogs, pairs, a feedlot, and a tub grinding business. At 20, the SDSU sophomore is already buying pairs of his own. His dad had always pushed him to do an internship. With his siblings covering things at home, Joe decided this was the summer to go learn something new and bring it back.
No two days alike
Mornings at JLC often start with sorting bulls, two or three hours of it. After that, the day goes wherever the operation needs it.
"It's always something new," Joe said. "Today I was in the shop. The day before, it was something completely different."
Over three months, the interns fed and sorted bulls, scanned pens, moved cows and heifers horseback, helped with weaning, tagged calves, and fixed fence. With three full-time employees on the feedlot through the summer, five extra sets of hands mattered. "They were an extreme help," Phil said.
Learning by doing
Nathan's first day on the job, he was honest with Phil: horses scared him. By the end of the summer he was riding pens on Snoop, a steady gelding the crew teased as slow and lazy but who never failed to get the job done. Nathan even served as pack horse, saddlebags full of snacks, on the overnight drive.
The other riders found their own teachers. Annie credits Buckeye, an older buckskin known for keeping his rider out of trouble, with teaching her to ride ranch horses. Mack put some of the first real training on a sale barn find the crew nicknamed "the horse with no name." Zach has already promised to come back after graduation and buy George, a little bay he says "never runs out of ambition."
Some lessons came all at once. One morning during weaning, the crew found a handful of untagged calves, a few days old and quick enough to outrun anyone on foot. Phil asked who had ever roped anything. Nobody had. By the end of the morning, every one of them had roped two.
Advice from the class of 2026
Asked what they would tell next year's interns, the group landed on the same answer.
"Come with an open mind," Mack said. "You get out of this what you put into it. You get every opportunity to work in any part of the operation, ask questions, and talk to whoever you want to talk to. That's what the internship is for."
Zach agreed. "There's a lot of very cool things happening here all the time, between the cattle side, the crop side, cows, bulls, the feedlot," he said. "And there's a lot of people willing to tell you about it. Watch and learn."
Phil's version is simpler. "Ask questions. You're here to learn," he said. "It's cheaper than college. You get paid to be here."
One more tip from the crew: bring your own fencing pliers. You'll need them.
Why you should apply
You don't need to have grown up on a ranch to intern at JLC. This year's class included a California kid who had never ridden a horse and a city kid from Lincoln, working shoulder to shoulder with students raised on feedlots. What they shared was a willingness to work hard and learn.
In return, they got hands-on experience across a working seedstock, feedlot, and farming operation, mentors who wanted them to succeed, a paycheck, and a summer they'll be talking about for years.
How to apply
Reach out early. Several of this year's interns first made contact in the fall, months before applications opened.
Submit your resume and a short questionnaire. Expect questions about your background in agriculture and what you hope to learn.
Questions about the program? Contact Reagan Nielsen at reagan.nielsen@jorgensenfarms.com. She'll walk you through the process.