Ralph Isom

Ralph Isom has been a farmer and rancher for his entire life. His dad was a dairyman, so he was born into the business. He started renting equipment and stacking hay the year he got out of high school, opening his own hay business. Finding success in that, he started leasing farms and purchasing equipment. He got into raising cattle and then began purchasing farms. He grew wheat, barley, potatoes, alfalfa, and silage corn for feed lots. He owned and operated two ranches, one in Henry’s Lake and the other in Centennial Valley. At one point, he owned 3,500 acres, had 750 mother cows, and had 47 employees working on his operations. He owned Eastern Idaho Potato and ran two feedlots for backgrounding cattle, with around 3,500 housed in the feed lot during winters.

Ralph married his wife, Paula, on March 31, 1978. Together they raised four children: Scott, Wendy, Kathy, and Jenna.

Ralph has been a Bonneville County Fire Commissioner for 20 years and served in various leadership positions in Potato Growers of Idaho for 25 years. Ralph’s friend Jerry Scheid invited him to join the CHC Foundation board as someone with an agricultural background, and he’s served on the board ever since.

 Ralph’s passion is fishing. He has done a lot of steelhead fishing on the Salmon River and has been known to sneak off to Alaska from time to time for a fishing adventure.

Written in 2025.