Dee Benjamin Gibson
Year Inducted: 2011
Koko Head Dairy | O'ahu
Wailua Ranch | Kaua'i
Saddle City | O'ahu
Dee Benjamin Gibson was born in 1919 on the McCarty Farm in Reading, Kansas. After completing the 10th grade he joined the U. S. Army Cavalry and was sent to schofield barracks. Discharged from the Army in 1939 in hawai’i, he worked as 2nd lead man in charge of the dry docks and was there during the pearl harbor attack. he married Frances Morris, and had two children, Ethel Marie Gibson and Henry E. “Bud” Gibson.
In 1947, he started Koko Head Dairy with his father Hank Gibson. The Gibsons sold the dairy in 1950 to the Hind Dairy. In 1951, he ran the Moanalua Dairy in Kāne`ohe. While managing the dairy, he started the Valley Dairy Farm in Maunawili.
In April 1953, he graduated from Graham Scientific Breeding School, Riverside, California. He then introduced semen collection & artificial insemination to the dairy. In 1957, he started the Seaside Ranch Dairy and Feedlot on Kaua`i, and Wailua Ranch, an alfalfa hay and hog operation, also on, Kaua`i, He was also a professional auctioneer working at 4H livestock sales, dairy replacement heifer sales, and local dairy dispersal sales.
One of the founding fathers of Hawaii’s Hawaii Rodeo and Racing Producers, he built the first portable rodeo arena which was used in 1957 at the old Honolulu Stadium. In his own right he was an accomplished team roper, calf roper, and bronc rider. In 1959, he established Saddle City in Waimanalo, a Western town for locals and tourists, where he produced weekly rodeos and horse shows. There he produced the first Rodeo Cowboys Association rodeo in Hawai`i, bringing in world champions from the mainland like Jim Shoulders.
In 1966, Gibson moved to Chowchilla, California where he continued to be involved in the livestock industry, shipping dairy and beef cattle and other livestock to Hawai`i. In 1970, with Bobby Toledo, he designed and built the first self-contained livestock container for shipping livestock between the islands and mainland. He managed Toledo Dairy following the death of Toledo in 1984.
Together with his partner and wife Frances Gibson, the Gibsons’ main purpose in everything they did was to improve on the quality of livestock and the education of people in the industry. This was instrumental in allowing our local people to become equals to their Mainland counterparts in the beef, dairy, rodeo, and horse industries.