20-Year-Old Twins Reinvent a High Plains Farm After Loss
- Media Logic Radio
- Sep 10
- 3 min read
Alex and Paul Mitchek grew up on a farm near Kit Carson, CO. During their senior year of high school, the brothers lost both of their parents to cancer. Determined to keep farming together, they began implementing regenerative practices and launched a cattle company. In addition to farming, Alex is earning an agronomy business degree and Paul purchased, remodeled, and reopened a cafe and motel in town.
Meet the Mitcheks
Kit Carson is a community of around 250 people in the High Plains of eastern Colorado. “There were nine kids in our graduating class, and we were two of them,” Alex said.
Just after senior year started, in September 2022, the brothers lost their mother, Maria, to cancer. Then, in January, they lost their father, Ervin, to the same disease. Ervin had been in the hospital since summer. When Maria’s cancer progressed, the couple was moved into hospice together, about 20 minutes from home.
“We could go over and visit them whenever, and the community stepped up a lot. It was really nice. We got a lot of nice text messages. Heck, Paul and I probably had seven lasagnas in the freezer,” Alex said. Neighbors also offered to help with anything the brothers needed on the farm.
Once they were able to regroup and think about their future, Alex and Paul made a decision: they were going to keep the farm going, and they were going to do it together. And although they learned countless lessons about farming from their father, they agreed they weren’t going to just keep doing things because that’s the way they had always been done.
“We’re minimum till and no-till in certain spots. My dad was a big, ‘put the sweep in the ground and go’ kind of guy,” Paul said. “It was just wheat - fallow - wheat - fallow, and they’d one-way everything. They must have gotten twice the amount of rain we get today because I can’t even imagine working the ground that hard and still growing the crops they did."
Looking Ahead
Paul and his wife, Faith, are expecting their first child later this year and he said he’s looking forward to instilling the lessons he learned growing up on the farm. “We want to teach our kids that you have to work hard to get things you want, and you improve yourself when you do that,” he said.
Alex is earning an agronomy business degree from Fort Hays State University in Kansas, about 3 hours from the farm. He comes home to work whenever he can. Paul regularly attends no-till conferences and other industry events to learn about the latest practices. “That’s my college,” he said.
After graduation in spring 2027, Alex plans to return to the farm full-time. “I love my brother even though we don’t say it, and I’m really excited to be teamed up full time,” he said. “There’s nothing better when we both leave the house in the morning and he’s out spraying and I’m out planting. I can’t explain it, the feeling of gratitude. It’s great when your business partner is your twin brother.”
