A Four Generation Ranching Family

When I look back at photos of my great granddad, granddad, and dad, I can’t help but think about how much our ranch has evolved. To our family, my granddad was “Papa”. To everyone that knew him, Will T was a cowboy. Papa took a homesteader’s foundation and made a ranch. He would rather be horseback than anywhere else. I can still remember when he was an old man and had suffered debilitating strokes; he could still catch and saddle the “bronciest” horse and would prowl the ranch horseback till sundown.

Papa and dad spent most of their life together on the ranch. I love to hear them tell stories about hunting coyotes horseback with their greyhounds and doctoring screwworms. In those days you had to rope the cattle to doctor them because the screwworms would kill them otherwise. This process, by default, made the cattle pretty wild.

When screwworms were eradicated, one of my dad’s goals was to have better quality cattle that were easier to handle and “gentle”. His philosophy was “Work smarter, not harder” and he was very successful.

My priority as a fourth generation rancher has been to take dad’s success one step further and focus on a high quality Registered-Angus herd. I love studying EPD’s and working to make my herd better every year. It is more than a career. It is a life I am proud to live.

I am constantly talking to and consulting my dad about improving facilities, fences and cattle. We often look around and say: ”Papa would have loved to see this ranch now”.