Ranching is in my genes and my jeans are Wranglers®
I am often asked why a technology entrepreneur would want to be a cattle rancher. Of course, if you count subdivided, formerly viable cattle ranches, it would seem that nearly all technology entrepreneurs are “ranchers”. Consider technology and other entrepreneurs who are buying those 10 to 160 acre parcels of formerly viable working cattle ranches. In Utah (and they are also abundant in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, and Oregon) consider Promontory, The Preserve, Wolf Creek, and Glenwilde. I can understand if you have never lived in the country and want amenities such as ski resorts, swimming pools, golf courses, riding stables, ice skating rinks, and club houses with spas. Maybe paying several million dollars for a trophy home and a few acres makes sense for some if it includes such amenities. But what about those million dollar lots (as small as 10 acre parcels) on lands that use to be used as summer pasture for a cattle ranch? Even these lots with no amenities are selling! One brochure for these amenity-less ranch lots stated that not having a golf course was not a big deal because you could have a membership at the neighboring “ranch” if you hurry and purchase one before they are all bought up by residents of the neighboring “ranch”. I just don’t get it but a lot of people with a lot more money and a lot more brains than I have do get it!
So, why wasn’t it okay for me to just purchase a ranchette? Because owning a working cattle ranch in Montana has been a life-long dream……..because ranching is in my genes and I want my jeans to be Wranglers! How did those genes get developed? I think I first recognized them in 1956 when our father took the family on a driving vacation from our home town, Joseph City, Arizona to Utah, Idaho, and Montana. I think that Dad had been following the Hungry Horse dam since its completion in 1952 and finally got the opportunity to travel to Montana and see that amazing country and the dam and reservoir. As I recall, we drove from Arizona to Idaho Falls, Idaho in the first day. Then we started out early from Idaho Falls and it was still early when we ascended the Great Divide at the Monida Pass. I recall vividly waking up in the back seat, rubbing the condensation off the window on the east side, looking out and asking Dad in a tone of keen interest, “where is this, Dad”. “Son, this is Montana!” As I marveled at the country for the next few miles and subsequently for years reflected upon the landscape and experience, I committed to myself that some day I would own a real working cattle ranch in Montana. As I have reflected on this experience throughout my life it has amazed me that I was so impressed with southwest Montana and, specifically, with the Montana side of the Great Divide. This part of Montana has rolling, gentle hills with sagebrush, some pines on the tops of mountain ranges, sprinkled with green meadows, and corrals in wide open country. I was also impressed with the bigness of the land and sky. But this was not Glacier Park or Yellowstone. How could someone be so impressed with sagebrush? Unlike so many today, I was impressed not because it did not have cattle on it but because it did! The land had a purpose. It was brought to life by the work done by Cowboys and ranch hands and the cattle that roamed and grazed its foothills and valleys. It is quite amazing that when I finally was able to buy a Montana ranch it was located literally a few exits and miles beyond the Monida Pass. I cannot drive over the Pass today without fond memories of Dad taking our family over the Pass for the first time in 1956. I only wish that I could have returned the trip for him and taken him to the Horse Prairie Ranch and showed him how I had realized my dream which was developed, in part, by his taking a family vacation to Montana.
I was 8 years old when I first experienced Montana. Within a couple of years my dream and the genes that fueled it would develop further. In our little town in northern Arizona my uncle Russell Westover ran a relatively small herd of Guernsey and Holstein milk Cows. It was my privilege, along with my brothers, to work at the Westover Guernsey Dairy. We brought in the Cows, cleaned off their teats with a hot rag (during the winter months this gave us chapped hands which would help us keep our distance from the girls as we grew into teenagers), grained them, and then fed them hay following each milking. For me, it was easy to wake up at 4:40 a.m. as our sweet and soft spoken Mother would whisper “Kenneth, it’s time to go milk”. I have never had trouble rising early in the morning because of this great habit that my Mother so gently taught me. Ranchers get up early in the mornings. The early morning rancher gene developed. I loved the Cows. We used to name them after our girl friends --- not always flattering to either the girl or the Cow! As I worked with Cows and Calves I grew to like the work. I saw them as God’s creation put on earth for a purpose.
Working for the Dairy I was now qualified to join 4-H. I first raised a sheep with my brother Lee. Then, I was able to purchase my first Quarter Horse, Tilly, from a Navajo Indian. Tilly was very fast, so fast that I would often have to ride her in the wash where there was deep soft sand, just to slow her down. Tilly was a little rank at times and would, on occasion, buck me off. More than once I would be riding out in the rangeland out of town and she would buck me off then run down the middle of Route 66 and right into her corral. The tourists on Route 66 must have thought that they were really in the Wild West! To her credit, I used to race Tilly in the quarter mile races in Navajo County and, at least on one occasion, we won, in Holbrook, even with my heavy roping saddle on Tilly. I owe my parents and siblings for allowing me to use the family property to construct a makeshift barn, corral, and turning our large vegetable garden into a horse pasture.
Once I had a horse and belonged to the 4-H, I was able, with the help of Johnny Paulsell, a local rancher, to ride with him on his range one fall, between Winslow and Joseph City, south of BlackRock and north of Route 66, in what once was part of the Aztec Cattle Company and HashKnife outfits (one of the West’s largest ranches, headquartered just across the Santa Fe railroad tracks and Little Cottonwood River, south of my home town --- http://www.legendsofamerica.com/AZ-Holbrook.html). I loved the ride and we picked out a very good looking Hereford Steer. I took the Steer home and taught him to lead and raised him through the winter months and into the next summer. When I got in the ring at the Navajo County Fair I noticed that the judge was looking quite a bit at my Steer. I was excited that I might get the Grand Champion prize. Then the tall judge walked over to me, leaned down with his big Cowboy hat shading his face, and said “Son, your Steer has the best breeding and conformation. He should get Grand Champion but you didn’t grain him enough at the end. You didn’t finish him off”. All I could think of was that I should have gone the last mile as well as I went the first miles. The last 10% is more important that the first 90%. I had learned a great object lesson that would stay with me for life. Always “finish” the job! The difference for me between First prize and Grand Champion was not the 12 months I had raised the Steer but the last 90 days! I do remember Schuster’s, a local department store, purchasing my Steer for $360.00 dollars……I thought I was on my way to becoming a cattle baron!
In my early teen years I also got exposed to rodeos. In Junior Rodeos I would ride Steers. I remember one time in Seligman, Arizona riding a Steer. I was so determined to stay on that I wouldn’t let go of the riggings (rope). The more he bucked the more I started to fall to the left side. At one point I was nearly at a right angle with the Steer. I finally felt something in my back pocket and quickly realized it was the Steer’s left rear foot! My pants were immediately ripped off and I was left standing in the arena with the back of my Wranglers ripped off………thank goodness for large hats staying on. As I walked from the center of the arena I heard the announcer say “There’s a young Cowboy who spent five dollars on an entrance fee and now will have to spend another five dollars on a new pair of jeans”. It was embarrassing to say the least.
As I tried, unsuccessfully, to learn to rope from Tilly I soon realize that I needed a new horse. I learned through my brother-in-law, Joe Young that a person in Holbrook had a mare bred by a local stud, Full Float. We contracted with this person to exchange 15 weaned dairy Calves for the foal. I and my mother drove the ten miles from Joseph City to Holbrook to deliver the Calves. The father of the man who owned the foal went crazy over the weaned dairy Calves. I guess he expected beef Calves (e.g. Herefords or Angus). However, he knew that I was getting the Calves from my uncle’s dairy farm and that they would be Holsteins and Guernseys and Holstein and Guernsey crosses. With a little help from local legal counsel and my wonderful Mother who was not about to see her son taken advantage of, we got the deal done and ended up with Float Hy’s colt, which we named Full Float. The person from whom we purchased the colt decided to play one last trick and refused to have Full Float registered with the American Quarter Horse Association, and instead, registered it with the Model Quarter Horse Association, some knock off association in central California. This devalued Full Float and he could not bring a respectable fee for breeding. He was a beautiful horse and I enjoy a photo of him on the credenza of my office.
One gene that sparked but didn’t (thankfully) develop was rodeoing. In addition
To my Junior rodeo experience I once entered the Navajo County Rodeo in Holbrook, Arizona. I rode a bareback with new riggings that I had purchased. I don’t recall how many seconds I rode but I think it could have been measured in nanoseconds! That was all I needed of the rodeo circuit.
I suppose I was not committed enough or didn’t have enough genes, to pursue a true Cowboy’s livelihood. I eventually went to college, got married, pursued a career in technology, and with the help of Marie, raised a wonderful family. It’s a world of irony. Real Cowboys can’t find enough opportunities to Cowboy, let alone buy a ranch and technology entrepreneurs spend their lives in a professional that has nothing to do with ranching, but then on occasion, are fortunate enough to have the resources to buy ranchlife! I would never say one route was better than the other. I didn’t ride a horse for 30 years while working in technology. I was certainly not knowledgeable about ranching and Cowboying when I got the opportunity to do it.
As I review our family gene pool I can see that most of my genes for ranching came from my paternal grandfather --- Lyman Longfellow Duncan. Lyman was born on 12 May 1876 in McMinnville, Tennessee. In 1881 Lyman’s father, Patrick Henry Duncan, and his wife Elizabeth, migrated from Tennessee to Wichita County, Texas, 20 miles west of Wichita Falls, Texas. At the age of 15, Lyman went to work for 5 years for Burkburnett at the “6666” ranch near Guthrie, Texas. It was said of Lyman that he had a knack with a rope, throwing the smoothest under-handed loop to lasso a horse anyone had ever saw. He worked with the horses, and unlike my nanosecond experience on a bareback, broke horses for the Remuda the old fashioned way………bucking until his kidneys hurt. As he grew older, Lyman continued to work on ranches. In 1904 he left Oklahoma for Colorado, driving a herd of Longhorns for the “JJ Cattle Company” on the Picket Wire River Ranch. The next season he was on another cattle drive in Colorado for the Charming River Ranch in Texas. Lyman continued to work on Texas and Oklahoma ranches. Lyman migrated from Texas, to Colorado, New Mexico, and eventually Holbrook, Arizona in 1912. Lyman and his brother, William, drilled water wells in the area, eventually drilling one for the Perkins family in Taylor, Arizona. The Perkins had a beautiful 27-year old daughter, with whom Lyman, now 41 years of age, fell in love! Lyman ran cows but really liked horses.
At one time, he left Arizona to return to Oklahoma to visit his mother and upon his return discovered that 360 of his horses had been stolen from a pasture about 12 miles west of Shumway, Arizona. Lyman trailed the horses on horseback, about 165 miles to a railroad stockyard near Phoenix, where they had been loaded onto waiting rail cars……..the trail was lost!
Lyman and a Paint at his Clay Springs, Arizona ranch in 1927.
So, why wasn’t it okay for me to just purchase a ranchette? Because owning a working cattle ranch in Montana has been a life-long dream……..because ranching is in my genes and I want my jeans to be Wranglers! How did those genes get developed? I think I first recognized them in 1956 when our father took the family on a driving vacation from our home town, Joseph City, Arizona to Utah, Idaho, and Montana. I think that Dad had been following the Hungry Horse dam since its completion in 1952 and finally got the opportunity to travel to Montana and see that amazing country and the dam and reservoir. As I recall, we drove from Arizona to Idaho Falls, Idaho in the first day. Then we started out early from Idaho Falls and it was still early when we ascended the Great Divide at the Monida Pass. I recall vividly waking up in the back seat, rubbing the condensation off the window on the east side, looking out and asking Dad in a tone of keen interest, “where is this, Dad”. “Son, this is Montana!” As I marveled at the country for the next few miles and subsequently for years reflected upon the landscape and experience, I committed to myself that some day I would own a real working cattle ranch in Montana. As I have reflected on this experience throughout my life it has amazed me that I was so impressed with southwest Montana and, specifically, with the Montana side of the Great Divide. This part of Montana has rolling, gentle hills with sagebrush, some pines on the tops of mountain ranges, sprinkled with green meadows, and corrals in wide open country. I was also impressed with the bigness of the land and sky. But this was not Glacier Park or Yellowstone. How could someone be so impressed with sagebrush? Unlike so many today, I was impressed not because it did not have cattle on it but because it did! The land had a purpose. It was brought to life by the work done by Cowboys and ranch hands and the cattle that roamed and grazed its foothills and valleys. It is quite amazing that when I finally was able to buy a Montana ranch it was located literally a few exits and miles beyond the Monida Pass. I cannot drive over the Pass today without fond memories of Dad taking our family over the Pass for the first time in 1956. I only wish that I could have returned the trip for him and taken him to the Horse Prairie Ranch and showed him how I had realized my dream which was developed, in part, by his taking a family vacation to Montana.
I was 8 years old when I first experienced Montana. Within a couple of years my dream and the genes that fueled it would develop further. In our little town in northern Arizona my uncle Russell Westover ran a relatively small herd of Guernsey and Holstein milk Cows. It was my privilege, along with my brothers, to work at the Westover Guernsey Dairy. We brought in the Cows, cleaned off their teats with a hot rag (during the winter months this gave us chapped hands which would help us keep our distance from the girls as we grew into teenagers), grained them, and then fed them hay following each milking. For me, it was easy to wake up at 4:40 a.m. as our sweet and soft spoken Mother would whisper “Kenneth, it’s time to go milk”. I have never had trouble rising early in the morning because of this great habit that my Mother so gently taught me. Ranchers get up early in the mornings. The early morning rancher gene developed. I loved the Cows. We used to name them after our girl friends --- not always flattering to either the girl or the Cow! As I worked with Cows and Calves I grew to like the work. I saw them as God’s creation put on earth for a purpose.
Working for the Dairy I was now qualified to join 4-H. I first raised a sheep with my brother Lee. Then, I was able to purchase my first Quarter Horse, Tilly, from a Navajo Indian. Tilly was very fast, so fast that I would often have to ride her in the wash where there was deep soft sand, just to slow her down. Tilly was a little rank at times and would, on occasion, buck me off. More than once I would be riding out in the rangeland out of town and she would buck me off then run down the middle of Route 66 and right into her corral. The tourists on Route 66 must have thought that they were really in the Wild West! To her credit, I used to race Tilly in the quarter mile races in Navajo County and, at least on one occasion, we won, in Holbrook, even with my heavy roping saddle on Tilly. I owe my parents and siblings for allowing me to use the family property to construct a makeshift barn, corral, and turning our large vegetable garden into a horse pasture.
Once I had a horse and belonged to the 4-H, I was able, with the help of Johnny Paulsell, a local rancher, to ride with him on his range one fall, between Winslow and Joseph City, south of BlackRock and north of Route 66, in what once was part of the Aztec Cattle Company and HashKnife outfits (one of the West’s largest ranches, headquartered just across the Santa Fe railroad tracks and Little Cottonwood River, south of my home town --- http://www.legendsofamerica.com/AZ-Holbrook.html). I loved the ride and we picked out a very good looking Hereford Steer. I took the Steer home and taught him to lead and raised him through the winter months and into the next summer. When I got in the ring at the Navajo County Fair I noticed that the judge was looking quite a bit at my Steer. I was excited that I might get the Grand Champion prize. Then the tall judge walked over to me, leaned down with his big Cowboy hat shading his face, and said “Son, your Steer has the best breeding and conformation. He should get Grand Champion but you didn’t grain him enough at the end. You didn’t finish him off”. All I could think of was that I should have gone the last mile as well as I went the first miles. The last 10% is more important that the first 90%. I had learned a great object lesson that would stay with me for life. Always “finish” the job! The difference for me between First prize and Grand Champion was not the 12 months I had raised the Steer but the last 90 days! I do remember Schuster’s, a local department store, purchasing my Steer for $360.00 dollars……I thought I was on my way to becoming a cattle baron!
In my early teen years I also got exposed to rodeos. In Junior Rodeos I would ride Steers. I remember one time in Seligman, Arizona riding a Steer. I was so determined to stay on that I wouldn’t let go of the riggings (rope). The more he bucked the more I started to fall to the left side. At one point I was nearly at a right angle with the Steer. I finally felt something in my back pocket and quickly realized it was the Steer’s left rear foot! My pants were immediately ripped off and I was left standing in the arena with the back of my Wranglers ripped off………thank goodness for large hats staying on. As I walked from the center of the arena I heard the announcer say “There’s a young Cowboy who spent five dollars on an entrance fee and now will have to spend another five dollars on a new pair of jeans”. It was embarrassing to say the least.
As I tried, unsuccessfully, to learn to rope from Tilly I soon realize that I needed a new horse. I learned through my brother-in-law, Joe Young that a person in Holbrook had a mare bred by a local stud, Full Float. We contracted with this person to exchange 15 weaned dairy Calves for the foal. I and my mother drove the ten miles from Joseph City to Holbrook to deliver the Calves. The father of the man who owned the foal went crazy over the weaned dairy Calves. I guess he expected beef Calves (e.g. Herefords or Angus). However, he knew that I was getting the Calves from my uncle’s dairy farm and that they would be Holsteins and Guernseys and Holstein and Guernsey crosses. With a little help from local legal counsel and my wonderful Mother who was not about to see her son taken advantage of, we got the deal done and ended up with Float Hy’s colt, which we named Full Float. The person from whom we purchased the colt decided to play one last trick and refused to have Full Float registered with the American Quarter Horse Association, and instead, registered it with the Model Quarter Horse Association, some knock off association in central California. This devalued Full Float and he could not bring a respectable fee for breeding. He was a beautiful horse and I enjoy a photo of him on the credenza of my office.
One gene that sparked but didn’t (thankfully) develop was rodeoing. In addition
To my Junior rodeo experience I once entered the Navajo County Rodeo in Holbrook, Arizona. I rode a bareback with new riggings that I had purchased. I don’t recall how many seconds I rode but I think it could have been measured in nanoseconds! That was all I needed of the rodeo circuit.
I suppose I was not committed enough or didn’t have enough genes, to pursue a true Cowboy’s livelihood. I eventually went to college, got married, pursued a career in technology, and with the help of Marie, raised a wonderful family. It’s a world of irony. Real Cowboys can’t find enough opportunities to Cowboy, let alone buy a ranch and technology entrepreneurs spend their lives in a professional that has nothing to do with ranching, but then on occasion, are fortunate enough to have the resources to buy ranchlife! I would never say one route was better than the other. I didn’t ride a horse for 30 years while working in technology. I was certainly not knowledgeable about ranching and Cowboying when I got the opportunity to do it.
As I review our family gene pool I can see that most of my genes for ranching came from my paternal grandfather --- Lyman Longfellow Duncan. Lyman was born on 12 May 1876 in McMinnville, Tennessee. In 1881 Lyman’s father, Patrick Henry Duncan, and his wife Elizabeth, migrated from Tennessee to Wichita County, Texas, 20 miles west of Wichita Falls, Texas. At the age of 15, Lyman went to work for 5 years for Burkburnett at the “6666” ranch near Guthrie, Texas. It was said of Lyman that he had a knack with a rope, throwing the smoothest under-handed loop to lasso a horse anyone had ever saw. He worked with the horses, and unlike my nanosecond experience on a bareback, broke horses for the Remuda the old fashioned way………bucking until his kidneys hurt. As he grew older, Lyman continued to work on ranches. In 1904 he left Oklahoma for Colorado, driving a herd of Longhorns for the “JJ Cattle Company” on the Picket Wire River Ranch. The next season he was on another cattle drive in Colorado for the Charming River Ranch in Texas. Lyman continued to work on Texas and Oklahoma ranches. Lyman migrated from Texas, to Colorado, New Mexico, and eventually Holbrook, Arizona in 1912. Lyman and his brother, William, drilled water wells in the area, eventually drilling one for the Perkins family in Taylor, Arizona. The Perkins had a beautiful 27-year old daughter, with whom Lyman, now 41 years of age, fell in love! Lyman ran cows but really liked horses.
At one time, he left Arizona to return to Oklahoma to visit his mother and upon his return discovered that 360 of his horses had been stolen from a pasture about 12 miles west of Shumway, Arizona. Lyman trailed the horses on horseback, about 165 miles to a railroad stockyard near Phoenix, where they had been loaded onto waiting rail cars……..the trail was lost!
Lyman and a Paint at his Clay Springs, Arizona ranch in 1927.
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