THE INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
Oral History Office
SUBJECT: Lyda Family Ranches (Tape 1 of 3)
INTERVIEW WITH: Gerald Lyda Senior, Gene Lyda,
Shay Lyda, Tyler Lyda,
Justin Granberg
DATE: 18 February 2000
PLACE: San Antonio, Texas
INTERVIEWER: Laurie Gudzikowski
TAPE 1, SIDE 1
G: ...La Cantera, and I am talking to Gene Lyda and Gerald Lyda and there're...we're going to be talking about their ranch. The date is February 18th, 2000. And this is for the archives of the Institute of Texan Cultures. I'm going to start with you, Gerald. Would you tell me...state your name and tell me where and when you were born.
Gerald: I'm Gerald Lyda Senior. I was born in Burnet County, Texas, about four miles east of Marble Falls.
G: What date?
Gerald: January 12th, 1923.
G: Thank you. Gene.
Gene: I'm Gene Lyda. I'm Gerald Lyda's son. I was born 6/20/1947, at Nixon, Texas.
G: Thank you. Gerald, you want to tell me what the name of your ranch is and where it's located and a little bit of background about it? Lyda Family Ranches 2
Gerald: Okay, okay. We...our ranch, present ranch, is Gerald: located in Pecos - South Pecos and North Brewster, and we have a supplementary ranch in Reeves and North Pecos County. And we've...started out from childhood with a desire to own a ranch, and it's just been a progressive step since I was eight or nine years old to try to get a ranch and make it a profitable and operating ranch. And we think we've done fairly well at it.
G: Well, tell me about this lifelong dream of yours. When you were eight or nine years old, why were you dreaming of being a rancher?
Gerald: Well, I guess I'll start...I'd always been interested in agriculture and livestock. And I became president of the 4-H Club, a big 4-H Club of about six members. The only reason I got to be president was anybody else wouldn't take the job; I had to take it. I didn't know what my responsibility was, but it sounded important. So I accepted that job.
G: This was in Burnet?
Gerald: Burnet County. Living on a hundred and ten acre farm, at that time, which the family began in 1929, we had the crash, cattle went from fifty dollars down to ten dollars a head. And we went broke. In 1935, the sheriff was a good friend of our family, waited until after Christmas said, "I've got to foreclose on you. I've had Lyda Family Ranches 3
these papers nearly a year," but he said, "I'm not going to foreclose on you till after Christmas." So he come out, and Gerald: my mother had died the year before, and we had seven kids and my dad - seven kids to make a living and they foreclosed on the place. And I drove about twenty head of cattle, afoot, me and my brother did, away from that place, that's all the property we had left in the world.
G: How old were you at this...how old were you?
Gerald: I was ten years old. I drove those cattle away when I was eleven years old. At twelve years old our family had circumstances build up to where we had to separate; we had to split up. So I got a job, for a place to sleep and something to eat. I worked for them for about two years. And then I broke out, and they got to wanting to adopt me; and I didn't want to be adopted by somebody else. So I got two of my younger brothers, and we finished high school. And then I went out in the construction world - that was the only job I could find. And then worked on ranches in the wintertime, construction in the summer. And eventually the only way I could ever get enough money to start investing in ranches was to stay in the construction business, because the ranchers only paid me ninety dollars a month. And so I finally got enough seed money to start, and I'd built a pretty good credit and, with the help of some of my friends, I began to invest in little pieces of land. The first pieceLyda Family Ranches 4
of land I bought was ten acres. It cost me...
G: Where was it?
Gerald: Burnet County.
G: Where was it?
Gerald: I bought it from an old family - colored fellow - who was the son of a slave who'd given him this ten acres, and the white people had cut his road out. He couldn't get to it, so he come to me and said, "Would you buy this acres?" I said, "I haven't got any money." But he said, "I'll trust you." Said, "Give me fifty dollars and pay me two hundred and fifty more later." And so I bought that land. And I've been trading land ever since then. I've done more trading land and made more money trading land than I ever did in the cattle business. So...but I love the cattle business. We're still in it and we expect to stay in it.
G: And you said very quickly that you had managed to go through high school. It sounds like you're...sounds like there's a whole lot of story in this - how you managed to get through high school. Do you want to go back a little bit and talk about that at all?
Gerald: Well, I don't want to misrepresent things. These people that I went to live with, they didn't have any children. I watered the cattle, drew the water up with a rope, watered the cattle and the sheep and goats, and I Lyda Family Ranches 5
broke their horses. But they wanted some children, and they got to telling me they were going to educate me and make a success out of me and I never...didn't think I deserved much success. So I kinda shied away from that, because I had
Gerald: dreams of owning my own outfit somewhere. If it wasn't but ten acres, I wanted to own something. And I was very much a private...private-oriented, because I wanted to have something of my own, because I had this mania that'd hung up in my head after the foreclosure, that I just thought I deserved more in the world if I'd try hard enough than to just do without. So, where were we going here now ? G: When you left this family...?
Gerald: I broke away from this family, and two of my younger brothers still hadn't finished school, and we borrowed a house from some people that wasn't using it in Burnet, Texas. We borrowed a house - those people were nice to us. They weren't using their house, so we stayed in that house, washed our own clothes, ironed our own clothes. And my dad sent money to buy groceries. And we...two of my brothers joined the Navy, another one got a scholarship to Abilene Christian College and became a football coach. And I drifted off into the construction and cowboy world, you know. And I...I had the good fortune of developing some good friends, especially a rancher by the name of...[Sounds like Stamits? Darragh, Darrow?] in Marble Falls, who thought Lyda Family Ranches 6
there wasn't anything I couldn't do if he told me to do it, when I was working for him on his ranch. And I visited with him, and he told me how to handle money and how to use credit, you know, so that you can do a lot better. Said, "A good credit is worth twice that much cash." He says, "If Gerald: you take it and use it right." "Tell the truth, pay your bills, keep that credit alive and when you're buying land, you need to get enough money in it to where you're not in a strain, too much of a strain, making it produce the payments for itself, you know." And so I thought about that. And as time went on, I got about...I don't know whether I'm getting too far ahead of the story or not, but I got about...I worked for ranches in the wintertime and construction in the summertime, and I found it interesting. People were good to me, and everybody I worked for paid me more than I was worth every day I worked for them. And they took a special interest in trying to teach me about the business, even though I didn't have a college education. I'd see them hiring college graduates over here and college graduates over there, and I wondered why they'd put up with me? But they were so good to me. And I...
G: ...[inaudible].
Gerald: I got to be a carpenter, you know. And even as a lowly carpenter, the executives on the jobs we were buildingLyda Family Ranches 7
took a special interest in me and tried to help me, even though I wasn't educated, you know. And so, we was on a big old hospital job, about 1946 or '7, and, you know, construction people are kinda rambunctious. And they got in a big argument - management did - on the job, about...they had a steel superintendent that was drinking a little too Gerald: much whiskey and staying out too late at night. And he got some of the concrete a little off, and so they fired him. And they got a big powwow going there, and this guy they fired had been with the company longer than these younger guys that had fired him, and he says, "You know, I can work for Mr. Farnsworth, anywhere I want to." Said, "You can fire me, do whatever you want to, but," he said, "if I leave this job the man that's going to take my place is Gerald Lyda." So I'd been working for them only two years. And so he dumped this ten-million dollar hospital job on me to do the field work and construct the thing. And if I'd been there, I'd have fainted when they was discussing my name. But they come out and told me what the verdict was. They agreed that if Jake'd leave that they would give me an opportunity - they threw that at me and I couldn't believe it. But...
G: Can you tell me how old you were at the time?
Gerald: I was twenty-two, twenty-three.
G: Twenty-three. And they've given you this ten-million Lyda Family Ranches 8
dollar job.
Gerald: Yeah.
G: To be the supervisor...
Gerald: Well, I had...don't misunderstand me. They had a construction manager in the office, but I had the field outside to build this multi-million dollar hospital. And so I almost blanked out when they hit me with that. But I Gerald: thought, "You know, that's a hell of a opportunity." And I said I haven't got anything to lose, you know. I said, "If you people give me a little support in the main office, I believe I can build this thing." And so they took me on. I had a...the man out of the main office in Houston who believed in me also, and he backed them up on putting me out there. And we just built the devil out of that thing and got it built. And I took those plans home - it was just about like reading the funny papers - I didn't know much about them, but I studied them night and day until it began to make a picture in my mind. And with the help of a good staff of people - one guy in the office said, "No, I'm not going to help you, you took the job, you do it; just go build it." That's the best thing he ever told me, because I studied that much harder then. We built that job, and I worked for those people thirteen years and I did millions and millions dollars worth of work for them. And in the meantime, all this ranching deal we're Lyda Family Ranches 9
talking about here was in the back of my mind. It had about two-thirds of my mind taken up...[inaudible]. And so I finally got a few pennies ahead and I begin to...that ten acres of land I bought that and then I...
G: Now with those ten...you bought those ten acres of land, but you continued on in the construction business?
Gerald: Yeah, yeah, that's right; that's correct.
G: And the land was an investment, really, at this time.
Gerald: Yeah, that's right; that's right. And I continued on, and then I bought another hundred - seventy-two or a hundred acres. But all this land...[inaudible], I was doubling my money on it, or tripling my money on, when I'd sell it, you know. And I kept going along, and I finally came in to San Antonio, right here, in 1952 or '3, to build ...
G: And you were working in construction?
Gerald: That's right.
G: And by this time you were working for yourself?
Gerald: No, no.
G: You're still working for...[inaudible]. Okay.
Gerald: Still working for this company that'd hired me - fired the man and put me on this job. And I appreciated that so much that I wasn't going to let them down. And more and more of those people in that big company - they were nation-wide - and they treated me so nice and respected my Lyda Family Ranches 10
judgement. When they bid a big job, they'd call me in to look at the numbers and work with them. Then I had to go build it. And I came here to build the Lackland Hospital out here, that veteran's [military] hospital, and that was a tremendous - biggest architectural concrete job that'd ever been built in San Antonio. I never had built one, but I knew I could do it. And so we come in here and did that. I worked for them thirteen years, and the head of the company got killed in a hunting accident, which was a little
Gerald: jibberish to me. I didn't understand it. And I went to his funeral, and as we walked across the church yard in Houston one of the vice-presidents said...I said, "Sure did hate to lose Mr. Chambers." And he said, "Yeah," but said, "But we're four and a half million dollars better off." And that just tore me apart, you know. One of the vice-presidents to say that. And right there I made my decision that I...you know, I'm going to find me another place to work. And there was a power struggle that took over after that, between the people, and I could feel it coming on. So I was doing a...building right down behind the Tower of Americas here in San Antonio - the high-rise right behind that, and I finished that job for them. And I bought me a lot out here at the edge of town on Bandera Road, for ten dollars down, ten dollars a month. I went to my former ranch boss, Mr. Darragh [Darrow?], who I spoke Lyda Family Ranches 11
about earlier, and I told him, I said, "You know, I've got a wild dream, I want to do this..." And he'd been telling me, said, "You know, if you can do this for these people, you can do it for yourself." But I said, "I haven't got any money," but said, "The company's kind of falling apart there since Mr. Chambers died. I want to try to get into the construction business, and I believe I can make it." Said, "I've been working for them thirteen years, and they haven't said one unkind word to me, and they're always glad to take the profit. So..." He said, "Yes, you can do it." Said, Gerald: You've never told me anything that you...could do anything that you couldn't do."
G: Tell me what year we're talking about now.
Gerald: We're talking about 19 and 60.
G: Okay.
Gerald: We're talking about December 1960.
G: Okay.
Gerald: And January...we sat there on a log watching some of his horses graze - he raised quarter horses and ranched there in Burnet County - and I said, "I just...[inaudible]." And he said, "Well, you got me," said, "I'm your friend," and said, "I'll give you power of attorney to everything I've got." Said, "I think you can do it." And he wrote... he went and made him out - I still got it - a hand-written... Lyda Family Ranches 12
Gene: It's on the wall in our lodge.
G: I can imagine.
Gene: It's his statement of what he had - cattle, horses ...
Gerald: He was worth...at that time he was worth two-hundred and thirty thousand dollars himself, that's all he had. He had his goats and his sheep and his saddles and his spurs and everything else on there. So...but you can't imagine how proud it was to have somebody believe in me that strong. I had to turn my head, as I'm having to do now.
G: What a wonderful...what a wonderful thing it is to have G: people who have seen...who could see that you were an honest man and were willing to put their land and their property up as collateral for you.
Gerald: That was right after Christmas. And I said, "Well, I'd like to open up the first of the year." I'd done millions of dollars worth of work here in San Antonio; they knew I could produce it. I didn't have any money. I had... so he said, "Well, I'll show you how to develop a credit." Said, "I've operated..." "Of course," he said, "I operate here in Marble Falls," said, "The bank here's got a limit of fifty thousand dollars; that's all they'll lend to anybody." But he said, "I keep that alive." And said, "I can probably mooch some more money if we need it." And so I said, "Well, let's...if you believe in me that strong, I'm going to take Lyda Family Ranches 13
you up, provided you'll be a half owner in the business." I said... And he said, "Well, I need to tell you something," said, "I'm...shadows are getting a little tall on my life," said, "I don't know whether you know it or not, but I got cancer, and I don't know whether I'm going to make it or not." And so I...made me feel kind of bad, but he insisted that he be my...said, "I'll be delighted to be your partner." Said, "I'll do it without you being...without me being a partner. But if you feel better, I'll...", he said, "I'll be your partner." And so that next Monday we were in San Antonio and visited all the banks. We had four or five banks - big banks there, that we visited - largest in town. Gerald: But you know they...I'd been running a lot of company money from the company I was working for through the banks, and they kind of knew I was - might be half-way decent and...but they - bankers are careful with money you know, they don't throw any around. So all we could get committed on an open line of credit with his statement was five thousand dollars. And he said, "That's not much." But we went to five different banks there and every one of them give us five thousand dollars. I guess that's about par for the course, you know. So we walked out of NBC then. It's gone defunct now since the '80s - it got into trouble. He looked back at that tall building, he said, "You know, they're bound to have more money than that." Said, "Look Lyda Family Ranches 14
how tall that building is," said, "It's twenty-two stories tall." Said, "They've got a lot more money than that." Said, "I'll tell you what you do." Said, "Go back in there and open an account on...tomorrow." And he said, "Have you got any money?" I said, "I've got about fifteen hundred dollars I don't need for my family." Said, "I can buy groceries and get by for a while, until I can get something going." And he looked at...said, "Well, just go in there tomorrow and open an account and borrow some money from them and then pay it back in three or four days." And said, "Let's get this thing to going." So I did. He wrote me out a check for five thousand, himself, and I put my fifteen hundred with it and I deposited that in NBC. I borrowed Gerald: five thousand from them, paid it back in a week. I didn't need it. And that's the way it got started. I banked with those people for twenty-eight years. And they treated me like I was a millionaire all the time, even if I didn't have a dime.
G: So now you...you've moved to San Antonio, you've started your own business, but you still have this ranching dream.
Gerald: It was hung in there, like I say. About two-thirds of my brain was taken up with that, and what little left we used in the construction business. You needed a pretty weak brain to get into it, you know. It's kinda...it's a fast Lyda Family Ranches 15
moving, dangerous game. A little bit...a lot of people say a little chance in it. But I always called it a calculated risk, rather than a chance, than gambling, you know. I never did like the word gambling. Now I...
G: So are you still investing in pieces of land and trading your pieces of land?
Gerald: Yeah, yeah. I bought a little piece of land up in Marble Falls, where I used to hunt and fish when I was a little kid, that always appealed to me. I'd spent about ten thousand dollars on it but it happened to go out to the river where there was a lot of sand and gravel deposits and I kind of evaluated that a little bit when I bought it. And I turned around and sold that to the concrete people there in town for fifty thousand dollars. And I took that fifty Gerald: thousand dollars, went down to San Antonio, and our hankering is still there. So I found a two thousand acre ranch out there that's for sale, and I took thirty-eight thousand out of that fifty and put it into this ranch here and picked up the note on the rest of it. And I bought that on credit. I had already financed with the land bank. So a good friend of mine who's - Mr. Jess McNeil - he's a banker and equipment dealer in San Antonio - says, "You know if you keep that land..." I paid fifty dollars an acre for it, said, "If you keep that land twenty years, it'll bring you a thousand dollars an acre." And I took that with a Lyda Family Ranches 16
grain of salt you know, but we kept it for twenty-one years. And we added land around that; we got it up to about fifty-eight hundred acres. And one day a guy walked in to that ranch, he says, "Would you sell this place?" We'd cleaned it up and improved it and carried four times as many cattle as it would when we went there. Drilled an irrigation well. And I said, "I guess we would." I said - I was kinda wanting to exchange it, I was itching to do some trading, you know. And so, he says, "What'll you take for it?" And I said, "I guess I'd sell it for eleven hundred dollars an acre." And he said, "You know, I believe I'll just buy that." And he said, "I haven't got all that money right now." "Well," I said, "You've got a quarter of a million, haven't you?" He said, "No, I haven't even got that." I said, "Well, go down to the bank and get a letter of credit Gerald: for a quarter of a million dollars and I'll make a contract here with you." And I said, "When will you have the rest of it?" He said, "I'll have it January the 1st." So he paid me six million dollars for that land which I had six hundred thousand in it and improvements. So I didn't object to that kind of trade. But I had to figure out a way to exchange it in something. So the fact that he wanted to close it on the first of the year, that was about mid-year, really fit into my program because I wanted to make a 1031 tax-free exchange into another piece of property. So, Lyda Family Ranches 17
meantime, we'd bought some little ranches out in New Mexico. We had about eighty thousand acres deeded land out there and some state lease land on ranches. And things began to get tight in the oil business, and Mr. Robert O. Anderson, who had ranches all over the Southwest, was kind of...had a little problem with his... He had sixteen percent interest on a shotgun loan on the Ladder Ranch in New Mexico. So I...a guy come to me and wanted...said, "Would you buy the Ladder Ranch?" And, you know the way ranching is; it's so tough to finance them and make them pay, that I knew there wasn't any way that we could buy the Ladder Ranch. But I had these three other ranches out there - I had four other ranches out there - and I didn't even have them paid for, but I had them cash-flowing, you know. Raised enough on cattle...I paid enough down on them to where the cattle was cash-flowing, and I had this man operating them, so... I Gerald: trust him with anything, you know. So I got to thinking one night, I said, "You know," - he still owed me the rest of that, he only put up a quarter of a million dollars on that six million dollar deal - and I said, "You know, that's kind of silly to wait until the 1st of the year." I said, "You know, I might buy that Ladder Ranch anyway. I think I'll trade Robert O. Anderson this contract and the two-and-a-quarter million dollars in on the Ladder, which he wanted fifteen million for." And I told him what Lyda Family Ranches 18
I'd do. And then he called me out there to look at it, and I looked at it, and I said, "Well, it's not as good as I thought it was. How about throwing in these cattle and these horses and these trucks and tractors?" He said, "Well, we can't do that." And I said, "Well, I'm not interested then." I said, "I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll trade you five ranches - I'll trade you this paper and four ranches in New Mexico for that ranch there, if you'll throw in twenty-two hundred head of cattle and a hundred head of saddle horses and all the bulls you got."
Gene: Twenty-three hundred cows, Dad.
Gerald: Twenty-three hundred?
Gene: Twenty-three hundred.
Gerald: Well, whatever. And so we did. And they took me up on that, and that's how come me in the Ladder Ranch. And then one morning - Gene and his wife lived on the Ladder and operated it...
G: What year are we talking about here now?
Gerald: We're talking about...
Gene: 1985.
G: Okay.
Gene: That's when I moved to New Mexico to take that ranch over.
G: Okay.
Gerald: 1985? Lyda Family Ranches 19
Gene: Yes, sir. 1985.
Gerald: 1985. And it was like old-time war when we moved in there, you know. I'd bought this stuff believing everything everybody told me - I'd bought all the cows, all the calves, all the horses, all the machinery and everything else. But stuff started disappearing, you know, after we signed the paper. I drove up one day and there was two big truckloads of calves on the south end of the ranch. It's twenty-eight miles long, the south end of the ranch, and they had these calves loaded. I said, "What the hell you all think you're doing here?" And, "Oh, we're fixing to sell these calves." I said, "No, we're not; we're fixing to unload 'em." Said, "You've got that backwards."
Gene: Can we intervene just a moment? I think we'd sure want proof of some of this. We wouldn't want this going to press.
Gerald: Things we're talking about here?
Express-News: Yes, I'm from the Express-News...[inaudible].
[TAPE STOPPED]
Gerald: I don't want to keep you all here all day. You know, these stories.
G: This is a wonderful story.
Gene: It's winding down. You're doing a good job, Dad, but I just thought maybe I'd stop you there...
Gerald: You know, I'm seventy-seven years old, and I get Lyda Family Ranches 20
to living this stuff over.
Gene: You're doing good. You're doing good. You got it right on the money. It's just...
Gerald: Well, where were we?
G: Let me say, you were building a construction business; you're trading land; you're building cattle ranches. It seems to me that you're doing a lot of different things all at the same time.
Gene: He's just nearly busy, isn't he?
G: He's nearly busy.
Gerald: Well, I'm having fun.
G: And you have a son who's...you manage the ranching part of the business...
Gene: I do the ranching.
G: Is that correct?
Gene: I have a brother, Gerald Lyda Junior...
Gerald: He's in the construction business. He's the vice-president of the construction company, Gerald Junior is, and Gene is...my daughter is ranching in Oklahoma. We have some Gerald: country up there too.
G: But somehow, between the '60s and the '80s, you must have been pretty much the person who was doing it all. Is that correct?
Gerald: Well, I think...
Gene: I'm doing the field work for him, as to ranching.Lyda Family Ranches 21
Gerald: Oh, you mean in the ranching?
G: Uh-huh. We're talking about the...
Gerald: Business?
G: When you were building the...you were building your construction business, you were busily trading land and growing your ranching part of your business. I'm wondering how you managed to do all of these...
Gerald: Well...
G: Intensive...intensive.
Gerald: The good Lord, he's the best friend I've ever had, and he's the only man that never has backed out on a contract with me. God Almighty. You know. You know, I wasn't supposed to do these things that He's let me do, you know. But I did them. But I think He's expecting me to put forth a little effort, you know. And I tried to do that. And that's about the only thing I've got to say about it.
Gene: I'm sorry to stop...
Gerald: We accepted the Ladder Ranch, but Gene had a tough time out there. These cattle all had to be...[penned?] off that three-hundred thousand ranch and counted. And they Gerald: said, "We're just going to gate-count them or pasture-count them." "No," Gene said, "No, we're not." And he almost had to fight two or three of them to...said, "We're just not going to bob those tails." And I said, "That's the only way we're going to count those cattle." Lyda Family Ranches 22
Gene: ...didn't want to count those cattle twice. And the only way you could make them uncountable...these cattle are all Brangus cattle, they all look pretty much the same. And being a new guy on the block, you know, there's a lot of things can happen. You know, they can go over a ridge and end up on a pen on both sides. You see them twice. So the only way I could figure how to do that was just cut the tails off the cattle, the switch off the cattle. And so, I could see a cow's been counted once before. So anyway...go ahead, Dad, you got it now.
Gerald: Well, after almost a fisticuff or two, they finally agreed to do it our way, because we didn't have to pay for the cattle that hadn't been counted. So, anyway, we come up two hundred cattle short, and they brought them in from another ranch and met the deal. But I guess, then, Mr. and Mrs. Ted Turner come along after we operated it for about eight years, and they had to have a ranch. And Gene called me, said, "What do you reckon we ought to do about this? They're here and they..." Mrs. Jane [Fonda Turner] told her husband, said, "Call them and call off that other deal. We like this ranch better and we're going to buy this ranch." Gerald: So he called me and I said, "Well, be sure they like it and if they really like it, why, we'll try to do a deal with them."
Gene: Dad's first question was, he said, "We're busy all Lyda Family Ranches 23
the time out there," - he wanted to kind of keep me going. And he said, he said, "Well, have you really got time to show that ranch, and can these people afford it?" And I said, "Well," I looked out the window, I could see them both standing out there in front of the house, you know, kind of looking around at the mountains, and I said, "You know, Dad, I believe they can." And I had told him who it was. And he said, "Well, by golly," he said, "See if you can trade that ranch to them, cause I'm looking at a good ranch in West Texas." And he'd been out there about twice looking at this ranch. He said, "I'd sure like to buy a ranch to replace that ranch, in Texas. Us being Texans, you know, we don't stray very far very long. So, anyway, let Dad carry on then.
Gerald: Well, anyway, we priced them the ranch and...
G: I'm going to stop you just a minute, because we're at the end of the tape, and I want to turn it over before we get into this story.
Gerald: Sure spending a lot of tape on us.
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 1.
SIDE 2.
Gerald: ...Some of that leased land...
Gene: Lease country in there and about half of it was leased country, and about half of it was deeded land.
Gerald: Yeah. Lyda Family Ranches 24
Express-News: Okay. And how big was it?
Gene: I guess, guess in it's entirety - three-hundred and sixty thousand acres - as we left it.
Express-News: Part leased?
Gene: Part leased, yes sir. About half and half.
Express-News: You still own it?
Gene: No.
Gerald: No, we don't own it.
Gene: The story is going on.
Express-News: Okay. Okay.
Gene: Okay.
G: Okay.
Gene: And when Mr. Turner came in to the thing, he had an interest in buying this ranch and...
Express-News: Uh-huh.
Gene: And Dad worked it into a trade. He was already looking at a ranch in West Texas - the present ranch that we have, the main part of our present ranch. And Dad said, "That's great," he said, "I'm looking at a good ranch in West Texas; let's see if we can do some trading."
Gerald: I wanted to make a 1031 exchange on this property, you know, a 1031 doesn't beat anybody out of any taxes but it prolongs...when you're trading 'like property' for 'like Gerald: property'...
Express-News: Uh-huh.Lyda Family Ranches 25
Gerald: You still have this tax obligation, but you push it down the road a little ways, you know. So...
Express-News: ...[inaudible].
Gene: Yes.
Gerald: Yeah. I did a 1031 exchange. I paid some lawyers lots of money to do that exchange, and then I got questioned by the IRS about the exchange. I certainly wasn't capable of telling them how to do it, but I spent over a hundred thousand dollars getting it done right through professionals. And, of course, the IRS they'll question any thing they can to justify their job, I guess, you know. So we had a big argument. They sent me a bill for three and a half million dollars, you know. I didn't get any money in the trade, so I didn't...according to my attorneys I didn't owe them anything. But after arguing with them for another year or two, and they dismissed...they almost put me in jail over it, but they finally got to negotiating, and we settled it out. And I paid them some portion of that amount, but not near what they was asking for.
Express-News: How big is the ranch you bought in West Texas?
Gerald: Beg pardon?
Express-News: How big is the place in West Texas then?
Gerald: We got two hundred and eighty-two thousand acres Gerald: of deeded land. Lyda Family Ranches 26
G: Tell us a little bit about your operation - how you went from New Mexico to Texas - because I understand there's a story there too.
Gerald: Well, yeah. I started negotiating with this other bank, this other land here, which was for sale. And I wanted to exchange what I got out of the Ladder Ranch into it, to where I'd have another 1031 exchange. And so I bought this ranch from the...[Elton R.?] Land and Cattle Company, or traded for it, on a three-way exchange. And that...the time between these two ranches made it work real good, because we got certain time limits to do these exchanges, you know, exchanges with the time limit. And Gene had to gather about five or six thousand head of cattle off the Ladder Ranch, and that's how come this ranch to be named 'Escalera.'
Gene: That's Spanish for ladder.
Gerald: Jane Fonda wanted the brand and the name 'Ladder'
Gene: In New Mexico.
Gerald: In New Mexico.
Gene: We had no intention to stay in New Mexico, so we said that's all right; we'll do that.
Gerald: And we moved to, and established the same brand, in Texas but we named it 'La Escalera' so we wouldn't get in a lawsuit over that. And...
Gene: ...Mainly because we had all these cattle branded with the ladder, we didn't want to re-brand the cattle, so Lyda Family Ranches 27
Gene: naturally we wanted...
Gerald: Didn't want to burn them again.
Gene: Didn't want to burn them again.
G: So when you traded, you traded the land but you kept the cattle?
Gerald: Yeah.
Gene: That's right.
Gerald: And the horses, yeah.
G: How many cattle were these that you were...?
Gerald: Well, it's about three thousand mother cows - three thousand mother cows and about three thousand calves. And bulls - we had about a couple of hundred bulls.
Gene: I think it was fifty-eight double-load - double-deck loads of cattle.
G: Wow.
Gene: I put them all on trucks. I gathered all those cattle off three hundred and sixty thousand acres.
G: Did you count them all, one-by-one, by cutting off their tails?
Gene: Yes ma'am. I put every...I put every one of them on trucks.
G: Gene, I'd like to talk to you a little bit about...of your life, and expertise, has been pretty much on the ranch. You've taken care of the ranching half of the family business... Lyda Family Ranches 28
Gene: I'd like to think so.
G: Tell me a little bit about your education, your background and how you got into ranching...
Gene: Well, I guess I...as for education, I guess I'd have to attribute it to John Marshall High School out at San Antonio, because that's where I graduated from. And that's probably as far, other than a year in a junior college, that I...I've basically been in the field ranching ever since I've gotten out of high school. I've been running ranches for this gentleman since 1968, and continue to do so; he's allowed me to stay on. He's, you know, he's asked me to improve from time to time, and I've tried to do that.
G: Did you, like your dad, start out in 4-H?
Gene: FFA, you know. But, you know, my...you know, I can't attribute a lot of that to the FFA. I had an interest, I guess, through my dad. My dad, you know, as a little boy I sat on his knee and his - as he's probably expressed already - his first love has been ranching. You know, we've had to do other things to allow us to ever become ranchers, per se. And...but from the knee of my dad, you know, listening to stories. And I developed a love for the work and everything that goes with it. You know, I think there's a lot of hardship to it, a lot of work that goes into it that probably is overlooked through a more glamorous eyeful and...but there's a lot of hard work. And Lyda Family Ranches 29
of course, we attribute our opportunities a lot to my dad, and to the fact that he's allowed us to be a part of this Gene: industry - ranching.
G: Tell me where you started out in your career as a rancher - a ranch manager.
Gene: Yes, ma'am. I guess Atascosa County, we...
Gerald: I want to inject something here.
G: Certainly.
Gerald: He always believed that anything that you couldn't do horseback wasn't worth doing. That's what he always... that's [what] his philosophy was. Back when we had this little place at Marble Falls, down there, I told him to pull some cockleburs down on the creek there - big ole cockleburs that high - and his grandpa come along and, he's telling me about it, said, he says, "Beat anything I ever saw. Gene was horseback and had his sister tying on those cockleburs with the rope and he's riding off." So I'll leave it there.
G: Okay. Gene...
Gene: Oh, yeah, I guess I'm guilty, I guess. I just, you know, had a strong desire to be a part of a ranching deal. And even the hard work, it seemed to fit me. I just, I guess basically I've been allowed to let that be my dream and, hopefully, I've fulfilled it in some ways. But I started out, I guess, the first ranch we talked about in San Antonio that we finally sold in on the trade to the Ladder Lyda Family Ranches 30
was in Atascosa County. But we ranched around different places in South Texas and had a little country in Zapata County and Webb County and Wilson County, different places. Gene: Had them for a short while. Dad's always trading all this stuff, you know. And we're...hopefully we're going forward. We like to think we've gone forward and we've put a lot of these ranches that I've helped operate into trades, and that's about where it started. And then until Daddy got to buying country in New Mexico, and I begin to go out there and help brand and deliver cattle in the fall, developed a love for the further west country, and then never did I dream that we'd ever have anything like the Ladder Ranch out in Sierra County in New Mexico. And went out there, kind of by the seat of my pants, and landed out there with my new wife and my two...two of our kids, and we took on that ranch, just kind of single-handedly, and kind of developed a ranching operation out there. Took on the cattle and the land.
G: Going back to your beginnings...what was the first... what's the first job you ever remember doing on a ranch?
Gene: Well, I remember when I first went to work for my dad, we had developed this country south of 'San Antone' and...
G: How old were you at this time?
Gene: Oh, I was old enough to know better, I guess. I Lyda Family Ranches 31
don't know, I guess I might have been twenty. And that country was covered with hay, just as far as you could see. Not big country but, you know, there's a bale of hay about every two foot. We'd cut this coastal Bermuda, and that was Gene: my first job is - figuring how to get that all put on a flatbed trailer and hauled to the barn or stacked in the field or whatever, or hauled out of the fields. We didn't have a...we...our ranch was coming along kind slow at that time. We didn't have anything to pick those bales up except your hands and a pair of gloves, if you had 'em. We'd throw that hay up there, about ten tiers high, and stack that hay and haul it out of the fields and then stack it again and then come back and get another load. We worked night and day getting that hay out of the field before the rain came and ruined the hay. That was...I didn't...I don't think I started at the top. It doesn't sound like it, does it? And my dad was a big proponent of getting a hold...you had to learn from the ground up, as he did, which I don't think hurt any of us. I think...I like to think I did that. G: You said that you were moving the hay and stacking it ten high, unloading it and stacking it again - you and how many other people?
Gene: Well, maybe two at times.
G: How long did it take you?
Gene: It took us a lot of the summer, because we were Lyda Family Ranches 32
baling the hay. We had hay laying in the fields; we come back and cut that hay again. So we did that...that was mostly...in this country you need some hay to winter you, particularly in the country we were in, it was not the best country. So we had to put up as much hay as we could to Gene: feed our cattle through the winter. It took a while. And there was a little cowboying mixed in there which, you know, kind of kept it interesting, you know. And we're still cowboying a little bit. We're not baling hay, you know. Our hay is basically what you see in the country. In West Texas the grass is strong, and it pretty well stands for itself for winter feed.
G: Let's go back just a little bit to when you first moved to New Mexico, which was a big move for you.
Gene: Yes ma'am, it was quite big.
G: Talk a little bit about that. And your dad's told some about the trade for the ranch and counting the cattle, but this is...you've gone from some smaller operations to a very large operation.
Gene: Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am.
G: Tell me about that.
Gene: I won't lie and say that I didn't realize I was going to a larger operation, but I was ready for the move. I'd been here long as I wanted to. I was ready to go somewhere else. I was ready to go to bigger country. I hadLyda Family Ranches 33
...I felt like I had a...learned my skills, and I probably should have had more fear of the move but I - foolish, I guess; I wasn't particular. I found some opposition in making the trans...the trade on the cattle and the land and getting the properties in line. But this guy, he stood behind me and backed me and I was able to... I feel like I Gene: did a pretty good job of taking on that country and operating it - gathering the cattle off of it when it came time to move again. I...I'm...I like to think I'm a pretty good cowman and I feel like I was up to it.
G: When you think of yourself, do you think of yourself as a rancher, as a businessman? How would you describe yourself?
Gene: Well, I'd like to be a businessman. I'd like to be a rancher. I don't know if I'm there on either category. But I'd like to think that when the dust settles that I would be considered a fairly good ranch-man. I wouldn't particularly want to be known as a cowboy. I've done a little of that. But I'd like to be a cowman when the dust settles.
G: Now, your dad said something about how you felt that if you couldn't do it from a horse, it wasn't worth doing. What is the kind of mix of horses and mechanical that you feel was...
Gene: We use lots of different ways of doing it. We use Lyda Family Ranches 34
men horseback, gathering cattle. We need to gather and brand or ship or sort, we use...we use helicopters, men horseback, two-way radios. I've got two-way radio communication to my helicopter, that we don't own; we rent a helicopter by the hour. We've had helicopters in the past that we've owned. I don't operate one, so that's one reason we don't have one of our own. But we've got cow dogs; we've Gene: got whatever it takes to - tranquilizing guns, just whatever it takes. And I'm kind of dressed up today, but I've been known to tie an old cow down when she won't go to the pen, and I have the ability to do that. And I feel comfortable saying I'm probably as good at that as most anybody.
G: You've talked about a lot of the mechanization of your ranch. How does high-tech fit in to ranching today? Do you use computers? Do you use satellites? I don't know what you might use?
Gene: We pretty much keep our bookkeeping through computers. My dad keeps the main office here in 'San Antone', keeps the books on the ranches. We operate an office at the ranch, as per bills and things like that. Work...coordinate with the main office here in San Antonio, which also works with us in our ranching.
G: Do you still ranch the traditional methods - round up your cattle, brand them...?Lyda Family Ranches 35
Gene: Yes ma'am, we do. We do it in different ways. We use some hydraulic chutes and electric branding irons and things like that. And not to get away from the romance or what-not, we basically are busy, and we don't have time to do it through other methods. It's not...no criticism as to doing it otherwise, but I love good horses and cattle and doing things and handling the rope and things like that, just as much as anybody. But my workload will not allow me Gene: to do things as we have done them in the past. Now, when I was at the Ladder Ranch, and even when I first came here, we drug every calf by the heels to a fire and had a branding crew. We tailed every calf down. That's all good, but we're unable to do that and keep our labor down to where we can feel like we're making a profit, you know.
G: How large of a labor force do you have?
Gene: Not very big. We hire a little temporary help, not too much. We basically operate it ourselves, and we use - we're doing lots of other things out on the ranch too, if I may venture off. We're doing some brush clearing; we run two to three to four Caterpillars every day. Operate that - we've got a crew that does that. We operate eleven-hundred acres of farm on the west end of the ranch. It's all under pivot-irrigation. We have people over there, and as per everything else, knock on wood, I think I'd be safe to say - four or five men - we operate all that country ourselves.Lyda Family Ranches 36
G: So you have a full-time staff of four or five men?
Gene: At times, yes ma'am, at times.
Gerald: Plus some people...we've got two or three people over at the farm that do the farming.
Gene: They do the farming. The brush clearing is separate. The farm...but less that...everything as per our ranching operation in West Texas. We pretty well do it with three to four to five men.
G: What do you raise on your farm?
Gene: We raise grazing, we - grasses - we put a lot of it in permanent feed, permanent grass.
Gerald: Wheat in the wintertime.
Gene: We over-seed it with wheat in the winter. And it's for our own advantage to. We take our calves off our cows, wean 'em, finish 'em out on the farm over there is how we're doing that. We bring those cattle up to about eight-hundred pound size, and then we sell them direct to feed-lots, through video auction; we sell them on television.
G: Is there any oil on your ranch? Does oil play any part of your...?
Gene: Yes, ma'am.
Gerald: Gas...gas. Of course, that's one thing that attracted me to buy the ranch. It had all of...that's probably the largest acreage in West Texas still has all the mineral intact on it. And had some production on it. We'reLyda Family Ranches 37
still drilling some more gas wells which we hope...we're proud of. Later...
G: Do you see ranching as being a diversified occupation?
Gene: It needs to be diversified.
Gerald: Some times it's hard to do.
Gene: Some times you can't diversify enough. But, you know, I think so. I think, you know, you're going to probably get into this - I think people are going to have to start looking for, looking a little further down the road. Because there's a shortage of young people coming into this. Gene: I've got a couple that I hope are going to be interested in it, but, you know, you never have enough, you know. And to do the strenuous work that comes with it, both mentally and physical, you've got to keep some young folks coming on. And I don't see a lot of people, a lot of young people, turning towards agriculture. I wish they did. But you know, I think everybody'll...everybody here will tell you the same thing - it's hard to find young people wanting to get into this business.
G: Do you have another generation coming on?
Gene: Yes ma'am. I've got a daughter that lives with us on the ranch, me and my wife. And then I've got two other daughters, but probably Tyler's the only one that's near the ranch right - at present. I have a nephew that's working with me, closely with me. It'd be my sister's son, Justin Lyda Family Ranches 38
Granberg. He's been working with me since about September, and he's there to stay, it looks like. And we're bringing him into this thing slowly, and hopefully guiding him a little bit. And he seems to be up to the task.
Gerald: Of course, he come off his sister's ranch in Oklahoma.
Gene: My sister and my brother-in-law operate a ranch in - X-Bar Ranch - in Holdenville, Oklahoma, which the family also owns and operates. And they operate that, so he's got a little ranching background that comes with him. A different country, but he's moved out here to our...what we Gene: consider the heart of our ranching operation - La Escalera.
G: As you guide young people into the ranching life, what kind of educational background are you...are you finding that will be valuable for them? Is this an agricultural background, a business background? What...?
Gene: Well, I think it would be nice to have some agricultural background, but I think probably a business background - I think dad would agree with that - probably would be more in line with something that people are going to have to have to...
Gerald: More business management than anything.
Gene: To survive in this business we're in. It's a business.Lyda Family Ranches 39
G: As a modern rancher, what do you see as the difficulties of running a ranch into the twenty-first century?
Gene: I think - there'll be a lot of it - I don't know if we could cover it all. I think, tell you, like we are. We have some oil and gas income, which helps, supplements us, but through cattle it's a tough life.
Gerald: You know, the worst thing is changing owners - land ownership. That's the reason we've got to found a partnership - that may help some. But when you create a estate, the IRS wants half of it when you die, so then you got...my children got to buy it again, back from the
Gerald: government to get what I've worked for for fifty years, you know. And they can't hardly get tax together enough for those people to live up in Washington up there; can't keep enough money up there for them - they've got it up - we're paying about fifty-percent of what we earn now for taxes. Getting worse, and when you die, try to leave something for your kids to help them get started; they come in and take half of that, you've already paid taxes for it; you're going to give them another fifty-percent. So, it's kind of a losing battle, but if I didn't enjoy it I wouldn't be doing it.
G: I think you answered one of my questions. I was going to ask you - do you find the Government a help or a Lyda Family Ranches 40
hindrance?
Gerald: Well, we've got too much Government. We've got too much Government. There's certainly some things that they can do - it takes too many people to do one thing now. Every congressman's got about a staff of fifty people. You used to send a congressman up there and he'd do you a decent job and come on back home. Now they go up there and make careers out of it, wait for retirement. Nobody's got a better retirement than the people that work for the Government, you know. I haven't got near that good a retirement. Of course, I'm not ready to retire either, you know.
G: Gene, tell me a little bit about the ranch and the
G: environmental movement. As a rancher how do you feel about the environmental movement - does this affect you in some ways? What's your...?
Gene: I think it's...it hasn't at present affected us too much, you know, but it's something that everybody needs to be of a conscious of, because it's there, and it's probably there to stay. You know, guys like me'll vote it down every day, but you know it's still going to be there.
Gerald: We help protect the...more than the bureaucracies do.
Gene: We try to be conservative. We do a lot of land improvements. We like to think that which puts back, Lyda Family Ranches 41
instead of takes from the land; we follow good grazing practices, which harvests the grass, allows the grass to re-plant itself, and grow back and enhance this country. We do some things that from a practical sense that both helps us plus probably helps the welfare of the land. We like to think we're good stewards of the land.
G: Do you feel, as a rancher, that you are an environmentalist?
Gene: I think we're...probably in a practical sense, probably some of the best environmentalists, you know. Because you know, we definitely want to put back - put back from what we take from the land. We don't expect to take all and not put anything back. And I think that's just mindful of a rancher. I don't think that that's something I Gene: created or dreamed up. I think just everybody here probably practices that - tries to make a better place out of somewhere they work.
G: I'm going to want to talk to Tyler in just a minute and find out a little bit about what you think about ranching and... But before I go to the next generation - Gerald, is there anything more that you would like to say...?
Gerald: I don't suppose.
G: ...that you haven't had a chance and I didn't ask you.
Gerald: I don't suppose. I've talked too much already. And I don't...unless you've got some questions, I stand to Lyda Family Ranches 42
be dismissed, I guess.
G: Gene, how about you? Was there anything...?
Gene: I couldn't add a lot to it. It's a great life and we're...we thank God every day for the fact that we're allowed to be a part of what we've been lucky and given by God to operate and do for Him. And I guess the thanks is to God, you know, and we appreciate it all. And appreciate the opportunity for you people to be even interested in what we're doing.
G: This is fascinating, we feel really lucky to be here today. This is Laurie Gudzikowski and we are going to be continuing our conversations with the Lyda Family about their ranch. I'm going to be talking to Shy...[Shea?] Lyda, who is Gene Lyda's wife. Taylor Lyda, who is - Tyler, excuse me, Tyler Lyda, who is his daughter, and Justin G: Graber...?
Gene: Granberg.
G: Granberg, who is a nephew - is that correct?
Gene: Nephew, Mr. Lyda's grandson.
G: And you are working on the La Escalera Ranch. Okay.
Let's start with Shay [Shea?]. You moved to New Mexico from Texas and...
Shay: Yes, ma'am.
G: ...and started a new life there. Can you tell me what it...how you...what was it like?Lyda Family Ranches 43
Shay: Well, it was very hard at first, to adapting to the mountains and the distances from town and all of the work. He was gone from daylight to dark, and it was a real tough time at first. But we adapted and grew from it.
G: Do you...what do you do on the ranch? You're out there and your husband is out - somewhere?
Shay: Well, I do whatever is needed.
G: For instance.
Shay: Well, for instance. I cook for him, I make sure they have enough to eat, and I gather, I ride right along with him.
Gene: Ranch secretary.
Shay: And I'm ranch secretary, that's right. I do whatever that takes.
Gene: She keeps books, ...[inaudible] ranch.
Shay: Right. But I...I used to be pretty fast with a Shay: syringe, put it that way. So, since then I haven't...I've kind of pulled rank. I don't do as much as I used to do but...and I do kind of schedule my ridings with Gene, together. But I still love it; it's kind of a stress-relief now even.
G: This is clearly a family business?
Shay: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
G: Been involved in this and are your children interested in going into the family business?Lyda Family Ranches 44
Shay: I believe Tyler is. She enjoys it. She's a very good cowgirl. We depend on her when we go out together, we're all...we kind of all pull together and make a pretty good...[inaudible] with every thing, I think. She does a great job.
Gene: She's probably thirteen.
G: Tyler, would you like to talk a little bit about...you grew up on ranches, right?
Tyler: Yes ma'am. Since I was little, my dad saddled up my horse, and I've gone right along with him. I mean, I have so many memories of going to gather the horses or the cattle, whatever, just to help or being to see my dad actually. It's a very...it's a business that you don't... You have to go out with them to see your family; you have to be...you have to go out and enjoy the...[inaudible] and it's a good family business. And I think...I'm glad that I have had the ability to go out with my father and my mother and Tyler: go out on the ranch and I enjoy it. It's fun.
G: Tyler, would you tell me your age?
Tyler: I'm thirteen. I go to Fort Stockton Middle School.
G: And what is your very first ranch memory?
Tyler: Um, I'd have to say when I was little and my dad would rope the calves and I'd sit right in front of the saddle horn and my dad would say, "Watch, when I dally, makeLyda Family Ranches 45
sure your hands are behind your back." So I'd sit like this.
Gene: She was actually behind the saddle horn, but she'd have to put her hands behind her so I wouldn't get her hands in the rope when I was about to throw the calves ...[inaudible] that was our time to be together. ...[inaudible] business with the fun, you know, being together. That's what...I just wanted to explain that a little better. But it was, you know, part...she was part of the operation; she watched it from the back of a horse as a baby, you know.
G: How old were you when you...[inaudible]...?
Tyler: Uh...
Gene: Two or three.
Tyler: Two or three. I have pictures of me riding when I ...I don't have any hair on my head - I just have a little cap on, and I can't even reach the stirrups; I'm just holding on to the saddle horn. I mean, I have memories like Tyler: that.
Gene: I've got her tied on there with a tie-string so she won't fall off.
Tyler: I've had many memories on the ranch, and I think this is - I'm very lucky to have so many memories like this and it's...I'm very happy that my grandfather and my dad and the rest of my family have put this together for me to Lyda Family Ranches 46
...[inaudible], I guess you could say - to have, to cherish for the rest of my life, and hopefully I can keep it going on for my children.
G: Now, do you...how do you think of yourself? Do you think of yourself as a ranch woman, as a cowgirl, how do you ...how would you describe yourself?
Tyler: Well, since I rodeo, I kind of think of myself as a cowgirl, in a way, because I love cutting and team penning ...
END OF TAPE 1, SIDE 2. Lyda Family Ranches 47
TAPE 2, SIDE 1
G: ...here at La Cantera, and we are interviewing the Lyda Family. The date is February 18th, 2000, and we're hearing Tyler Lyda and Justin Granberry tell us about their...about their involvement with the family ranch.
Gene: I'm going to correct you - it's Granberg, not Granberry, just in case they...
Gene: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't read it; I can't read it on your name tag.
Gene: That's okay.
G: No, it's not. I apologize. I'll try and get it right next time. Tyler...
Tyler: Okay.
G: Tell us about your...the way you think of yourself - as a cowgirl, a ranchwoman, and you'd talked...we were beginning to talk a little bit about rodeo.
Tyler: Yes ma'am. Since I rodeo, and I like to barrel race and everything, I think of myself as a cowgirl, because I go out and I enjoy myself; and this is what I do after school and everything else. It's my way of getting Tyler: away from life. And, in a way, I think of myself as a business woman, too, because I help my mother on the computer all the time. And I help her write down all the bills and everything, and I put them in order and everythingLyda Family Ranches 48
else. But I think I really think of myself as right in the middle of a cowgirl and a business woman, because you kind of have to be both, because with this business you have to have a little bit of everything to make it all go around.
G: What are your educational plans for the future?
Tyler: I want...I really want to go to UT really bad. And I want to study agriculture, and then I'll probably... I want to, maybe, study for...to be an attorney, and then maybe go on to be a judge. But I don't know. And...but as soon as I'm completely through with that I want to come back and help the ranch, which I know I'm definitely going to do with that. So...
G: So ranching is a very important part of your life.
Tyler: Yes ma'am. And I want it to be important to my kids and my family.
G: Justin, tell us a little bit about yourself. Would you start off by telling us how old you are.
Justin: I'm twenty-three years old.
G: Where were you born, Justin?
Justin: I was born in San Antonio, Texas, out on the Atascosa Ranch. I was the first two or three years there, three or four years there and I...my mom and dad worked Justin: there on that ranch, along with Gene and my grandfather. And that's kind of where I got my start, I guess. I guess I was just kind of born into it and around Lyda Family Ranches 49
it.
G: Tyler just told us her first ranch memories. Can you tell us yours?
Justin: Well, I...when I was about five years old I...we moved into town, and I don't guess I have any one ranch memory I can pick out. I've got a lot of them, but they're all pretty equal to me. And I remember being in town. I guess I was always kind of a weirdo kid. I was always wanting to be the cowboy around a bunch of city kids. And I'd be out there, I had my little sister, Holly, she'd run across the yard and I'd try to heel her as many times as I can across the yard. And, I guess I, you know...she finally smartened up and got to where she'd start running from me and it was a little harder to catch her after that. You know, I think I roped her on the pavement one time and scratched her up pretty good. And Dad got home and he...he got to rope me, so to speak. You know. He kind of...put the rope to use on me. No, I've just, you know, I just... the kind of my...my whole philosophy there is, you know, if you don't...if you're not willing to work at all... I mean that's kind of what my grandfather's done, what Gene's done and my dad, and my mom and everyone involved in the whole ranching...
Gene: I want to intervene, if I may. Justin, he came and helped me every summer on the Ladder Ranch, when I livedLyda Family Ranches 50
out there. He came every summer. I'd go pick him up at El Paso and he'd have his saddle rolled up in the baggage compartment there. I'd have to go pick it up at the baggage claim - his saddle. And he'd come riding with me till he had to go back to school. And so we...he's leaving that out. That's kind of important, you know. A kid ten, twelve years old wanting to come ride from daylight to dark, and then wrangle the horse and feed him and turn around and go do it again for about six, seven days in a row. I think that's something he's kind of leaving out. That's something he did for me, and he gave me hope, with Tyler being a small one, that there was hope that the next generation would come forth and have a desire to be a part of the ranching business that we've created.
G: Justin, tell me a little bit about your childhood, where you spent summers on the ranches. Were you doing... were you living in the city at that time?
Justin: I was living there in a small town there, south of San Antonio, and I'd go out there and that was kind of my... was kind of what I always wanted to do. And I'm doing it now, of course. And I would go out there and, you know, I never really thought too much about it, you know. I remember my grandfather approached me one day and said, "Well," he said, "You doing anything this summer?" I said, Justin: "I don't guess - hang around, I guess." And he Lyda Family Ranches 51
said, "Well," he said, "I'll take you to New Mexico, and let you spend the summer out there." I said that sounded pretty good to me. Yeah. I wanted to go pretty bad, and so I went out there. And I really never thought...you know, I guess a lot of kids would have been kind of scared, being around a bunch of grown men, but that's what I wanted. I wanted to be...I wanted to be grown before I was grown, I guess. And ...
Gene: We did everything horseback out there - that was all horseback - we didn't have a helicopter...[inaudible] rough country we'd...a helicopter wasn't efficient out there. But we had a cowboy crew and had a remuda of horses, and so we did it from a different way than what we do now, where we are - we strictly did it horseback. So all the hours were...
[Background conversation]
Gene: Basically horseback during the branding season, you know.
[Background conversation]
Shay: I always say...said that's where he learned how to drive.
[Background conversation]
Shay: ...[inaudible]...was out there, I would say, "Justin, I sure need that trash taken off. Can you?" And at eleven years old, he'd say, "Okay, I'll do it." And so Lyda Family Ranches 52
Shay: that's where he learned how to drive, and I think it was a standard, and you know these kids learn how to drive early in life by doing chores, I'd say.
G: Justin, do you rodeo?
Justin: No, I don't. I've never had the urge to rodeo, really. I guess I just...it never really appealed to me, I guess. And I've heard everybody talk down so much about rodeoing that it just...I never...I never felt the need to do it. I guess I'd been around, you know...I guess there wasn't no need to play cowboy whenever you had the opportunity to be a real cowboy, you know. That's kind of the way...
Voice unknown: There you go.
Gene: Justin is...I'd like to explain that Justin is a good horseman, understands cattle and the cow nature, and he'll lead you off to thinking he doesn't know much about them sometimes. But where he works, I happen to know that he's required to understand cattle and have cow-savvy.
G: Justin, can you tell us a little bit about your education?
Justin: Well, I went to high school in Holdenville, Oklahoma. That's where my parents currently reside - up there - and they're working the ranch up there; they operate that ranch. And I ended up graduating in four years from Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos. And, as a Lyda Family Ranches 53
matter of fact, the day after graduation I came on out to Justin: the ranch - I graduated on a Saturday and ended up at the ranch on Sunday. So, that's kind of...
Voice unknown: ...ready [inaudible]...
Justin: I was ready to get out and go somewhere.
G: So, like your grandfather, like your uncle, and perhaps like your mom and dad, you've always known that ranching was your destiny?
Justin: Well, I wouldn't say that. I would say it's always been in the back of my mind that...I knew that was where I was always best at. I guess it just comes naturally that, you know, I don't... Like out on the ranch I don't have to think about a lot of things I do. It just comes to me, you know, it's just kind of second nature, I guess. And I don't spend a lot of time thinking about stuff when I know I can do it. I just know, you know, "Well, there's a cow that needs to be cut off - let's cut her off." I know how to go about it and how do it the right way.
G: Now, with your work today, it's not all on horseback; it's a lot mechanized. Tell us a little bit about your current work and how you...what is your workday like?
Justin: Well, it varies from day-to-day, really. And you know the days of...you know, I guess I lot of... You talk to a lot of young guys saying that...and they'll say that... well, they want to be on a horse all the time. Well, I'd Lyda Family Ranches 54
like to think that I'm kind of beyond that and know that it's...that's not practical to sit on a horse all day. You Justin: can't operate like that; it's just... I've been told that all my life, and I've come to realize that, that you're twenty-three years old, you know, and you can't sit on a horse all day and run a ranch, make it prosper like it should.
G: What do you need to do to make a ranch prosper?
Justin: You need to be a all-around hand I guess. And be pretty mechanically-minded. Know a lot about cattle, know how, you know, time comes to hold a bunch of cattle up and take a hold of them and better be able to do that, too. You'd better, you know, pull a fence up every once in awhile and run some...be able to pull on a Caterpillar a little bit and just do a lot...just to be an all-around guy really.
G: What do you see as the future of ranching?
Justin: I really...I'd really hate to say that. I guess I'd like to think it would...I'm sure it's going to evolve into the computer age, but I don't know how far along it would go in the computer age. I think computers only can take you so far in the ranching business. I think it's all going to come back to basics, a lot of it, you know. You know, you can't rely on a computer to...you can't rely on a computer to get a bunch of cows in the pen, really. You know, that's not... You can't rely on a computer to clear Lyda Family Ranches 55
off a thirty-six section pasture either, it's...that's impractical too. So I think it just comes down to being a well-rounded individual and know how to do...know how to fix Justin: any problem that pops up in front of you.
G: What about the diversification of ranchlands? Is that something that you see increasing?
Justin: Well, I think you can... I think a lot of people who just want to sit back and let the ranch overtake them, instead of them taking a hold of the ranch... I think they're kind of dead in the water, really, if you ask me. I don't think they have...they're going to be short-lived in their ranching adventures. You know, I think if you...as long as you diversify your land and, you know, keep a lot of the brush off there and develop your water. I think you know there's no end to what you can do. I think you can always improve it. But yet, you know, if there's always a way to decline from that, too, you know. If you're not improving your land all the time it's going to, you know, eventually probably lose its value and you're not going to...you ain't going to have much at the end there.
G: As a young man in the ranching field, how do you see yourself in the environ...with the environmental movement? Are you part of it? Are you against it? Is this something that you do as a rancher?
Justin: I...to be honest with you, no. I don't really Lyda Family Ranches 56
think much about the environmental...environment in general. I come from a very conservative family, and we're not, you know, we like to waste our time and energy in what we think are more important things than worrying about the
Justin: environment. If it doesn't involve, you know, improving your land and improving your cattle and trying to make a go of something, then it's not really worth...worth a lot of time and effort, if you ask me. We don't really think much about the environment, I guess; and that's probably a bad thing. But...
Gene: We're good stewards of the land.
Justin: Yeah.
Gene: We think and...
Justin: We take care of the land and that's...I guess that would fall under the category of environmentalist, that we take excellent care of the land. Probably more-so than ninety-percent of most ranchers around. And I think, well, I guess when I think of the environment I think of, you know, the atmosphere and things like that. But when you're out there where we are, you don't think about that; you think about what you're walking on and what your cattle are walking on, what they're eating, you don't think about...you don't think about the...
Shay: We're still able to see the stars at night, too.
Justin: Yeah.Lyda Family Ranches 57
Shay: That's...[inaudible] reason...[inaudible]...
Justin: I guess that's why you just don't think about it, I guess. It's just kind of an obsolete deal that you don't quite...
Gene: We're probably doing some things to enhance the Gene: environment, just through our own desires without bird...environmentalist...it takes a whole different degree of what we're used to looking - using that word.
G: Now you're just starting out as a rancher, but someday you'll be the grandfather. Do you think that there will be some...what do you think your grandchildren...what kind of a ranch, what kind of an environment will you be leaving for your grandchildren?
Justin: Well, I would like to think it would be, like I said, you can always try to improve the land, that's kind of the goal to keep improving. I would hope it would be better than it is now. I mean it's a fantastic ranch as it is right now, and I would like to see it be a little better than what it is now, of course.
G: Hard to look into the future, I suppose.
Justin: Yes, ma'am, it is.
G: If you were to describe yourself, would you describe yourself as a cowboy, a rancher, a businessman? How would you describe yourself to someone, a stranger?
Justin: Well, it sounds silly for a young guy to say he's Lyda Family Ranches 58
a cowman, but I would let myself fall in the category of cattleman. I would - cowboy - I think that term's used pretty loosely nowadays, and I don't think that, you know, I ...I'm not being conceited, but I would probably know more about cattle now, as a young kid, than most, you know, middle-age men would. That's not bragging, that's kind of Justin: the truth. And I don't know, I would prefer the word cowman actually. I don't like the word cowboy and I think it's just kind of what you are - a cowboy - you know, you're not grown-up yet.
Shay: In other words a cowman is a combination of what is really all of them?
Justin: Right.
Gene: Well, I think probably a better...I know you're trying to say this, and cowman, ranchman, as to taking on the business aspect of ranching, along with the fact that there are cattle and stock involved. I think that's exactly what Buck's addressing is that, you know, you've got to be - whether you want to be or not - you've got to be somewhat of a business-minded to survive in this business. You can't... you know, there's a lot of romance attached to the ranching industry.
Justin: You got to determine what's practical and what's impractical, and a lot of things that you see in picture books are very impractical nowadays in ranching. That's notLyda Family Ranches 59
noticed by the general public, but as fellow ranchers you really see it.
Gene: It's a fast moving train. It's a fast moving train. You either get on or you get left in the dust.
G: Do you foresee the day when, instead of a brand, you'll be putting a barcode on your cows and running them through a laser beam to count them?
[General conversation]
Justin: No, I tell you what, though, if one day, one day that me or some of my cousins are running this ranch, then if that's the most economical, most practical thing to do, then let's do it. I don't...I'm...I guess that I'm not much of a traditionalist. But we're always open to new ideas and better ideas to save money and make money.
Tyler: Whatever makes the job easiest.
Gene: We keep some information on our cattle at all times: we code them with tags as we palpate, pregnancy tests and things like that. We put a certain amount of information in the ear tag that they carry with them until the next year. And when we score them the next year a lot of the times the information in the ear from the year previous will dictate whether they get on a truck and go to the packer to become meat or to stay on as a reproducing animal on this ranch. We try to think that we have developed some efficiency in our operation. And so that's not what Lyda Family Ranches 60
you're saying, but yet we see the need to look closely at what we're doing. Make sure we're doing things in a forward direction, not just have numbers and not really know whether they're performing for us and things like that. So there's a fair amount of information. Nothing like you're talking about, but I can see by your question that that could be the case one day, but first it needs to be where you can afford to do that, you know, where it makes sense. But I think...I Gene: don't think that's unreal, that we will come to that someday.
G: Well, I have about run out of questions. But I don't know if I have covered everything.
[General conversation]
Unidentified Person: How long have you been out of tape?
G: Oh, no, we've changed tape; we're doing fine.
[General conversation]
G: I've got boxes of tape.
Unidentified: I know you've been out of tape for a long time.
G: So, is there anything more that you would like to say? Does somebody have something that I didn't think of to ask? I'm not a...
Gene: I'll tell you what, we're - as for all of us - we're just tickled that you find us interesting enough to even talk with and hope we got something there that's worth Lyda Family Ranches 61
sharing, and we appreciate your time. Thank you.
G: I think you have a wonderful family story, and we're just real proud to be able to archive this story as part of the Institute of Texan Cultures.
[General conversation]
Justin: We sure thank you for your time. And probably a lot of people won't agree with what we're saying, but I guess that's the way it's always been.
G: This is your story, then, not anybody else's.
Unidentified: Justin, you're just kind of glad you have the day off, aren't you?
Justin: Yeah, yeah.
Tyler: I think I speak for all of us when I say that we hope that ranching does go on for many generations, and coming to tell you about our ranch really makes us think that somebody cares and we're not just doing it for ourselves. And I'm hoping that it will go on for many, many generations.
G: Even though a lot of what you hear about ranching is romance, and maybe very inaccurate, it's still part of the heritage of Texas. This is what Texas was built on, and it's really exciting to know that there are people that are carrying it on and want to see it.
Gene: We're very proud of our roots. My dad has worked hard to help us get this together for the generations Lyda Family Ranches 62
sitting here. And without his tenacity and dedication we certainly couldn't be where we are right now, and I think leaving that off would be wrong. We owe a lot to dad and the love of God to allow us to get to this point, even if it all changes tomorrow we're glad we're here today and in the position we're in right now. We appreciate your time.
Unidentified: Can I go off the record here a little bit?
END OF TAPE 2, SIDE 1.
[SIDE 2 - BLANK]