January 30, 2024 • 76 mins
Living Western Podcast - Episode #2 - Ray Marxer - PART 1
For this inagural interview here on the Living Western Podcast, I chose a man who has accomplished more in life than I could ever dream to.
He is the long-time former manager of the famed Matador Cattle Company in Southwest Montana. He is also the author of a popular new non-fiction book called, "Cowboy in a Corporate World".
In this conversation, we cover many topics around ranching, agriculture, and life in the American West. Ray's life journey is inspiring and his insights are powerful.
This interview lasted for hours, so I split it up into two parts. Obviously, this is Part 1, but Part 2 should air next Tuesday morning.
Connect with Ray at his website www.raymarxer.com
Living Western Podcast website: https://livingwesternpodcast.com/
Adventure Cowboy/Living Western webpage: https://adventurecowboy.com/living-western/
Living Western Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095602268804
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
Welcome to Living Western, a show dedicated to
telling the real story of therural American West through
individual stories of theamazing people who call this
part of the world home.
(00:30):
The guest on today's episode issomebody very special to me.
You might say he's a personalhero.
So I figured what better way tostart off the interviews of the
Living Western podcast than tohave him be my first guest.
This man once managed one of thelargest ranches in the country
for many years, and he did sobeing profitable every year,
(00:54):
which is kind of unheard of inthe ranching world.
But not only did he manage theranch in a profitable fashion,
but over the years of hismanagement, the ranch won many
state, regional, and nationallevel environmental stewardship
awards, proving that ranchingand conservation go hand in
(01:17):
hand.
This man is a dedicated father,husband, Christian, and he's the
author of a book.
Cowboy in a Corporate World.
The interview you're going tosee today will be a highlight of
(01:37):
why this book is so importantand why you should get it.
This man is a wonderful person,an amazing human, and he's my
father, Mr.
Ray Markser.
Before we start today's episode,I'm going to read something I
(01:58):
wrote back when he released hisbook.
And I'm going to do this beforeI sit down with him, because I
know that he would beuncomfortable with me reading
this.
He does not like to be praisedpublicly like this, and it would
make him very uncomfortable ifhe was in the room as I read
(02:18):
this.
But I think this is a reallyimportant introduction into why
this interview is going to beimportant and why his book is
important.
So let me read this to youreally quick.
There is quite possibly not amore misunderstood and
underappreciated industry in allthe world.
(02:38):
Besides producing one of themain sources of food protein for
the entire planet, ranching isalso responsible for producing
the beef byproducts that areused to create the common
products that every person usesevery single day.
Products like the leather seatsin your car, Adhesives,
plastics, medicines, sheetrock,plywood, plaster, insulation,
(03:01):
shampoo, rubber, antifreeze,perfume, fabric softener,
anti-aging cream, and evenchewing gum are all produced
with beef byproducts.
This list is much moreextensive, but just the examples
that I have listed in theprevious sentence should be
enough to make you stop andthink about just how much
everyone depends on the ranchingindustry.
(03:24):
And yet, at this point inhistory, there has never been
such a disconnect between theconsumer and the agricultural
producer.
The amount of people who have noidea where their food actually
comes from is absolutelyshocking.
Even more stunning is the factthat less than 2% of the
population of the United Statesproduces the food for the other
(03:46):
98% of the population.
And that small percentage of thepopulation who are agricultural
producers is dwindling moreevery year.
Interestingly, at a time whenmuch of the urban population has
never even considered that theirfood comes from somewhere other
than a grocery store, Anunexpected phenomenon has
(04:07):
exposed many millions of peoplefrom all around the world and
from every walk of life to theranching industry and the
American cowboy.
That unexpected phenomenonarrived in the form of a smash
hit TV series that shares thename of our first national park.
Many real ranching folks cringeat the thought of that quite
(04:28):
vulgar and violent TV showrepresenting our culture and our
way of life.
But the fact is undisputablethat this TV series has
introduced more people to theconcept of the American cowboy
and the ranching industry thanany other influence in modern
history.
So, while most ranchers do notwant the public to think of the
(04:49):
ranching industry in such adrama-filled, violent, and
unrealistic way, it is importantto recognize the opportunity
that the ranching industry nowhas that can allow them to
connect with the masses ofpreviously disconnected public.
As an industry, ranching shouldcapitalize on the massive
interest that is now beinggenerated by that TV show and
(05:11):
use that massive new interest asour opportunity to tell the real
story of ranching, a story thatis the very fabric of what has
made America so great.
This book you're about to learnabout could not have been
written at a more crucial time.
You see, this book is areal-life look at what life on a
massive Montana ranch,ironically similar to the
(05:33):
fictional ranch depicted in theaforementioned hit TV show, is
really like.
The true-life story that RayMarkser writes about in this
book will not have theshootouts, fistfights, and
romantic drama that is necessaryto entertain a worldwide TV
audience, but Ray's story doeshave drama, romance, and trauma,
(05:53):
all its own.
In this book, you will see theprogression of a timeline of
American agriculture.
You will see stories of fear andinsecurities, triumph and
success, love and loss, mentorsand villains, government
overreach, corporate politics,national level accolades,
gut-wrenching betrayal, and theever abundant grace of God.
(06:17):
You will learn much about thehistory of the Matador Cattle
Company, a ranch around 340,000acres in current size.
The ranch was founded by thepioneer cattlemen Poindexter and
Orr.
way back in the year 1865.
In 1951, the Koch family boughtthe expansive ranch and called
it the Matador Cattle Company, aname tied to the original
(06:38):
Matador Ranch in Texas that theKoch family also owned.
Internally within KochIndustries, the ranch was known
as the Beaverhead Ranch todifferentiate it from the Texas
operation.
Ray Markser's career atMontana's Matador Cattle Company
spanned over 37 years, and allof his career took place during
Koch ownership.
For 21 of those years, held theposition of General Manager.
(07:01):
Ray retired from the ranch in2011.
In December of 2021, it wasannounced that the Koch family
had sold the Matador CattleCompany Beaverhead Ranch to
media mogul Rupert Murdock forthe price of$200 million, which
is the largest land sale inMontana state history.
The announcement of thehistorical sale closed a chapter
(07:23):
in the history of one of thelargest and most productive
ranches on the North Americancontinent.
And since much of our Marksvillefamily history had taken place
during the Koch chapter, I wasinspired to write a nostalgic
Facebook post to commemorate ourtime on the Matador Cattle
Company.
That post went viral and wasshared all over the country,
(07:45):
even all over the world.
Messages and comments beganrolling in asking us to write a
book of ranch stories.
Soon a reporter came andinterviewed Ray and his wife
Sue.
The next thing we knew, theAssociated Press had picked up
that article and it wassubsequently published in nearly
every major newspaper in thecountry.
(08:05):
It was at this point, after allof the media attention and the
interest it generated, inaddition to all of the comments
and messages requesting that abook be written, that Ray
finally decided to sit down andwrite a book to document and
share the fascinating stories ofhis time at the Matador Cattle
Company.
It is incredibly serendipitousthat Ray's wife Sue is an
accomplished Westernphotographer and throughout our
(08:27):
family's life on the MatadorCattle Company she has captured
one of the largest collectionsof ranch photographs that exists
and certainly the largestcollection of images captured on
the Matador Ranch.
A small sample of Sue's amazingranch photographs will be
included in Ray's book, Cowboyin a Corporate World.
What was originally intended tobe a book containing a
(08:49):
collection of entertaining ranchstories eventually morphed into
one of the most wonderfulmemoirs that I have ever read,
even though I admittedly may bea little bit biased.
In these pages, Ray hasthoughtfully and honestly taken
us on a real deep and revealingjourney into his own life's path
from a young farm kid with adream to to having successfully
(09:11):
achieved that dream and muchmore beyond what he could have
even imagined.
Readers of this book will beable to see the realities of
ranch life and what it trulymeans to be a cowboy.
On an educational level, readerswill learn principles of land,
business, livestock, andpersonnel management from one of
the most successful ranchmanagers in American history,
(09:33):
which is something that Raywould never say about himself.
Ray's ranch management expertiseis well proven by his
consistent, sustainable profitover the entirety of his career,
while simultaneously managing toimprove the ranch's
environmental resources to alevel that was awarded with more
national, regional, state, andlocal recognition than any other
(09:54):
ranching operation that I couldfind during my research for this
introduction.
However, if you were to ask Ray,personally, about how he was so
successful, He will alwayscredit his success to the people
who worked with him and for him,to his family, and to the grace
of God.
(10:14):
Ray's formula for success is asimple concept that is a
recurring theme throughout theentirety of his book.
He calls it a three-leggedstool, and the concept, though
simple, is so powerful thatevery person who reads the book
will be able to apply theconcept to their own life, and
in so doing, find a real balancein their life that will
positively affect themselves andeveryone around them.
(10:38):
Sincerely, Clayton Markser, anincredibly blessed and grateful
son.
Welcome to the Living WesternPodcast.
(11:13):
and my guest, Mr.
Ray Markser.
SPEAKER_03 (11:16):
Well, I'm Ray Markser.
I'm 70 years old and left employthere at the ranch in Dillon in
2011.
Sue and I bought a little placeover here by Sheridan, between
Twin and Sheridan, and we doour...
(11:40):
live our life right theresharing it with our kids and
grandkids we have a small placewhere we can still we grow hay
and we run some cows we stillare our horses we got arena and
operate our ranch services westbusiness out of there which uh
(12:01):
is uh We offer some consultingservices, which I haven't done a
lot of.
I didn't intend to do a lot ofthat.
I just wanted to be able to helppeople if they wanted to help.
And then still wanted to beactively involved in production
agriculture, helping people,whether it be day working or AI
(12:27):
a lot of cows.
It's tapered off some in thelast couple of years.
years, but Sue and I were AI inabout up to a couple thousand
cows every spring and earlysummer for several years for a
number of different peoplearound the state and still do
(12:47):
that and enjoy it.
I mean, that has opened quite afew doors and reacquaintances
with people that I'd been uhkind of separated from just from
logistics and and also beingbusy running a ranch for so many
(13:11):
years but uh see the ai issomething i i went to school my
dad was pretty progressive andhe let i and my brother go to ai
school with him when i was 14years old and that was a long
time ago and i can stillremember we went to Bozeman to
(13:33):
the college there and didclassroom work and studied there
for a day or two and then wewent to Billings and they still
had a packing plant in Billingsthen and we just bunched cows,
culled cows that was there.
We bunched them in a corner.
Alderman never had themcaptured, just pushed them all
(13:56):
up in a corner and we had tolearn to pass the Then pipettes,
big old flexible pipettes,wasn't any of this new modern
stuff like these nice guns thatyou use now.
SPEAKER_02 (14:08):
Well, I want to get into that a little bit later and
talk about– I just wrote it onmy notes here that I want to
talk about the technologyadvancements that you've seen
both in your lifetime but alsoin your career.
But back to what you're doingwith Ranch Services West, you
mentioned your AI.
So for those of you who aren'tfrom our culture, AI stands for
(14:31):
artificial insemination.
It's a way of breeding cowswithout– putting a bull in them.
So if you want to talk a littlebit about that and talk about
why it's done and the benefits.
SPEAKER_03 (14:44):
There's a number of benefits.
Of course, still, you know, Godintended things to be done
naturally, and I still believein that.
I keep a bull with my cows, butI AI my heifers.
And simply it's because it givesyou an opportunity to breed
those cows specific animals to aspecific bull for either for
(15:07):
calving ease in heifer's case orelse you want to get a specific
product and using two knowngenetic sources.
So that allows us to do that.
And in commercial terms, I mean,on big picture, I mean, you can
breed 1,000 cows to one bull.
(15:28):
I mean, if you want to getconsistency.
SPEAKER_02 (15:30):
As opposed to how many cows usually get bred by a
bull naturally in a season?
SPEAKER_03 (15:35):
When I ran the ranch there, you usually figured with
yearling bulls, 1 to 20.
One bull per 20 cows, maturebulls, one to 25.
And generally, though, we pushthat.
We did one bull per 28,regardless of the age.
SPEAKER_02 (15:54):
So how does that cost figure out to, I mean, I
don't know what the averageprice for a bull is in 2024, but
the cost of a breeding naturallyversus AI?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (16:07):
Well, AI, you have some costs as far as the semen
itself, and that, if it'sregistered, it goes up quite a
bit more, but you can buy a lotof really good quality semen for
$10 an ampule, maybe less, butsay$10 to$20.
Let's just say$10 an ampule, andif you're doing it on any scale,
(16:34):
You know, my services aren'tthat expensive, like three bucks
or five, well, I guess fivebucks per heifer.
And I provide all the thawingand all that and breeding.
And so, you know, you've got$15,but you take a bull, he's going
(16:56):
to cost six, seven thousandbucks pretty easy now.
And that's just a, an averagebull, probably$7,000 to purchase
him, he's going to be able toservice 25 cows.
You just divide that$7,000 by25.
SPEAKER_02 (17:15):
How many years are you generally getting out of a
bull?
SPEAKER_03 (17:21):
A lot of people only try and get four or five.
When I ran the ranch, myexpectations with those bulls is
I was going to get seven yearsout of them.
And we did most of the time.
But to do that, you have to havea pretty stringent selection
(17:42):
criteria as far as you need yourcriteria as far as traits and
performance and that sort ofthing, birth weights, weaning
weights, yearling weights, andcarcass traits.
UNKNOWN (17:55):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (17:55):
That bugger better be sound, and that's the first
thing.
It's just like a horse.
I mean, if they ain't sound,they ain't going to hold up or
last.
But we did very well with allthree breeds that we used.
SPEAKER_02 (18:11):
Gotcha.
Well, I wanted to highlight onthat because I know that the AI
services is probably somethingthat you're the most involved in
with your Ranch Services Westbusiness, but you also do a lot
of day work.
UNKNOWN (18:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (18:25):
Can you explain to the listeners who might not know
what day work is and what thatmeans for you?
SPEAKER_03 (18:30):
Day work in this day and age, especially with smaller
operations, they can't afford tohave full-time help, stockman's
help.
Or maybe they don't have that intheir crew, somebody that's
experienced handling stock orgot the skills and talents.
(18:53):
And so day work and it goes onall over the country.
They'll hire you for the day orfor the task at hand.
to come help them for that dayand then you go home at night
and they don't and like in mycase and and sue's when we
started ranch services west wewe went and helped quite a few
(19:17):
different people and and wecharge them for it and pretty
nominal but uh you know we tryto be fair and uh for what
service we're providing, butwe're also providing
transportation there, ourhorses, our skills, everything,
a lot of things.
Insurance.
Yeah, and then in our case,because we're doing it that way
(19:42):
as an independent contractor,then I, of course, have to go
out and get an independentcontractor's license through the
state.
It's a lot of...
red tape and hull blue but youyou gotta have you gotta meet in
a lot of different criteria andand generally one of the you
(20:03):
have to have so many points toqualify and you have to
recertify every two years andthere's a fee goes along with it
i think it's about 175 bucksevery two years just to be able
to do that but what that doeswhat it centers around the
independent contractors deal isit's based uh around health
(20:25):
insurance and and like workman'scomp where if i'm a independent
contractor then it's it's i'mi'm making the decisions i'm as
to what i'm doing they give me atask or something to do and then
i decide how to do it and andit's my responsibility to do
that safely if i get hurt it'smy responsibility not theirs
(20:49):
where if i was a part-timeemployee for them or a full-time
employee for producer, then theywould be giving me instructions
as to how to do things, but alsoI would be their responsibility
as workman's comp.
(21:09):
You know, I can understand howit's gotten to that point.
To me, it's kind of pointless tome in that I always felt like I
was responsible for my ownsafety.
SPEAKER_02 (21:26):
Right.
You could go to somebody's placeand help them brand or move cows
without having to, you know,there was trust.
And anymore, there's a lot ofrisk involved and liability with
that.
SPEAKER_03 (21:37):
Yeah, and liability is something that kind of runs
our country.
Risk of liability, it kind ofruns our country.
You know, it's a real thing, butit can have...
kind of negative side toproductivity, certainly.
But on the same token, I canalso say quite honestly that
(22:02):
agriculture is one of the mostdangerous professions there is
as far as accidents.
And part of it is, I've saidthis many times throughout the
years, that if our countryneeded to...
to have a group of people in oursociety to look to to go get
(22:26):
something done.
It would be agriculture.
If you had a job that needed tobe done, go have agriculture.
Folks in agriculture do it.
The unfortunate part is some ofthem wouldn't live through it
because they don't weigh therisk.
They're going to get the jobdone, and that's kind of the
American way or kind of thecowboy mentality and Western
(22:51):
mentalities out there.
They'll go get the job done.
But historically, they haven'talways weighed the risk.
SPEAKER_02 (22:57):
There's
SPEAKER_03 (22:58):
been a a lot of
SPEAKER_02 (22:59):
injuries.
I think statistics across thecountry show agriculture is one
of the top sources of injury,work-related injury, for sure.
SPEAKER_03 (23:10):
But if you think about it, you know, you're doing
work out on a varying landscape.
You're not on a concrete floor,you know.
So you've got varying landscape.
You've got hazards, you know.
And then you've got...
You're dealing with animals thatall have their own will.
(23:30):
Yours, most of the time, yoursis the biggest problem, you
know, your own.
But you've got a horse that'sgot a will.
You've got a cow or a group ofcows or sheep or whatever that's
got their will.
And so there's a lot of balls inthe air that offer plenty of
(23:52):
opportunities for injury.
SPEAKER_02 (23:54):
So when you're talking about...
that subject right there ofwill, what you're saying is that
in agriculture, anything to dowith livestock, generally, your
biggest liability is usuallyyourself.
I mean, there's always a riskwith any living creature that
has its own will, its own moods,its own attitudes, its own
fears, but generally, it's thehumans that they can affect
(24:24):
that.
They can bring about negativeissues
SPEAKER_03 (24:28):
we have we have the choice to put ourselves at risk
or not and you know years ago wewent for a lot of years running
the ranch where it was a typicalranch we'd have our share of
workman's comp claims andinjuries most of them weren't
too bad we had a few pretty badones but but in the 90s and
(24:52):
certainly in the 2000s, KochIndustries, the Kochs that owned
the ranch, they really had aconcerted effort.
They had a lot of employeesthroughout the world, and their
big goal was they wanted to havebusinesses that could operate
(25:16):
safely.
if we couldn't prove to themthat we could operate safely so
that our employees could go hometo their families at night
knowing that they were healthyand well, if we couldn't operate
a business without havingaccidents, they didn't want to
have the business.
And they got out of somebusinesses.
(25:39):
Right.
But they really...
That was one of the big,really...
kind of breakthrough things forus as a group of people together
there was when we came to thegenuine realization and belief
that we could operate that bigranch with all those acres of
(26:04):
risk and animals we couldoperate without having an
accident until we decided in ourown minds as a crew that we
could do that, it wasn't goingto happen, but we did.
And all three ranches did verywell.
I think, if I recall, there wasa period of two and a half or
(26:24):
three years where all threeranches went without having a
recordable accident, which ismonumental.
It's unheard of in our industry.
But we had some good cokes.
They drove that.
Because, you know, Charles Kochhimself told me one time, he
(26:48):
said, you know, when I askedabout the longevity of the ranch
and, you know, what was ourbiggest threat, you know, we had
to be a profitable operation.
That was the goal.
We had to be profitable in a lotof different ways, but we had to
be profitable.
But he told me that the biggestthreat to the ranch going out of
(27:11):
their ownership while I wasthere was if we couldn't operate
that ranch without havingaccidents.
If we couldn't operate it towhere our employees could go
home safely to their families atnight, that was the biggest risk
of them selling the ranches.
(27:31):
they had no intention of theydidn't want to but but they
recognized and and they were inall of us too it was a milestone
when those three big ranchescould could meet that safety uh
threshold uh it was somethingunheard of but but they they
gave us a lot of um tools to useand and they uh You know, we're
(28:00):
ranching, but they used DuPont,the DuPont company.
They felt like DuPont wasprobably the safest company in
culture in U.S.
business.
And so we used a lot of theirdifferent techniques to get
there.
Awesome.
SPEAKER_02 (28:19):
We can get into that a little bit more later, but to
touch back on what you'recurrently doing, one of the
things outside of your...
consulting business, RanchServices West, and day working
and AI, everything else that'sincluded with that.
You also are now an author.
So can you talk a little bitabout, well, tell us what your
(28:43):
book is.
It's actually on the shelf upbehind your head.
It's called Cowboy in aCorporate World, but tell us
what it is, what inspired it,and what you've gotten to
experience because of that.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (29:01):
It's been awesome, Clayton.
Far being...
I'll be the last to tell you,the last thing I ever dreamed
I'd do is write a book.
You know, I've spent my lifeliving life, but never ever
dreamed that I'd have the desireto write a book.
(29:26):
And...
But I was blessed.
I've always been enamored withhistory and the West.
And, you know, I grew up withgrandparents that homesteaded.
And my grandpa Marks arehomesteaded.
(29:46):
Well, his folks came fromLichtenstein.
They immigrated fromLichtenstein.
And then they homesteaded out onthe prairies south of Great
Falls in the Eden country andraised 16 kids.
Yeah.
They're homesteading.
And they all grew to be, exceptfor one that died when they was
(30:08):
younger, all of those siblingsdied.
They were in their 80s, most allin the 80s and 90s when they
passed away.
But at any rate, I got to growup 25 miles from where my
grandpa homesteaded.
And then his wife, my grandmaHazel, she came across the
Canadian border when she waslike six weeks old with her
(30:31):
mother and siblings in a coveredwagon from Alberta and went to
the prairies south there.
So You know, that's ingrained inus and it's in you too.
So, long story short, then whenI went to the ranch and spent
(30:52):
all those years at the ranch,there was a number of old-timers
and people that had, you know,like my great-grandparents' age
or my grandparents' age or myfolks' age.
I grew up in this country, andthey knew so much history, and
they'd lived it.
And I just gobbled that stuff upevery time I got a chance to
(31:12):
visit with one of them guys.
And it's kind of fun for me tojust reminisce about.
One of my favorite sources ofhistory was Hans Anderson.
Keith Anderson's dad.
(31:32):
His wife was Georgiana.
Everybody around here knows theywere unique, wonderful people.
But at any rate, he had built upquite a place.
They'd gone through theDepression, and he'd built up
quite a place, and ranch, andsheep, and cattle, and
everything.
But Hans was getting older andkind of retired, but he'd still
(31:55):
help Keith all the time.
But many times i'd get to i'd beup on the road three or four in
the morning getting gates setand everything set up before the
crew ever was up and going sothat we would be set up for what
we were going to do that daywhether it start to the trail to
(32:16):
the centennial or to the sagecreek or whatever and hans
couldn't sleep so he'd be upthere They might have cows on
the road, or he might be just upthere driving.
Four o'clock in the morning,here he'd be, hands tootin'
long, and he might be juststopped alongside the road.
We'd stop and visit.
And I got so much history fromhim.
(32:39):
You know, he'd tell me differentplaces.
So-and-so homesteaded here.
Or the Jake Flatt School washere.
There used to be a shearingplant there.
Just so many things that heshared.
And then just living.
I mean, they lived in some ofthose old homestead cabins and
(32:59):
leased places.
But I valued those stories thathe told me.
And then another one was BillHawkins, who was a vet, a
veterinarian.
And he was like a walk inhistory book.
Excuse me.
(33:20):
His father was Hap Hawkins, andhe was of the same generation as
Hans Anderson.
But they went through theDepression when all the
homesteads folded up.
They couldn't make a living.
The people had to walk away fromthem and move to town.
And some of the ranches, a lotof the bigger ranches, they
(33:41):
folded up too because they justcouldn't make it.
Times were tough.
And he was involved in...
and gathering up those placesthat went back to a bank.
And the bank didn't want them,but they had them.
I mean, they're yours.
So he would take, he had quite afew of those places, and Hans
(34:01):
was the same way, where theytook over and ran them for the
bank for a while until theycould, the bank could sell them
to somebody, portions of them tosomebody or something.
But they knew so much historyand lived such a, amazing life
that I got to learn a lot ofthat history from them I
(34:24):
remembered I mean remember I canremember the days where we were
sitting when they told me someof those stories but about the
book Jimmy Campbell from Dillon,who's a longtime brand inspector
and friend, he has the same lovefor the history and all.
But he spent countless hours upthe Blacktail and the San
(34:48):
Antonio sitting there with BillHawkins while we were weaning,
you know, and waiting for us toget everything sorted so they
could inspect them andeverything.
And they sat there for hourstelling stories.
And anyway, Jim and I alwayssaid, we need to get Bill
Hawkins and Hans Anderson in thetruck, turn on a tape recorder,
(35:11):
and drive up to Blacktail andCentennial.
We never did that.
They're both gone.
So now it's us.
We've got that.
And Hans' son, Keith, is a...
He's got so much history in him.
SPEAKER_02 (35:29):
But it's in you.
It's in your minds.
And it doesn't get passed downunless you tell it.
SPEAKER_03 (35:34):
It doesn't.
And, you know, some people aregoing to remember it, some
won't.
But nobody will remember it ifit's not told.
And so, you know, I just feltlike, especially after the ranch
sold, And then we got COVID in2021.
(35:57):
We dodged it for a year and ahalf and led our kind of a
normal life.
And then COVID hit us prettyhard.
I was pretty sick for quite awhile.
But when we got over it, andit's about the time that the
ranch sold, and then you put upa you put up that Facebook post
(36:19):
about kind of the end of an eraabout the ranch selling, you
know, and it had been, you know,it was a big part of all of our
lives.
Right.
It was 10 years after youretired.
Yeah.
But it was a big part of ourlife, whole life, you know, and
you spend nearly 40 years ofyour life.
Some people don't live thatlong, you know, but, uh, so, you
(36:40):
know, I spent more to thispoint, I spent more than half of
my life there.
And, uh, not share that is it'spretty selfish actually but it's
also I recognize that in thisday and age with electronics
that you know you could tapethings like we're doing here now
(37:02):
but it's kind of like the Bibleyou can get it on on tape and
recording and all but ifsomething happened with
electronics I want to have thatI want to have that physical
thing and a written word likethe Bible.
And so I felt compelled and witha lot of urging, you know, to
(37:31):
write that book.
And originally my intent was Iwanted to write fun stories.
You know, I just really, I'vegot so many stories I could go
on and on and on and on.
You know that.
But I wanted to tell those funstories.
That was my original intent.
And then we took aself-publishing.
(37:54):
We entered a self-publishingcourse because we'd never
written a book.
Sue was very talented that wayas far as technical and gifted
writer and everything in her ownright.
But it became very apparent onceI started writing.
(38:15):
writing the book that I neededto write the hard parts.
The good parts, but the hardparts too.
First, I'm still, I'll stillwrite another book.
I've got so many stories.
I've written quite a few, butI've been kind of on a hiatus
(38:36):
for almost a year now where Ihave, I was writing a story a
week and then I decided, I justneeded a break from it, and I
wanted to be fresh and want...
SPEAKER_02 (38:46):
Inspired.
Inspired, exactly.
It's hard when it's forced.
Yeah, it's
SPEAKER_03 (38:53):
different.
SPEAKER_02 (38:54):
Or when you feel obligated to create all the time
or to meet a deadline, it can behard to continue to stay
inspired and to tell the storieswith the same enthusiasm and
fervor.
SPEAKER_03 (39:07):
It's kind of interesting, though, because
once we started writing...
on that book.
And I did it sitting in my chairwith a laptop.
And to start with, I'm noblazing fingers with a
typewriter, you know.
But I took typing one when I wasa freshman in high school in
like 1968.
(39:27):
And it was manual typewriter.
But at any rate, it was aboutthe first week in January when I
started writing that.
And I got on a roll.
I mean, I really got on a roll.
(39:48):
But there were some things.
We joined that publishingschool, so we had some help as
far as keeping us on track andkeeping us accountable holding
us accountable for you know likedeadlines or but the other thing
with that is and i had an anoutline we i just couldn't put
down but they had a mind map andthose sorts of things that
(40:09):
really helped us kind of stay intrack but i made a promise to
sue unto myself first but thento sue that when i started
writing that book I would not doone thing on that book until I'd
read my Bible and I'd prayedthat day.
(40:30):
And I never missed.
I started writing that bookabout the 7th or 10th of
January.
I had everything, virtually allthe content written by the 15th
of March.
And then Susie had to go to workand putting, arranging it and
putting it together to where itwas, you know, really flowed and
(40:53):
was good.
And she really put the
SPEAKER_02 (40:55):
book together for us.
Well, mom has tremendous writerskill as well.
Unbelievable.
SPEAKER_03 (41:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, but that is how it cameabout.
Our publishing, self-publishingschool, we had coaches and stuff
like that.
We'd meet once a month.
But at any rate, we had a goal.
They asked us to write a goal.
And I said, well, I guess thiswas in January.
(41:24):
I said, I got a goal.
I would like to have a bookwritten that's ready to be
published and go to the publicin a year.
And I thought that wasrealistic.
But maybe...
we were going to have to pushourselves.
And the 18th of August, wepublished that book.
(41:48):
It went to the printer and outto the public.
Even the self-publishing school,the coaches and the people with
it were just amazed at how we'ddone.
And it's been very humbling, butbut so encouraging to see how
that book is done.
(42:09):
I
SPEAKER_02 (42:10):
think that the results that you got is largely
attributed to the passion thatyou had about the subject
matter.
You weren't just writingsomething that you were
interested in.
You were writing something thatwas you.
It was your heart.
It was your soul.
It's
SPEAKER_03 (42:32):
not all warm and fuzzy.
I laid it out.
And that's just me.
I'm not going to change thatway.
SPEAKER_02 (42:46):
No.
But when you're talking aboutwhen you laid it out, you did.
And if you folks get a chance toread the book, I really
encourage you to, because you'regoing to get to get a glimpse
into real ranch life, real, thehuman experience of ranching
that sometimes gets overlooked.
(43:08):
We, We as an industry, and Italked about this in my last
episode, we're very good attelling stories to each other.
We're very good about educatingeach other.
There's a million podcasts andvideos and books from ranchers
to other ranchers or, you know,within our own culture.
SPEAKER_03 (43:25):
Singing to the choir.
SPEAKER_02 (43:26):
Right.
But that's comfortable becausethose are the people who
understand us.
What I...
appreciated a lot about yourbook when it got done.
And I didn't know what toexpect, because you're not a
writer.
No.
But what I appreciated about itis that it was told from such a
human perspective that anybodywho's not even into ranching can
(43:50):
appreciate what came out of it.
And the other thing, too,sometimes in popular culture
when people write memoirs, ithas this...
tell-all connotation and a bigexpose.
And you didn't write it thatway.
There was hurts and there washard things where you could have
(44:14):
thrown some people under thebus, but you never said a bad
word about anybody.
Anything that was negativetowards maybe a group of people,
it was that way.
It was towards the suits.
But you told it in a way thatwas very anybody can identify
(44:36):
with?
SPEAKER_03 (44:37):
Well, probably one of the guiding principles for me
and how I approached that bookand how I told the story and
what I told and what I continueto tell the stories came from
advice.
And this is in the book.
It came from advice that we got,a number of us, Corporate
(45:01):
managers in Coke, about 400 ofus sitting in a room one
morning, got from one of thehigher executives in Coke.
His name was Bill Caffey.
I have utmost respect for him.
He was a good businessman.
No crap.
You know, you knew where hestood.
It wasn't any hidden thing.
(45:22):
But he...
His advice to us is don't be avictim.
Don't live your life like avictim.
And I don't feel like I was evera victim.
You're in charge of your ownself.
And so I don't have that victimmentality or belief in me.
(45:45):
And so I don't tell anything ortalk about that in any way.
that people would think that Iwas a victim.
That was not my intent in thebook.
Sure, there's hard times.
There's good times.
There's hard times.
That's life.
One of the neat things, though,Clayton, I would share with you
(46:06):
that's been real fun for me isthroughout my career, whether it
was When I was young in 4-H orFFA, you know, I did plenty of
public speaking.
I had plenty of leadership stuffand involved in a lot of things
(46:28):
when I was young.
But I've always really enjoyedsharing my life or the Western
lifestyle and our culture outhere with the others that don't
know it.
And one of the most inspiringthings that we've ever gotten to
do, Sue and I was part of– agroup that went, uh, I'm having
(46:53):
a senior moment right now.
Provider Pals.
Okay, so Provider Pals was adeal started by Bruce Vincent up
in Libby.
His family were loggers for along time, and they got put out
of business.
And it was governmentintervention and regulations and
that kind of hoopla that kind ofput them out of business, along
(47:16):
with other loggers allthroughout the state.
And so he started this dealbeing proactive and So what he
wanted to do was expose peopleand kids, seventh and eighth
graders, from the inner citiesthroughout the United States to
what really it's like out herein the West or where we're
(47:37):
harvesting natural resources,whether it be logging or mining
or oil production.
production or fishing,commercial fishing or ranching
or farming, any number of thosekind of things, dairying.
So he put that together and he'dget together a group of four or
(47:59):
five different producers fromdifferent walks of life.
And we'd go spend two days inthese inner cities at a certain
school.
And in our case, we showedslideshow and then spent time
with those kids, visiting withthem about our life and the life
on the ranch.
(48:21):
But with inner city kids thatprobably never get exposed to
the real thing, much like whatyour podcast is about.
Yeah.
It was reaching people thatweren't in our normal audience.
And so that was some of thefunnest, most inspiring things
(48:41):
to me, to see those little kids.
And one of the most memorableones was Washington, D.C.
We went to a school there.
I still remember.
It's Maryvale.
I still have a cup that I useevery day that has Maryvale on
it.
and and that was from a longtime ago but anyway it was a
(49:04):
little middle school there abouttwo and a half blocks from the
capital their school buildingwasn't near as good as shape and
modern as ours are out here inthese rural communities even but
those those kids were You know,they were from a completely
different culture.
(49:24):
They didn't have any concept.
They had no inkling of what lifewas like, you know, especially
in a setting like ours.
But most of them came fromsingle-parent homes.
Very few of them had even a yardaround their house, grass, a
lawn.
(49:44):
The fact is, there was...
They told us at the school thatmost of those kids, the only
lawn that they were accustomedto, there was a 20-foot strip of
grass along one side of thatschool building, and that was
probably the only grass or lawnthat a lot of them kids really
had been exposed to.
(50:05):
So we got to expose them to theWest, and...
And it just fascinated thosekids.
I mean, they were so interestedin our way of life, which we
take for granted.
And it's just like you, somebodyasking you as a kid, you know,
what's it like to be, you know,kid on a ranch i don't know
(50:28):
anything else you know so youdon't and and so they that was
our opportunity to share lifeout west with with those little
kids and then we had they had adeal set up we had a little rope
and dummy there and and i tookropes and stuff and with me and
and we got to try and teach allthem little kids how to rope,
(50:50):
and they all got to swing andtry to learn to swing and rope a
dummy.
And then some of the funnestparts, that one in Washington,
D.C., was after we'd kind offinished and I was sitting
outside on this bale of hay thatthe dummy was on, the families
pulled up there, a dad and hisother little kids, to pick up
(51:18):
their other siblings fromschool.
And they stopped, came out, andthey sat there and visited with
me and them little kids.
We had so much fun.
They just ate it up.
I mean, I had them in my hat andeverything, you know.
I'd like to think that that madean impression on those kids.
SPEAKER_02 (51:38):
I would imagine it did.
It made an impression on usbecause we were quite a bit
younger then, but I can rememberwhen you guys came home from
that.
Mom, of course, she's alwaystaking pictures.
The smiles and the joy on thosekids' faces.
You guys had a bunch of littlecowboy hats, and they had some
little bandanas on, and theywere just eating it up.
(52:01):
And it was striking to me evenas a kid kid myself how you know
that was just normal for us butfor those kids it was like the
highlight of their life
SPEAKER_03 (52:12):
and some of those uh bruce had that set up and and to
where um you know throughout allthose different cities they
could they could apply for uslike a scholarship and and I
don't know how many kids got tocome out, but they brought about
20 or 40 kids out for a weekduring the summer from those to
(52:36):
Libby and got to be in a camp.
SPEAKER_02 (52:39):
They brought them to Montana.
SPEAKER_03 (52:40):
Yeah.
So that was pretty special.
The other one that I remember sowell, and it's from a different
perspective, was Little Rock,Arkansas.
And Sue and I went there and...
And it wasn't as much the kidsthere as it was fellow
presenters.
And we went there and theybrought a logger from Arkansas.
(53:08):
And I thought I knew what aredneck was because I kind of
are one.
I had no concept of redneckuntil I ran into that gentleman
that was the logger fromArkansas.
It was entertaining.
(53:29):
But those kind of things, youknow, it's been inspiring.
You see what effect you had onthose kids or could have had and
the immediate effect you couldsee.
You know, they were enamoredwith it.
And that's part of the thing IWe've always known, but you
could see firsthand.
(53:50):
There's a romance about the Westthat people just like.
I mean, there's a reason why theWesterns were so popular.
Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, Imean, and the Lone Ranger.
I mean.
I can remember, you know,playing cowboys and Indians,
there was nothing against theIndians or nobody was offended.
It was just, that was just theAmerican way.
(54:11):
And, and there's, there's aromance about that.
And, uh, it's part of America.
Yeah.
That kind of is going away.
Yeah.
And, and I think that's why, youknow, people are so enamored
with, with a deal likeYellowstone.
I'm repulsed by a lot of itbecause it's so foul, but, uh,
(54:33):
that there's still that romanceof the West.
But it's not so much the West,it is the American spirit.
We don't want to lose that.
So that's part of the big reasonwhy I wrote the book.
I wanted to share that so it'sin print and people can look at
(54:54):
it years from now and see whatit was like.
And it was pretty unique.
I mean, even in my age and frommy generation, what I
experienced on that big ranch,you know, the transformation
that I witnessed and lived therewas pretty amazing, even in my
(55:17):
generation.
SPEAKER_02 (55:18):
Well, let's talk about that.
I mean, you were at the MatadorCattle Company, otherwise known
as the Beaverhead Ranch, for37-plus years.
And you were the general managerfor 21,
SPEAKER_03 (55:32):
correct?
Yeah, from 1990, fall of 1990until June of 2011.
But when did you start there?
October 7th of 1974, I wentthere.
I was 21.
So,
SPEAKER_02 (55:49):
back to something we touched on in the very beginning
about technology and the waythings have changed.
UNKNOWN (55:56):
Ha!
SPEAKER_02 (55:56):
Talk a little bit about what your realities were,
your day-to-day realities,whether it's transportation,
food, housing, at the beginningof your career to the end.
What was the change in 37 years?
SPEAKER_03 (56:16):
What just came to my mind was high-tech then was a
hammer.
uh no it it changed so much butbut you know i want to keep this
in perspective my mygrandparents my grandpa and
grandma marxer and endless theythey experienced way more change
(56:41):
than we did i mean they wentfrom literally horse and buggy
days and to to cars toelectricity to man on the moon.
I mean, to planes.
And then to man on the moon.
And what we've experienced isvery small compared to that.
(57:03):
The change is very small.
Those were breakthrough things.
The telephone.
Yeah.
But even, yeah, communication.
And that...
Well, when the telephone wasused for a long time, it was
actually a benefit.
(57:24):
I see a lot of communication nowthat's more negative towards the
human culture and society.
But it also is technology thatallows us like this to share a
lot of that with a lot morepeople.
But when I went there at theranch, I was 21, and I was...
(57:46):
youngest, greenest kid on thecowboy crew.
He ran a fairly good sizedcowboy crew when they could find
the help.
But they had 6,000 plus cows andthen in 1974 they still had
7,000 sheep too.
And so the sheep, there was afarm, kind of a farm crew and
(58:08):
then a sheep crew and then acowboy crew.
But uh things were prettyprimitive i mean the summer
camps like in the centennialsage creek was a permanent camp
they did have power but thesummer camps didn't have power i
mean there was nothing i meanthere was an outhouse out back
(58:34):
uh you had a shack to live in ora tent most of we had mostly we
had mostly shacks uh there theywere old like railroad work
shacks you know they had no theywere just um ship lap lumber on
a two by four studs noinsulation no inside walls just
(58:56):
a small the one uh little shackthat we three of us lived in
during waning two of us for thefall and then during waning
another one moved in with us andhelped single guys but or all of
us up there as single men areeven though we were married but
(59:17):
it was room for three cotsbasically had a barrel stove in
the end of it just an old stoveand no insulation so i mean
you're you're either roastingyou know you're sweating or
freezing you know and it wasjust how well the stove held the
heat because the building wasn'tgoing to hold it at all but
(59:41):
there was no no power oranything there we had did
everything we if we had alantern Some of us took
flashlights, but the batteries,you know, were run out.
So we might use a lantern, but alot of times we didn't use any.
We just wandered around in thedark.
We very seldom took a lantern orlight to the barn.
(01:00:02):
And almost always wrangled,somebody wrangled horses always
in the dark.
And I should explain that.
Wrangling horses, because that'ssomething that a lot of people
don't have any concept of whatthat is.
You know, on smaller operations,they may not do that or have the
(01:00:24):
need for that.
Because they have horses just in
SPEAKER_02 (01:00:27):
individual pens right around the barn, close by.
SPEAKER_03 (01:00:30):
Yeah, but there where you've got a crew, we'd
have 60, 70, probably 70 or 80head of horses for the crew.
in a wrangle pasture, and thenthe horses that we weren't using
at that time, they were turnedout in other pastures.
There was probably 150, 160 headof horses in a working cavity.
But, so the crew did everythingtogether.
(01:00:55):
You stayed in a camp together.
You ate at the same time.
You went to work at the sametime.
You got off at the same time.
But, So it was in order to dothat, then those camps like
that, you had a wrangle pasture,and it was probably about a
(01:01:16):
section, the one up there at thestart of your...
Which is a mile square.
A mile square, yeah, which, youknow, for most people, that's a
lot of country, and that was oneof the smaller pastures.
But at any rate, and it had acouple of cricks running through
it and willows and everything,sagebrush holes and everything.
So those horses would be turnedout there during the night, and
(01:01:37):
And then somebody would go out.
We'd keep a wrangle horse inaround camp, and we switched
off, and everybody had to taketheir turns.
So he'd have to get up beforeeverybody else.
And before breakfast andeverything, you had to go out,
saddle the wrangle horse, andthen head out into the wrangle
pasture, I mean into the horsepasture, and find all those
(01:02:00):
horses gathered in the dark.
I mean in the dark, yeah.
And you had to trust that.
that wrangle horse and he'dusually go find them but uh you
go out there and gather them upand bring them back into the
corral and pin them and thenmost of the time the guys would
show up about that they'd hearyou coming and hear the horses
(01:02:22):
coming they'd get up and we'd gosaddle our horse have to catch
some horses in the dark andthat's something a lot of people
don't have any you know in thisday and age you know
everything's lit and you but youlearn your horses, you know,
you've got 75 of them to pickfrom, you've got to find, you
might have three or four or fivehead horses in that bunch that
(01:02:45):
are yours, you've got oneparticular one that you want to
ride that day.
You've got to figure out how topick them out of 75 in pitch
dark.
And it might be a silhouette,you can still, you know, if your
eyes are adjusted, you can stillsee, but to some extent, but,
(01:03:06):
you know, there's a lot of bays.
But you could tell by the shape,their silhouette, or I can think
of a number of them, of minethat I rode throughout the
years, that they had a certainway when they got in the pen,
when somebody started walking inthe pen, they had kind of
patterns, like macho, horsemacho head patterns.
(01:03:30):
he he'd go around the pen youknow that kind of the outside of
the the corral about three timeshe'd take three laps he just and
it wasn't fast or anything buthe he'd move around that girl
outside of that girl about threetimes and then he stopped
somewhere and and that was oneof the ways i told him in the
dark but and then you go getthem caught make sure you got
(01:03:50):
the right horse and then youlead them into the barn and it's
dark enough outside but The barnis darker than old Coley's butt.
You know, and there's literally,you can't see your hand in front
of your face.
Throw a little grain in the boxin the stall and go find your
saddle and brush them off andeverything.
(01:04:13):
And, of course, you've got to,it was real important, you
develop habits that I still useevery time.
I never saddled a horse withoutcurrying them and brushing them
all over and have my hand allover him because you didn't know
what he might have on him or itwas hurt or anything you
couldn't see it so you had to goby feel
SPEAKER_02 (01:04:35):
right so for those of you that you know aren't from
our culture what he's talkingabout is when you have a horse
that you're going to put asaddle on you want to make sure
that there's no dirt mudcockleburs anything like that or
sores or yeah sores on themwhere there any friction or
contact from the saddle thatyou're putting on could cause
(01:04:55):
more injury or just could...
Might get you bucked off.
SPEAKER_03 (01:05:03):
Yeah.
So the other thing that thatdid, you know, you developed
habits and a pattern of how youdid everything, how you caught
your horse, how you put them inthe stalk, how you saddled them
and unsaddled them.
To this day, I have a specificway that I, and even though I've
(01:05:25):
got lights and everything,there's a specific way that I'll
saddle a horse.
I'll put my latigos andeverything, my cinches up so
that when you're in the dark andyou go pitch that on there, you
know exactly where everythingis.
And in all likelihood, when youlead that horse out in the dark,
you may load in a trailer or youmight leave.
(01:05:48):
Then we just left from camp.
SPEAKER_02 (01:05:51):
Because you didn't have a horse trailer.
SPEAKER_03 (01:05:52):
Yeah.
They had gotten a horse trailerthe year before I came was their
first one.
SPEAKER_02 (01:05:58):
Not everybody that was working there had access to
the horse trailer.
SPEAKER_03 (01:06:03):
No, no.
We had one horse trailer.
SPEAKER_02 (01:06:05):
For the whole ranch?
For the whole ranch.
How many cowboys?
SPEAKER_03 (01:06:08):
Oh, anywhere from 10 to 12.
SPEAKER_02 (01:06:10):
Spread across 250,000 acres at the time.
SPEAKER_03 (01:06:14):
Yeah,
SPEAKER_02 (01:06:14):
yeah.
So a lot of guys didn't havevehicle transportation when they
were going out.
SPEAKER_03 (01:06:20):
Oh, no.
In the crew, when you went tocamp, there was maybe two
pickups.
Maybe the jigger boss and thecow boss each had a pickup.
But very seldom, we didn't takeour pickups up there.
No, we just didn't.
I mean, you were there to work.
(01:06:41):
Yeah.
And you're dang sure tiredenough at the end of the day,
you know, that you weren'tlooking for extracurricular
activities.
SPEAKER_02 (01:06:50):
Well, your horses had to have been different then,
too.
I mean, we've always had hardyhorses out here, but I imagine
back in the day when you didn'thave trailer, some of those
pastures are 10, 15, 20 milesacross.
You've got to go a long waysjust to get to the cows to
gather before you can even workthem.
SPEAKER_03 (01:07:09):
It was nothing to trot 10 or 12 miles before you
got to where you were going towork all day.
Then when you got done, youtrotted home.
SPEAKER_02 (01:07:18):
And people these days can't appreciate that if
they never lived it because wetrailer everywhere.
SPEAKER_03 (01:07:23):
Yeah, but the trailers actually made ranching
more efficient.
They really did.
As does most technology.
Yeah, a lot of technology makesit more efficient.
but it doesn't make betterhorses or horsemen.
You know, I can still remember,and this is even after when I
was a cow foreman there in thelate 80s, and...
(01:07:48):
We still, we use trailers more,but still, there's lots of times
where you trot it a long ways,you know, to do your work and
then trot it home.
And I still remember there's alot of horse people will
recognize the name BruceSandifer.
Bruce worked for me as a youngmarried guy in the late 80s for
(01:08:09):
a couple years and a really goodhand.
But I can still remember thosetimes trotting out of Sage
Creek.
challenging each other and andthe others of the crew see how
long we could trot without ourfeet in the stirrups you can try
a long ways if you push yourselfand bruce could trot a long ways
(01:08:32):
but bruce will listen to thisyeah he he could trot a long
ways without his feet in thestirrups he was an exceptional
hand then and i'm so tickledthat he's gone and developed
that into what he has and sharedthat with others It's a big
deal.
He's gifted.
SPEAKER_02 (01:08:51):
Well, you've had a lot of gifted people that work
for
SPEAKER_03 (01:08:54):
you.
Yeah, yeah.
And a lot of times when you'reliving it, you don't recognize
how gifted they are.
And they may not have developedall that either.
And maybe they weren't in theright situation.
We didn't have the situationwhere that gift could be
expressed.
We probably held some of themback because we were there to do
(01:09:17):
a cowboy job and be profitable.
But But that tickles me to seepeople go on beyond and
experience life and work withus, and yet they've gone on to
way bigger things, and they'resharing it with others.
(01:09:37):
That's inspiring.
SPEAKER_02 (01:09:41):
Thank you for joining us on episode number two
of the Living Western Podcastwith guest Ray Markser.
This concludes part one of theepisode.
Part two will air next Tuesday.
As always, if you would like tofind out more about Living
Western and what we're allabout, please go to
livingwesternpodcast.com.
(01:10:02):
You can also check out LivingWestern on Instagram, YouTube,
and Facebook.
We'll see you next time.
Welcome to Living Western, a show dedicated to
telling the real story of therural American West through
individual stories of theamazing people who call this
part of the world home.
(00:30):
The guest on today's episode issomebody very special to me.
You might say he's a personalhero.
So I figured what better way tostart off the interviews of the
Living Western podcast than tohave him be my first guest.
This man once managed one of thelargest ranches in the country
for many years, and he did sobeing profitable every year,
(00:54):
which is kind of unheard of inthe ranching world.
But not only did he manage theranch in a profitable fashion,
but over the years of hismanagement, the ranch won many
state, regional, and nationallevel environmental stewardship
awards, proving that ranchingand conservation go hand in
(01:17):
hand.
This man is a dedicated father,husband, Christian, and he's the
author of a book.
Cowboy in a Corporate World.
The interview you're going tosee today will be a highlight of
(01:37):
why this book is so importantand why you should get it.
This man is a wonderful person,an amazing human, and he's my
father, Mr.
Ray Markser.
Before we start today's episode,I'm going to read something I
(01:58):
wrote back when he released hisbook.
And I'm going to do this beforeI sit down with him, because I
know that he would beuncomfortable with me reading
this.
He does not like to be praisedpublicly like this, and it would
make him very uncomfortable ifhe was in the room as I read
(02:18):
this.
But I think this is a reallyimportant introduction into why
this interview is going to beimportant and why his book is
important.
So let me read this to youreally quick.
There is quite possibly not amore misunderstood and
underappreciated industry in allthe world.
(02:38):
Besides producing one of themain sources of food protein for
the entire planet, ranching isalso responsible for producing
the beef byproducts that areused to create the common
products that every person usesevery single day.
Products like the leather seatsin your car, Adhesives,
plastics, medicines, sheetrock,plywood, plaster, insulation,
(03:01):
shampoo, rubber, antifreeze,perfume, fabric softener,
anti-aging cream, and evenchewing gum are all produced
with beef byproducts.
This list is much moreextensive, but just the examples
that I have listed in theprevious sentence should be
enough to make you stop andthink about just how much
everyone depends on the ranchingindustry.
(03:24):
And yet, at this point inhistory, there has never been
such a disconnect between theconsumer and the agricultural
producer.
The amount of people who have noidea where their food actually
comes from is absolutelyshocking.
Even more stunning is the factthat less than 2% of the
population of the United Statesproduces the food for the other
(03:46):
98% of the population.
And that small percentage of thepopulation who are agricultural
producers is dwindling moreevery year.
Interestingly, at a time whenmuch of the urban population has
never even considered that theirfood comes from somewhere other
than a grocery store, Anunexpected phenomenon has
(04:07):
exposed many millions of peoplefrom all around the world and
from every walk of life to theranching industry and the
American cowboy.
That unexpected phenomenonarrived in the form of a smash
hit TV series that shares thename of our first national park.
Many real ranching folks cringeat the thought of that quite
(04:28):
vulgar and violent TV showrepresenting our culture and our
way of life.
But the fact is undisputablethat this TV series has
introduced more people to theconcept of the American cowboy
and the ranching industry thanany other influence in modern
history.
So, while most ranchers do notwant the public to think of the
(04:49):
ranching industry in such adrama-filled, violent, and
unrealistic way, it is importantto recognize the opportunity
that the ranching industry nowhas that can allow them to
connect with the masses ofpreviously disconnected public.
As an industry, ranching shouldcapitalize on the massive
interest that is now beinggenerated by that TV show and
(05:11):
use that massive new interest asour opportunity to tell the real
story of ranching, a story thatis the very fabric of what has
made America so great.
This book you're about to learnabout could not have been
written at a more crucial time.
You see, this book is areal-life look at what life on a
massive Montana ranch,ironically similar to the
(05:33):
fictional ranch depicted in theaforementioned hit TV show, is
really like.
The true-life story that RayMarkser writes about in this
book will not have theshootouts, fistfights, and
romantic drama that is necessaryto entertain a worldwide TV
audience, but Ray's story doeshave drama, romance, and trauma,
(05:53):
all its own.
In this book, you will see theprogression of a timeline of
American agriculture.
You will see stories of fear andinsecurities, triumph and
success, love and loss, mentorsand villains, government
overreach, corporate politics,national level accolades,
gut-wrenching betrayal, and theever abundant grace of God.
(06:17):
You will learn much about thehistory of the Matador Cattle
Company, a ranch around 340,000acres in current size.
The ranch was founded by thepioneer cattlemen Poindexter and
Orr.
way back in the year 1865.
In 1951, the Koch family boughtthe expansive ranch and called
it the Matador Cattle Company, aname tied to the original
(06:38):
Matador Ranch in Texas that theKoch family also owned.
Internally within KochIndustries, the ranch was known
as the Beaverhead Ranch todifferentiate it from the Texas
operation.
Ray Markser's career atMontana's Matador Cattle Company
spanned over 37 years, and allof his career took place during
Koch ownership.
For 21 of those years, held theposition of General Manager.
(07:01):
Ray retired from the ranch in2011.
In December of 2021, it wasannounced that the Koch family
had sold the Matador CattleCompany Beaverhead Ranch to
media mogul Rupert Murdock forthe price of$200 million, which
is the largest land sale inMontana state history.
The announcement of thehistorical sale closed a chapter
(07:23):
in the history of one of thelargest and most productive
ranches on the North Americancontinent.
And since much of our Marksvillefamily history had taken place
during the Koch chapter, I wasinspired to write a nostalgic
Facebook post to commemorate ourtime on the Matador Cattle
Company.
That post went viral and wasshared all over the country,
(07:45):
even all over the world.
Messages and comments beganrolling in asking us to write a
book of ranch stories.
Soon a reporter came andinterviewed Ray and his wife
Sue.
The next thing we knew, theAssociated Press had picked up
that article and it wassubsequently published in nearly
every major newspaper in thecountry.
(08:05):
It was at this point, after allof the media attention and the
interest it generated, inaddition to all of the comments
and messages requesting that abook be written, that Ray
finally decided to sit down andwrite a book to document and
share the fascinating stories ofhis time at the Matador Cattle
Company.
It is incredibly serendipitousthat Ray's wife Sue is an
accomplished Westernphotographer and throughout our
(08:27):
family's life on the MatadorCattle Company she has captured
one of the largest collectionsof ranch photographs that exists
and certainly the largestcollection of images captured on
the Matador Ranch.
A small sample of Sue's amazingranch photographs will be
included in Ray's book, Cowboyin a Corporate World.
What was originally intended tobe a book containing a
(08:49):
collection of entertaining ranchstories eventually morphed into
one of the most wonderfulmemoirs that I have ever read,
even though I admittedly may bea little bit biased.
In these pages, Ray hasthoughtfully and honestly taken
us on a real deep and revealingjourney into his own life's path
from a young farm kid with adream to to having successfully
(09:11):
achieved that dream and muchmore beyond what he could have
even imagined.
Readers of this book will beable to see the realities of
ranch life and what it trulymeans to be a cowboy.
On an educational level, readerswill learn principles of land,
business, livestock, andpersonnel management from one of
the most successful ranchmanagers in American history,
(09:33):
which is something that Raywould never say about himself.
Ray's ranch management expertiseis well proven by his
consistent, sustainable profitover the entirety of his career,
while simultaneously managing toimprove the ranch's
environmental resources to alevel that was awarded with more
national, regional, state, andlocal recognition than any other
(09:54):
ranching operation that I couldfind during my research for this
introduction.
However, if you were to ask Ray,personally, about how he was so
successful, He will alwayscredit his success to the people
who worked with him and for him,to his family, and to the grace
of God.
(10:14):
Ray's formula for success is asimple concept that is a
recurring theme throughout theentirety of his book.
He calls it a three-leggedstool, and the concept, though
simple, is so powerful thatevery person who reads the book
will be able to apply theconcept to their own life, and
in so doing, find a real balancein their life that will
positively affect themselves andeveryone around them.
(10:38):
Sincerely, Clayton Markser, anincredibly blessed and grateful
son.
Welcome to the Living WesternPodcast.
(11:13):
and my guest, Mr.
Ray Markser.
SPEAKER_03 (11:16):
Well, I'm Ray Markser.
I'm 70 years old and left employthere at the ranch in Dillon in
2011.
Sue and I bought a little placeover here by Sheridan, between
Twin and Sheridan, and we doour...
(11:40):
live our life right theresharing it with our kids and
grandkids we have a small placewhere we can still we grow hay
and we run some cows we stillare our horses we got arena and
operate our ranch services westbusiness out of there which uh
(12:01):
is uh We offer some consultingservices, which I haven't done a
lot of.
I didn't intend to do a lot ofthat.
I just wanted to be able to helppeople if they wanted to help.
And then still wanted to beactively involved in production
agriculture, helping people,whether it be day working or AI
(12:27):
a lot of cows.
It's tapered off some in thelast couple of years.
years, but Sue and I were AI inabout up to a couple thousand
cows every spring and earlysummer for several years for a
number of different peoplearound the state and still do
(12:47):
that and enjoy it.
I mean, that has opened quite afew doors and reacquaintances
with people that I'd been uhkind of separated from just from
logistics and and also beingbusy running a ranch for so many
(13:11):
years but uh see the ai issomething i i went to school my
dad was pretty progressive andhe let i and my brother go to ai
school with him when i was 14years old and that was a long
time ago and i can stillremember we went to Bozeman to
(13:33):
the college there and didclassroom work and studied there
for a day or two and then wewent to Billings and they still
had a packing plant in Billingsthen and we just bunched cows,
culled cows that was there.
We bunched them in a corner.
Alderman never had themcaptured, just pushed them all
(13:56):
up in a corner and we had tolearn to pass the Then pipettes,
big old flexible pipettes,wasn't any of this new modern
stuff like these nice guns thatyou use now.
SPEAKER_02 (14:08):
Well, I want to get into that a little bit later and
talk about– I just wrote it onmy notes here that I want to
talk about the technologyadvancements that you've seen
both in your lifetime but alsoin your career.
But back to what you're doingwith Ranch Services West, you
mentioned your AI.
So for those of you who aren'tfrom our culture, AI stands for
(14:31):
artificial insemination.
It's a way of breeding cowswithout– putting a bull in them.
So if you want to talk a littlebit about that and talk about
why it's done and the benefits.
SPEAKER_03 (14:44):
There's a number of benefits.
Of course, still, you know, Godintended things to be done
naturally, and I still believein that.
I keep a bull with my cows, butI AI my heifers.
And simply it's because it givesyou an opportunity to breed
those cows specific animals to aspecific bull for either for
(15:07):
calving ease in heifer's case orelse you want to get a specific
product and using two knowngenetic sources.
So that allows us to do that.
And in commercial terms, I mean,on big picture, I mean, you can
breed 1,000 cows to one bull.
(15:28):
I mean, if you want to getconsistency.
SPEAKER_02 (15:30):
As opposed to how many cows usually get bred by a
bull naturally in a season?
SPEAKER_03 (15:35):
When I ran the ranch there, you usually figured with
yearling bulls, 1 to 20.
One bull per 20 cows, maturebulls, one to 25.
And generally, though, we pushthat.
We did one bull per 28,regardless of the age.
SPEAKER_02 (15:54):
So how does that cost figure out to, I mean, I
don't know what the averageprice for a bull is in 2024, but
the cost of a breeding naturallyversus AI?
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (16:07):
Well, AI, you have some costs as far as the semen
itself, and that, if it'sregistered, it goes up quite a
bit more, but you can buy a lotof really good quality semen for
$10 an ampule, maybe less, butsay$10 to$20.
Let's just say$10 an ampule, andif you're doing it on any scale,
(16:34):
You know, my services aren'tthat expensive, like three bucks
or five, well, I guess fivebucks per heifer.
And I provide all the thawingand all that and breeding.
And so, you know, you've got$15,but you take a bull, he's going
(16:56):
to cost six, seven thousandbucks pretty easy now.
And that's just a, an averagebull, probably$7,000 to purchase
him, he's going to be able toservice 25 cows.
You just divide that$7,000 by25.
SPEAKER_02 (17:15):
How many years are you generally getting out of a
bull?
SPEAKER_03 (17:21):
A lot of people only try and get four or five.
When I ran the ranch, myexpectations with those bulls is
I was going to get seven yearsout of them.
And we did most of the time.
But to do that, you have to havea pretty stringent selection
(17:42):
criteria as far as you need yourcriteria as far as traits and
performance and that sort ofthing, birth weights, weaning
weights, yearling weights, andcarcass traits.
UNKNOWN (17:55):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (17:55):
That bugger better be sound, and that's the first
thing.
It's just like a horse.
I mean, if they ain't sound,they ain't going to hold up or
last.
But we did very well with allthree breeds that we used.
SPEAKER_02 (18:11):
Gotcha.
Well, I wanted to highlight onthat because I know that the AI
services is probably somethingthat you're the most involved in
with your Ranch Services Westbusiness, but you also do a lot
of day work.
UNKNOWN (18:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (18:25):
Can you explain to the listeners who might not know
what day work is and what thatmeans for you?
SPEAKER_03 (18:30):
Day work in this day and age, especially with smaller
operations, they can't afford tohave full-time help, stockman's
help.
Or maybe they don't have that intheir crew, somebody that's
experienced handling stock orgot the skills and talents.
(18:53):
And so day work and it goes onall over the country.
They'll hire you for the day orfor the task at hand.
to come help them for that dayand then you go home at night
and they don't and like in mycase and and sue's when we
started ranch services west wewe went and helped quite a few
(19:17):
different people and and wecharge them for it and pretty
nominal but uh you know we tryto be fair and uh for what
service we're providing, butwe're also providing
transportation there, ourhorses, our skills, everything,
a lot of things.
Insurance.
Yeah, and then in our case,because we're doing it that way
(19:42):
as an independent contractor,then I, of course, have to go
out and get an independentcontractor's license through the
state.
It's a lot of...
red tape and hull blue but youyou gotta have you gotta meet in
a lot of different criteria andand generally one of the you
(20:03):
have to have so many points toqualify and you have to
recertify every two years andthere's a fee goes along with it
i think it's about 175 bucksevery two years just to be able
to do that but what that doeswhat it centers around the
independent contractors deal isit's based uh around health
(20:25):
insurance and and like workman'scomp where if i'm a independent
contractor then it's it's i'mi'm making the decisions i'm as
to what i'm doing they give me atask or something to do and then
i decide how to do it and andit's my responsibility to do
that safely if i get hurt it'smy responsibility not theirs
(20:49):
where if i was a part-timeemployee for them or a full-time
employee for producer, then theywould be giving me instructions
as to how to do things, but alsoI would be their responsibility
as workman's comp.
(21:09):
You know, I can understand howit's gotten to that point.
To me, it's kind of pointless tome in that I always felt like I
was responsible for my ownsafety.
SPEAKER_02 (21:26):
Right.
You could go to somebody's placeand help them brand or move cows
without having to, you know,there was trust.
And anymore, there's a lot ofrisk involved and liability with
that.
SPEAKER_03 (21:37):
Yeah, and liability is something that kind of runs
our country.
Risk of liability, it kind ofruns our country.
You know, it's a real thing, butit can have...
kind of negative side toproductivity, certainly.
But on the same token, I canalso say quite honestly that
(22:02):
agriculture is one of the mostdangerous professions there is
as far as accidents.
And part of it is, I've saidthis many times throughout the
years, that if our countryneeded to...
to have a group of people in oursociety to look to to go get
(22:26):
something done.
It would be agriculture.
If you had a job that needed tobe done, go have agriculture.
Folks in agriculture do it.
The unfortunate part is some ofthem wouldn't live through it
because they don't weigh therisk.
They're going to get the jobdone, and that's kind of the
American way or kind of thecowboy mentality and Western
(22:51):
mentalities out there.
They'll go get the job done.
But historically, they haven'talways weighed the risk.
SPEAKER_02 (22:57):
There's
SPEAKER_03 (22:58):
been a a lot of
SPEAKER_02 (22:59):
injuries.
I think statistics across thecountry show agriculture is one
of the top sources of injury,work-related injury, for sure.
SPEAKER_03 (23:10):
But if you think about it, you know, you're doing
work out on a varying landscape.
You're not on a concrete floor,you know.
So you've got varying landscape.
You've got hazards, you know.
And then you've got...
You're dealing with animals thatall have their own will.
(23:30):
Yours, most of the time, yoursis the biggest problem, you
know, your own.
But you've got a horse that'sgot a will.
You've got a cow or a group ofcows or sheep or whatever that's
got their will.
And so there's a lot of balls inthe air that offer plenty of
(23:52):
opportunities for injury.
SPEAKER_02 (23:54):
So when you're talking about...
that subject right there ofwill, what you're saying is that
in agriculture, anything to dowith livestock, generally, your
biggest liability is usuallyyourself.
I mean, there's always a riskwith any living creature that
has its own will, its own moods,its own attitudes, its own
fears, but generally, it's thehumans that they can affect
(24:24):
that.
They can bring about negativeissues
SPEAKER_03 (24:28):
we have we have the choice to put ourselves at risk
or not and you know years ago wewent for a lot of years running
the ranch where it was a typicalranch we'd have our share of
workman's comp claims andinjuries most of them weren't
too bad we had a few pretty badones but but in the 90s and
(24:52):
certainly in the 2000s, KochIndustries, the Kochs that owned
the ranch, they really had aconcerted effort.
They had a lot of employeesthroughout the world, and their
big goal was they wanted to havebusinesses that could operate
(25:16):
safely.
if we couldn't prove to themthat we could operate safely so
that our employees could go hometo their families at night
knowing that they were healthyand well, if we couldn't operate
a business without havingaccidents, they didn't want to
have the business.
And they got out of somebusinesses.
(25:39):
Right.
But they really...
That was one of the big,really...
kind of breakthrough things forus as a group of people together
there was when we came to thegenuine realization and belief
that we could operate that bigranch with all those acres of
(26:04):
risk and animals we couldoperate without having an
accident until we decided in ourown minds as a crew that we
could do that, it wasn't goingto happen, but we did.
And all three ranches did verywell.
I think, if I recall, there wasa period of two and a half or
(26:24):
three years where all threeranches went without having a
recordable accident, which ismonumental.
It's unheard of in our industry.
But we had some good cokes.
They drove that.
Because, you know, Charles Kochhimself told me one time, he
(26:48):
said, you know, when I askedabout the longevity of the ranch
and, you know, what was ourbiggest threat, you know, we had
to be a profitable operation.
That was the goal.
We had to be profitable in a lotof different ways, but we had to
be profitable.
But he told me that the biggestthreat to the ranch going out of
(27:11):
their ownership while I wasthere was if we couldn't operate
that ranch without havingaccidents.
If we couldn't operate it towhere our employees could go
home safely to their families atnight, that was the biggest risk
of them selling the ranches.
(27:31):
they had no intention of theydidn't want to but but they
recognized and and they were inall of us too it was a milestone
when those three big ranchescould could meet that safety uh
threshold uh it was somethingunheard of but but they they
gave us a lot of um tools to useand and they uh You know, we're
(28:00):
ranching, but they used DuPont,the DuPont company.
They felt like DuPont wasprobably the safest company in
culture in U.S.
business.
And so we used a lot of theirdifferent techniques to get
there.
Awesome.
SPEAKER_02 (28:19):
We can get into that a little bit more later, but to
touch back on what you'recurrently doing, one of the
things outside of your...
consulting business, RanchServices West, and day working
and AI, everything else that'sincluded with that.
You also are now an author.
So can you talk a little bitabout, well, tell us what your
(28:43):
book is.
It's actually on the shelf upbehind your head.
It's called Cowboy in aCorporate World, but tell us
what it is, what inspired it,and what you've gotten to
experience because of that.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (29:01):
It's been awesome, Clayton.
Far being...
I'll be the last to tell you,the last thing I ever dreamed
I'd do is write a book.
You know, I've spent my lifeliving life, but never ever
dreamed that I'd have the desireto write a book.
(29:26):
And...
But I was blessed.
I've always been enamored withhistory and the West.
And, you know, I grew up withgrandparents that homesteaded.
And my grandpa Marks arehomesteaded.
(29:46):
Well, his folks came fromLichtenstein.
They immigrated fromLichtenstein.
And then they homesteaded out onthe prairies south of Great
Falls in the Eden country andraised 16 kids.
Yeah.
They're homesteading.
And they all grew to be, exceptfor one that died when they was
(30:08):
younger, all of those siblingsdied.
They were in their 80s, most allin the 80s and 90s when they
passed away.
But at any rate, I got to growup 25 miles from where my
grandpa homesteaded.
And then his wife, my grandmaHazel, she came across the
Canadian border when she waslike six weeks old with her
(30:31):
mother and siblings in a coveredwagon from Alberta and went to
the prairies south there.
So You know, that's ingrained inus and it's in you too.
So, long story short, then whenI went to the ranch and spent
(30:52):
all those years at the ranch,there was a number of old-timers
and people that had, you know,like my great-grandparents' age
or my grandparents' age or myfolks' age.
I grew up in this country, andthey knew so much history, and
they'd lived it.
And I just gobbled that stuff upevery time I got a chance to
(31:12):
visit with one of them guys.
And it's kind of fun for me tojust reminisce about.
One of my favorite sources ofhistory was Hans Anderson.
Keith Anderson's dad.
(31:32):
His wife was Georgiana.
Everybody around here knows theywere unique, wonderful people.
But at any rate, he had built upquite a place.
They'd gone through theDepression, and he'd built up
quite a place, and ranch, andsheep, and cattle, and
everything.
But Hans was getting older andkind of retired, but he'd still
(31:55):
help Keith all the time.
But many times i'd get to i'd beup on the road three or four in
the morning getting gates setand everything set up before the
crew ever was up and going sothat we would be set up for what
we were going to do that daywhether it start to the trail to
(32:16):
the centennial or to the sagecreek or whatever and hans
couldn't sleep so he'd be upthere They might have cows on
the road, or he might be just upthere driving.
Four o'clock in the morning,here he'd be, hands tootin'
long, and he might be juststopped alongside the road.
We'd stop and visit.
And I got so much history fromhim.
(32:39):
You know, he'd tell me differentplaces.
So-and-so homesteaded here.
Or the Jake Flatt School washere.
There used to be a shearingplant there.
Just so many things that heshared.
And then just living.
I mean, they lived in some ofthose old homestead cabins and
(32:59):
leased places.
But I valued those stories thathe told me.
And then another one was BillHawkins, who was a vet, a
veterinarian.
And he was like a walk inhistory book.
Excuse me.
(33:20):
His father was Hap Hawkins, andhe was of the same generation as
Hans Anderson.
But they went through theDepression when all the
homesteads folded up.
They couldn't make a living.
The people had to walk away fromthem and move to town.
And some of the ranches, a lotof the bigger ranches, they
(33:41):
folded up too because they justcouldn't make it.
Times were tough.
And he was involved in...
and gathering up those placesthat went back to a bank.
And the bank didn't want them,but they had them.
I mean, they're yours.
So he would take, he had quite afew of those places, and Hans
(34:01):
was the same way, where theytook over and ran them for the
bank for a while until theycould, the bank could sell them
to somebody, portions of them tosomebody or something.
But they knew so much historyand lived such a, amazing life
that I got to learn a lot ofthat history from them I
(34:24):
remembered I mean remember I canremember the days where we were
sitting when they told me someof those stories but about the
book Jimmy Campbell from Dillon,who's a longtime brand inspector
and friend, he has the same lovefor the history and all.
But he spent countless hours upthe Blacktail and the San
(34:48):
Antonio sitting there with BillHawkins while we were weaning,
you know, and waiting for us toget everything sorted so they
could inspect them andeverything.
And they sat there for hourstelling stories.
And anyway, Jim and I alwayssaid, we need to get Bill
Hawkins and Hans Anderson in thetruck, turn on a tape recorder,
(35:11):
and drive up to Blacktail andCentennial.
We never did that.
They're both gone.
So now it's us.
We've got that.
And Hans' son, Keith, is a...
He's got so much history in him.
SPEAKER_02 (35:29):
But it's in you.
It's in your minds.
And it doesn't get passed downunless you tell it.
SPEAKER_03 (35:34):
It doesn't.
And, you know, some people aregoing to remember it, some
won't.
But nobody will remember it ifit's not told.
And so, you know, I just feltlike, especially after the ranch
sold, And then we got COVID in2021.
(35:57):
We dodged it for a year and ahalf and led our kind of a
normal life.
And then COVID hit us prettyhard.
I was pretty sick for quite awhile.
But when we got over it, andit's about the time that the
ranch sold, and then you put upa you put up that Facebook post
(36:19):
about kind of the end of an eraabout the ranch selling, you
know, and it had been, you know,it was a big part of all of our
lives.
Right.
It was 10 years after youretired.
Yeah.
But it was a big part of ourlife, whole life, you know, and
you spend nearly 40 years ofyour life.
Some people don't live thatlong, you know, but, uh, so, you
(36:40):
know, I spent more to thispoint, I spent more than half of
my life there.
And, uh, not share that is it'spretty selfish actually but it's
also I recognize that in thisday and age with electronics
that you know you could tapethings like we're doing here now
(37:02):
but it's kind of like the Bibleyou can get it on on tape and
recording and all but ifsomething happened with
electronics I want to have thatI want to have that physical
thing and a written word likethe Bible.
And so I felt compelled and witha lot of urging, you know, to
(37:31):
write that book.
And originally my intent was Iwanted to write fun stories.
You know, I just really, I'vegot so many stories I could go
on and on and on and on.
You know that.
But I wanted to tell those funstories.
That was my original intent.
And then we took aself-publishing.
(37:54):
We entered a self-publishingcourse because we'd never
written a book.
Sue was very talented that wayas far as technical and gifted
writer and everything in her ownright.
But it became very apparent onceI started writing.
(38:15):
writing the book that I neededto write the hard parts.
The good parts, but the hardparts too.
First, I'm still, I'll stillwrite another book.
I've got so many stories.
I've written quite a few, butI've been kind of on a hiatus
(38:36):
for almost a year now where Ihave, I was writing a story a
week and then I decided, I justneeded a break from it, and I
wanted to be fresh and want...
SPEAKER_02 (38:46):
Inspired.
Inspired, exactly.
It's hard when it's forced.
Yeah, it's
SPEAKER_03 (38:53):
different.
SPEAKER_02 (38:54):
Or when you feel obligated to create all the time
or to meet a deadline, it can behard to continue to stay
inspired and to tell the storieswith the same enthusiasm and
fervor.
SPEAKER_03 (39:07):
It's kind of interesting, though, because
once we started writing...
on that book.
And I did it sitting in my chairwith a laptop.
And to start with, I'm noblazing fingers with a
typewriter, you know.
But I took typing one when I wasa freshman in high school in
like 1968.
(39:27):
And it was manual typewriter.
But at any rate, it was aboutthe first week in January when I
started writing that.
And I got on a roll.
I mean, I really got on a roll.
(39:48):
But there were some things.
We joined that publishingschool, so we had some help as
far as keeping us on track andkeeping us accountable holding
us accountable for you know likedeadlines or but the other thing
with that is and i had an anoutline we i just couldn't put
down but they had a mind map andthose sorts of things that
(40:09):
really helped us kind of stay intrack but i made a promise to
sue unto myself first but thento sue that when i started
writing that book I would not doone thing on that book until I'd
read my Bible and I'd prayedthat day.
(40:30):
And I never missed.
I started writing that bookabout the 7th or 10th of
January.
I had everything, virtually allthe content written by the 15th
of March.
And then Susie had to go to workand putting, arranging it and
putting it together to where itwas, you know, really flowed and
(40:53):
was good.
And she really put the
SPEAKER_02 (40:55):
book together for us.
Well, mom has tremendous writerskill as well.
Unbelievable.
SPEAKER_03 (41:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, but that is how it cameabout.
Our publishing, self-publishingschool, we had coaches and stuff
like that.
We'd meet once a month.
But at any rate, we had a goal.
They asked us to write a goal.
And I said, well, I guess thiswas in January.
(41:24):
I said, I got a goal.
I would like to have a bookwritten that's ready to be
published and go to the publicin a year.
And I thought that wasrealistic.
But maybe...
we were going to have to pushourselves.
And the 18th of August, wepublished that book.
(41:48):
It went to the printer and outto the public.
Even the self-publishing school,the coaches and the people with
it were just amazed at how we'ddone.
And it's been very humbling, butbut so encouraging to see how
that book is done.
(42:09):
I
SPEAKER_02 (42:10):
think that the results that you got is largely
attributed to the passion thatyou had about the subject
matter.
You weren't just writingsomething that you were
interested in.
You were writing something thatwas you.
It was your heart.
It was your soul.
It's
SPEAKER_03 (42:32):
not all warm and fuzzy.
I laid it out.
And that's just me.
I'm not going to change thatway.
SPEAKER_02 (42:46):
No.
But when you're talking aboutwhen you laid it out, you did.
And if you folks get a chance toread the book, I really
encourage you to, because you'regoing to get to get a glimpse
into real ranch life, real, thehuman experience of ranching
that sometimes gets overlooked.
(43:08):
We, We as an industry, and Italked about this in my last
episode, we're very good attelling stories to each other.
We're very good about educatingeach other.
There's a million podcasts andvideos and books from ranchers
to other ranchers or, you know,within our own culture.
SPEAKER_03 (43:25):
Singing to the choir.
SPEAKER_02 (43:26):
Right.
But that's comfortable becausethose are the people who
understand us.
What I...
appreciated a lot about yourbook when it got done.
And I didn't know what toexpect, because you're not a
writer.
No.
But what I appreciated about itis that it was told from such a
human perspective that anybodywho's not even into ranching can
(43:50):
appreciate what came out of it.
And the other thing, too,sometimes in popular culture
when people write memoirs, ithas this...
tell-all connotation and a bigexpose.
And you didn't write it thatway.
There was hurts and there washard things where you could have
(44:14):
thrown some people under thebus, but you never said a bad
word about anybody.
Anything that was negativetowards maybe a group of people,
it was that way.
It was towards the suits.
But you told it in a way thatwas very anybody can identify
(44:36):
with?
SPEAKER_03 (44:37):
Well, probably one of the guiding principles for me
and how I approached that bookand how I told the story and
what I told and what I continueto tell the stories came from
advice.
And this is in the book.
It came from advice that we got,a number of us, Corporate
(45:01):
managers in Coke, about 400 ofus sitting in a room one
morning, got from one of thehigher executives in Coke.
His name was Bill Caffey.
I have utmost respect for him.
He was a good businessman.
No crap.
You know, you knew where hestood.
It wasn't any hidden thing.
(45:22):
But he...
His advice to us is don't be avictim.
Don't live your life like avictim.
And I don't feel like I was evera victim.
You're in charge of your ownself.
And so I don't have that victimmentality or belief in me.
(45:45):
And so I don't tell anything ortalk about that in any way.
that people would think that Iwas a victim.
That was not my intent in thebook.
Sure, there's hard times.
There's good times.
There's hard times.
That's life.
One of the neat things, though,Clayton, I would share with you
(46:06):
that's been real fun for me isthroughout my career, whether it
was When I was young in 4-H orFFA, you know, I did plenty of
public speaking.
I had plenty of leadership stuffand involved in a lot of things
(46:28):
when I was young.
But I've always really enjoyedsharing my life or the Western
lifestyle and our culture outhere with the others that don't
know it.
And one of the most inspiringthings that we've ever gotten to
do, Sue and I was part of– agroup that went, uh, I'm having
(46:53):
a senior moment right now.
Provider Pals.
Okay, so Provider Pals was adeal started by Bruce Vincent up
in Libby.
His family were loggers for along time, and they got put out
of business.
And it was governmentintervention and regulations and
that kind of hoopla that kind ofput them out of business, along
(47:16):
with other loggers allthroughout the state.
And so he started this dealbeing proactive and So what he
wanted to do was expose peopleand kids, seventh and eighth
graders, from the inner citiesthroughout the United States to
what really it's like out herein the West or where we're
(47:37):
harvesting natural resources,whether it be logging or mining
or oil production.
production or fishing,commercial fishing or ranching
or farming, any number of thosekind of things, dairying.
So he put that together and he'dget together a group of four or
(47:59):
five different producers fromdifferent walks of life.
And we'd go spend two days inthese inner cities at a certain
school.
And in our case, we showedslideshow and then spent time
with those kids, visiting withthem about our life and the life
on the ranch.
(48:21):
But with inner city kids thatprobably never get exposed to
the real thing, much like whatyour podcast is about.
Yeah.
It was reaching people thatweren't in our normal audience.
And so that was some of thefunnest, most inspiring things
(48:41):
to me, to see those little kids.
And one of the most memorableones was Washington, D.C.
We went to a school there.
I still remember.
It's Maryvale.
I still have a cup that I useevery day that has Maryvale on
it.
and and that was from a longtime ago but anyway it was a
(49:04):
little middle school there abouttwo and a half blocks from the
capital their school buildingwasn't near as good as shape and
modern as ours are out here inthese rural communities even but
those those kids were You know,they were from a completely
different culture.
(49:24):
They didn't have any concept.
They had no inkling of what lifewas like, you know, especially
in a setting like ours.
But most of them came fromsingle-parent homes.
Very few of them had even a yardaround their house, grass, a
lawn.
(49:44):
The fact is, there was...
They told us at the school thatmost of those kids, the only
lawn that they were accustomedto, there was a 20-foot strip of
grass along one side of thatschool building, and that was
probably the only grass or lawnthat a lot of them kids really
had been exposed to.
(50:05):
So we got to expose them to theWest, and...
And it just fascinated thosekids.
I mean, they were so interestedin our way of life, which we
take for granted.
And it's just like you, somebodyasking you as a kid, you know,
what's it like to be, you know,kid on a ranch i don't know
(50:28):
anything else you know so youdon't and and so they that was
our opportunity to share lifeout west with with those little
kids and then we had they had adeal set up we had a little rope
and dummy there and and i tookropes and stuff and with me and
and we got to try and teach allthem little kids how to rope,
(50:50):
and they all got to swing andtry to learn to swing and rope a
dummy.
And then some of the funnestparts, that one in Washington,
D.C., was after we'd kind offinished and I was sitting
outside on this bale of hay thatthe dummy was on, the families
pulled up there, a dad and hisother little kids, to pick up
(51:18):
their other siblings fromschool.
And they stopped, came out, andthey sat there and visited with
me and them little kids.
We had so much fun.
They just ate it up.
I mean, I had them in my hat andeverything, you know.
I'd like to think that that madean impression on those kids.
SPEAKER_02 (51:38):
I would imagine it did.
It made an impression on usbecause we were quite a bit
younger then, but I can rememberwhen you guys came home from
that.
Mom, of course, she's alwaystaking pictures.
The smiles and the joy on thosekids' faces.
You guys had a bunch of littlecowboy hats, and they had some
little bandanas on, and theywere just eating it up.
(52:01):
And it was striking to me evenas a kid kid myself how you know
that was just normal for us butfor those kids it was like the
highlight of their life
SPEAKER_03 (52:12):
and some of those uh bruce had that set up and and to
where um you know throughout allthose different cities they
could they could apply for uslike a scholarship and and I
don't know how many kids got tocome out, but they brought about
20 or 40 kids out for a weekduring the summer from those to
(52:36):
Libby and got to be in a camp.
SPEAKER_02 (52:39):
They brought them to Montana.
SPEAKER_03 (52:40):
Yeah.
So that was pretty special.
The other one that I remember sowell, and it's from a different
perspective, was Little Rock,Arkansas.
And Sue and I went there and...
And it wasn't as much the kidsthere as it was fellow
presenters.
And we went there and theybrought a logger from Arkansas.
(53:08):
And I thought I knew what aredneck was because I kind of
are one.
I had no concept of redneckuntil I ran into that gentleman
that was the logger fromArkansas.
It was entertaining.
(53:29):
But those kind of things, youknow, it's been inspiring.
You see what effect you had onthose kids or could have had and
the immediate effect you couldsee.
You know, they were enamoredwith it.
And that's part of the thing IWe've always known, but you
could see firsthand.
(53:50):
There's a romance about the Westthat people just like.
I mean, there's a reason why theWesterns were so popular.
Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, Imean, and the Lone Ranger.
I mean.
I can remember, you know,playing cowboys and Indians,
there was nothing against theIndians or nobody was offended.
It was just, that was just theAmerican way.
(54:11):
And, and there's, there's aromance about that.
And, uh, it's part of America.
Yeah.
That kind of is going away.
Yeah.
And, and I think that's why, youknow, people are so enamored
with, with a deal likeYellowstone.
I'm repulsed by a lot of itbecause it's so foul, but, uh,
(54:33):
that there's still that romanceof the West.
But it's not so much the West,it is the American spirit.
We don't want to lose that.
So that's part of the big reasonwhy I wrote the book.
I wanted to share that so it'sin print and people can look at
(54:54):
it years from now and see whatit was like.
And it was pretty unique.
I mean, even in my age and frommy generation, what I
experienced on that big ranch,you know, the transformation
that I witnessed and lived therewas pretty amazing, even in my
(55:17):
generation.
SPEAKER_02 (55:18):
Well, let's talk about that.
I mean, you were at the MatadorCattle Company, otherwise known
as the Beaverhead Ranch, for37-plus years.
And you were the general managerfor 21,
SPEAKER_03 (55:32):
correct?
Yeah, from 1990, fall of 1990until June of 2011.
But when did you start there?
October 7th of 1974, I wentthere.
I was 21.
So,
SPEAKER_02 (55:49):
back to something we touched on in the very beginning
about technology and the waythings have changed.
UNKNOWN (55:56):
Ha!
SPEAKER_02 (55:56):
Talk a little bit about what your realities were,
your day-to-day realities,whether it's transportation,
food, housing, at the beginningof your career to the end.
What was the change in 37 years?
SPEAKER_03 (56:16):
What just came to my mind was high-tech then was a
hammer.
uh no it it changed so much butbut you know i want to keep this
in perspective my mygrandparents my grandpa and
grandma marxer and endless theythey experienced way more change
(56:41):
than we did i mean they wentfrom literally horse and buggy
days and to to cars toelectricity to man on the moon.
I mean, to planes.
And then to man on the moon.
And what we've experienced isvery small compared to that.
(57:03):
The change is very small.
Those were breakthrough things.
The telephone.
Yeah.
But even, yeah, communication.
And that...
Well, when the telephone wasused for a long time, it was
actually a benefit.
(57:24):
I see a lot of communication nowthat's more negative towards the
human culture and society.
But it also is technology thatallows us like this to share a
lot of that with a lot morepeople.
But when I went there at theranch, I was 21, and I was...
(57:46):
youngest, greenest kid on thecowboy crew.
He ran a fairly good sizedcowboy crew when they could find
the help.
But they had 6,000 plus cows andthen in 1974 they still had
7,000 sheep too.
And so the sheep, there was afarm, kind of a farm crew and
(58:08):
then a sheep crew and then acowboy crew.
But uh things were prettyprimitive i mean the summer
camps like in the centennialsage creek was a permanent camp
they did have power but thesummer camps didn't have power i
mean there was nothing i meanthere was an outhouse out back
(58:34):
uh you had a shack to live in ora tent most of we had mostly we
had mostly shacks uh there theywere old like railroad work
shacks you know they had no theywere just um ship lap lumber on
a two by four studs noinsulation no inside walls just
(58:56):
a small the one uh little shackthat we three of us lived in
during waning two of us for thefall and then during waning
another one moved in with us andhelped single guys but or all of
us up there as single men areeven though we were married but
(59:17):
it was room for three cotsbasically had a barrel stove in
the end of it just an old stoveand no insulation so i mean
you're you're either roastingyou know you're sweating or
freezing you know and it wasjust how well the stove held the
heat because the building wasn'tgoing to hold it at all but
(59:41):
there was no no power oranything there we had did
everything we if we had alantern Some of us took
flashlights, but the batteries,you know, were run out.
So we might use a lantern, but alot of times we didn't use any.
We just wandered around in thedark.
We very seldom took a lantern orlight to the barn.
(01:00:02):
And almost always wrangled,somebody wrangled horses always
in the dark.
And I should explain that.
Wrangling horses, because that'ssomething that a lot of people
don't have any concept of whatthat is.
You know, on smaller operations,they may not do that or have the
(01:00:24):
need for that.
Because they have horses just in
SPEAKER_02 (01:00:27):
individual pens right around the barn, close by.
SPEAKER_03 (01:00:30):
Yeah, but there where you've got a crew, we'd
have 60, 70, probably 70 or 80head of horses for the crew.
in a wrangle pasture, and thenthe horses that we weren't using
at that time, they were turnedout in other pastures.
There was probably 150, 160 headof horses in a working cavity.
But, so the crew did everythingtogether.
(01:00:55):
You stayed in a camp together.
You ate at the same time.
You went to work at the sametime.
You got off at the same time.
But, So it was in order to dothat, then those camps like
that, you had a wrangle pasture,and it was probably about a
(01:01:16):
section, the one up there at thestart of your...
Which is a mile square.
A mile square, yeah, which, youknow, for most people, that's a
lot of country, and that was oneof the smaller pastures.
But at any rate, and it had acouple of cricks running through
it and willows and everything,sagebrush holes and everything.
So those horses would be turnedout there during the night, and
(01:01:37):
And then somebody would go out.
We'd keep a wrangle horse inaround camp, and we switched
off, and everybody had to taketheir turns.
So he'd have to get up beforeeverybody else.
And before breakfast andeverything, you had to go out,
saddle the wrangle horse, andthen head out into the wrangle
pasture, I mean into the horsepasture, and find all those
(01:02:00):
horses gathered in the dark.
I mean in the dark, yeah.
And you had to trust that.
that wrangle horse and he'dusually go find them but uh you
go out there and gather them upand bring them back into the
corral and pin them and thenmost of the time the guys would
show up about that they'd hearyou coming and hear the horses
(01:02:22):
coming they'd get up and we'd gosaddle our horse have to catch
some horses in the dark andthat's something a lot of people
don't have any you know in thisday and age you know
everything's lit and you but youlearn your horses, you know,
you've got 75 of them to pickfrom, you've got to find, you
might have three or four or fivehead horses in that bunch that
(01:02:45):
are yours, you've got oneparticular one that you want to
ride that day.
You've got to figure out how topick them out of 75 in pitch
dark.
And it might be a silhouette,you can still, you know, if your
eyes are adjusted, you can stillsee, but to some extent, but,
(01:03:06):
you know, there's a lot of bays.
But you could tell by the shape,their silhouette, or I can think
of a number of them, of minethat I rode throughout the
years, that they had a certainway when they got in the pen,
when somebody started walking inthe pen, they had kind of
patterns, like macho, horsemacho head patterns.
(01:03:30):
he he'd go around the pen youknow that kind of the outside of
the the corral about three timeshe'd take three laps he just and
it wasn't fast or anything buthe he'd move around that girl
outside of that girl about threetimes and then he stopped
somewhere and and that was oneof the ways i told him in the
dark but and then you go getthem caught make sure you got
(01:03:50):
the right horse and then youlead them into the barn and it's
dark enough outside but The barnis darker than old Coley's butt.
You know, and there's literally,you can't see your hand in front
of your face.
Throw a little grain in the boxin the stall and go find your
saddle and brush them off andeverything.
(01:04:13):
And, of course, you've got to,it was real important, you
develop habits that I still useevery time.
I never saddled a horse withoutcurrying them and brushing them
all over and have my hand allover him because you didn't know
what he might have on him or itwas hurt or anything you
couldn't see it so you had to goby feel
SPEAKER_02 (01:04:35):
right so for those of you that you know aren't from
our culture what he's talkingabout is when you have a horse
that you're going to put asaddle on you want to make sure
that there's no dirt mudcockleburs anything like that or
sores or yeah sores on themwhere there any friction or
contact from the saddle thatyou're putting on could cause
(01:04:55):
more injury or just could...
Might get you bucked off.
SPEAKER_03 (01:05:03):
Yeah.
So the other thing that thatdid, you know, you developed
habits and a pattern of how youdid everything, how you caught
your horse, how you put them inthe stalk, how you saddled them
and unsaddled them.
To this day, I have a specificway that I, and even though I've
(01:05:25):
got lights and everything,there's a specific way that I'll
saddle a horse.
I'll put my latigos andeverything, my cinches up so
that when you're in the dark andyou go pitch that on there, you
know exactly where everythingis.
And in all likelihood, when youlead that horse out in the dark,
you may load in a trailer or youmight leave.
(01:05:48):
Then we just left from camp.
SPEAKER_02 (01:05:51):
Because you didn't have a horse trailer.
SPEAKER_03 (01:05:52):
Yeah.
They had gotten a horse trailerthe year before I came was their
first one.
SPEAKER_02 (01:05:58):
Not everybody that was working there had access to
the horse trailer.
SPEAKER_03 (01:06:03):
No, no.
We had one horse trailer.
SPEAKER_02 (01:06:05):
For the whole ranch?
For the whole ranch.
How many cowboys?
SPEAKER_03 (01:06:08):
Oh, anywhere from 10 to 12.
SPEAKER_02 (01:06:10):
Spread across 250,000 acres at the time.
SPEAKER_03 (01:06:14):
Yeah,
SPEAKER_02 (01:06:14):
yeah.
So a lot of guys didn't havevehicle transportation when they
were going out.
SPEAKER_03 (01:06:20):
Oh, no.
In the crew, when you went tocamp, there was maybe two
pickups.
Maybe the jigger boss and thecow boss each had a pickup.
But very seldom, we didn't takeour pickups up there.
No, we just didn't.
I mean, you were there to work.
(01:06:41):
Yeah.
And you're dang sure tiredenough at the end of the day,
you know, that you weren'tlooking for extracurricular
activities.
SPEAKER_02 (01:06:50):
Well, your horses had to have been different then,
too.
I mean, we've always had hardyhorses out here, but I imagine
back in the day when you didn'thave trailer, some of those
pastures are 10, 15, 20 milesacross.
You've got to go a long waysjust to get to the cows to
gather before you can even workthem.
SPEAKER_03 (01:07:09):
It was nothing to trot 10 or 12 miles before you
got to where you were going towork all day.
Then when you got done, youtrotted home.
SPEAKER_02 (01:07:18):
And people these days can't appreciate that if
they never lived it because wetrailer everywhere.
SPEAKER_03 (01:07:23):
Yeah, but the trailers actually made ranching
more efficient.
They really did.
As does most technology.
Yeah, a lot of technology makesit more efficient.
but it doesn't make betterhorses or horsemen.
You know, I can still remember,and this is even after when I
was a cow foreman there in thelate 80s, and...
(01:07:48):
We still, we use trailers more,but still, there's lots of times
where you trot it a long ways,you know, to do your work and
then trot it home.
And I still remember there's alot of horse people will
recognize the name BruceSandifer.
Bruce worked for me as a youngmarried guy in the late 80s for
(01:08:09):
a couple years and a really goodhand.
But I can still remember thosetimes trotting out of Sage
Creek.
challenging each other and andthe others of the crew see how
long we could trot without ourfeet in the stirrups you can try
a long ways if you push yourselfand bruce could trot a long ways
(01:08:32):
but bruce will listen to thisyeah he he could trot a long
ways without his feet in thestirrups he was an exceptional
hand then and i'm so tickledthat he's gone and developed
that into what he has and sharedthat with others It's a big
deal.
He's gifted.
SPEAKER_02 (01:08:51):
Well, you've had a lot of gifted people that work
for
SPEAKER_03 (01:08:54):
you.
Yeah, yeah.
And a lot of times when you'reliving it, you don't recognize
how gifted they are.
And they may not have developedall that either.
And maybe they weren't in theright situation.
We didn't have the situationwhere that gift could be
expressed.
We probably held some of themback because we were there to do
(01:09:17):
a cowboy job and be profitable.
But But that tickles me to seepeople go on beyond and
experience life and work withus, and yet they've gone on to
way bigger things, and they'resharing it with others.
(01:09:37):
That's inspiring.
SPEAKER_02 (01:09:41):
Thank you for joining us on episode number two
of the Living Western Podcastwith guest Ray Markser.
This concludes part one of theepisode.
Part two will air next Tuesday.
As always, if you would like tofind out more about Living
Western and what we're allabout, please go to
livingwesternpodcast.com.
(01:10:02):
You can also check out LivingWestern on Instagram, YouTube,
and Facebook.
We'll see you next time.
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