Cattle culture has been such a defining element in my life and something that I have the most trouble describing to someone who does not know it. But Dale, he was someone who could move in both worlds as easily as swimming in a pool of water or walking on its banks. His primary goal in the management of the Foundation Beefmaster herd was to produce bulls for the commercial cattleman, the rancher who needs thrifty, efficient, unproblematic cattle to range in big country, servicing functional, bottom-line cow herds that were being run at the lowest cost possible. These customers came from all corners of the U.S. – the high rainfall country in Florida and the east, and ranches with high acreages in the dry sage country such as Nevada and eastern Oregon. 

Many of these men who came to buy bulls were from deep American cattle culture – bred, born and raised in the cattle world – who made their living running cattle on their ranches with their families, with no outside income. We always had a field day before the sale, when everyone showed up and spent the day visiting and touring the mother cow herd and coming two year old heifers with their first calves at side. I remember so well the impression this herd made on the field day visitors, people not believing the high level of refinement. On these days, Dale was in another world, giving his attention to each individual as if it was just the two of them alone. Of course, these people were his customers, but each one was a friend that he knew well, from the style of bull they preferred to their family, their land and history in ranching. In many cases, they were sons of ranchers that his father knew and who he had been selling bulls to when he was younger.

On these field days, Dale spoke at length about the land and the careful, comprehensive management he used in grazing it as much as he addressed the business at hand: cattle genetics and bulls. Through listening to him speak before other cattlemen who also came from generations of managing land, you felt how close he was to it, how deeply he cared for it.  Sometimes as he spoke about it, he seemed to sink into the land itself as if he were water or air, looking beyond everyone as if into the soil, the plants, the life below the soil that he was speaking about.

He introduced prairie dogs to the ranch, an unspeakable thing among many people who considered them the plague. He would study ant beds that he ran across when out walking with the cattle, lost in wonder. He introduced wild turkey to the ranch. 

I think often of his deep connection to a higher power, his God. It is easy to see how he was moved so strongly by Him when you understand his relationship with the land and livestock, the seamless connection that he felt between all the natural elements. His life was dedicated to a working land empowered by cattle that embodied his philosophy of working not with nature, but as a part of it – perhaps a subtle difference, but meaningful if you knew Dale. I think the main thread was how he believed that what gives nature its power is the way everything is linked together as one living organism. Balance and simplicity were his guiding principles with which he interacted with not only the land and cattle, but with family, friendship, grazing, cooking – in short, his life.

I think about my friend Dale a lot. I miss him. I wonder how it would be if I could go visit him, like in the past. Talk to him about things in my life, about how he is feeling. I miss his faith and the love he had for his ranch, his animals, his friends, for me. His blue, piercing eyes that could look right into you and see everything. I miss how amazing it felt to see him walk into the herd of 150 bulls and pull out the most balanced and strongest bull of the entire lot, his quick little steps moving him along through the herd. Or, seeing him standing, talking in a corner of the corral with the son of one of the ranchers, his laugh cackling loud over everything. I miss sitting in the office alone with him studying the documents outlining the past month’s financial report or the performance data of the 15 herd sire prospects from the current bull calf crop. His crazy laugh. Or cruising around in the old, beat-up, outdated tan suburban at about three miles per hour because he was studying everything he could see.

People ask me about how Ranchlands got here. How could it not have come from this man? From the arithmetic and writing lessons, bareback horseback afternoon runs after school, to the Copper Canyon vision questing, all the visits to his house, hundreds of letters, the ten years of ranching together cultivating the most beautiful, incredible cattle herd in the world. 

Yes indeed, my friend. You live in me and my family, in all the Beefmaster cattle out there sleeping right now, in your family and in the multitude of people you touched. You live like the breeze in the rolling high prairie. And you always will.