With deep generational roots in Vega and Oldham County, Robby Kirkland finds a sense of pride in carrying on the tradition of cultivating crops, livestock and community in the area.

“Both sets of my grandparents were proud of Vega and Oldham County and the lives they were able to build and the families they built together,” Kirkland said.

While his family has been involved in production agriculture since they moved to Vega, it wasn’t until the 1980s that they began operating a feedyard. Kirkland Feedyard was started by Robby’s parents, Perry and Melanie Kirkland, in 1983.

​What started as the purchase of a small grow yard has expanded over the years, and he has had a front-row seat to the growth of the feedyard.

“I watched my dad grow it from the time I was 12 until I graduated high school,” Kirkland said. “He grew it from 1,000 head to about 5,000 head and when I went to college it was still growing.”

When Kirkland graduated high school, he knew one thing: he wanted to go to Texas Tech University (TTU). While at TTU, he found a sense of belonging to the agriculture industry and to his family’s operation. As he sat in classes with likeminded individuals, he knew it was his desire to carry on the legacy his grandparents began.

“Something that is important to me and has been instilled in me is trying to help build a legacy of what my grandparents and parents started,” Kirkland said.

He returned to the feedyard in 1995 after graduating with a degree in animal science. He wanted to continue the growth of the feedyard alongside his father.

“I saw the opportunity to go back and leave Kirkland Feedyard a little bit better,” Kirkland said. “Going back to make an impact, make it a little better, a little different and have my fingerprint on the feedyard.”

FAMILY BUSINESS
Since the beginning, Kirkland Feedyard has been a family affair. Kirkland’s parents worked side by side for many years, his mom in the office and his dad managing operations.

“It was dad’s vision and passion,” Kirkland said. “But mom was right beside dad supporting him every step of the way. She has been instrumental in the day-to-day operations of the feedyard.”

Today, the tradition of family remains. When you drive through the fences of Kirkland Feedyard, you will find three generations.

From the day Kirkland returned to the feedyard, he and his dad have worked together, and his son Carson returned to the feedyard last year.

“Seeing Carson’s story play out similar to mine, going to Texas Tech and then wanting to come back and be part of the operation is special,” Kirkland said. “I think we are all drawn to be a part of something, for us it is being drawn to be part of the legacy of a family operation.”

The desire to carry on the legacy isn’t the only thing his dad has taught him over the years. His dad serves as his greatest mentor and a wealth of knowledge.

“When there are challenges within the industry whether it is legislative or regulatory, I know Dad gives me a clear, unbiased opinion,” Kirkland said. “I can sit him down and explain what is going on and say, ‘tell me how you view this.’ ”

An additional part of carrying on what his grandparents started includes making decisions with God’s guidance.

“Faith in the Lord has been a part of our family legacy as well,” Kirkland said. “We strive to keep it in the center of what we do and our thought process.”
​
BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS
The Kirkland Feedyard business model has always been based on taking care of customers and cattle. And while being profitable is important, it is also about making people feel like they’re part of the family.

​“We want to be a family atmosphere,” Kirkland explained. “We started out at a 1,000 head and today we are close to 30,000 head, but we continue to have the same philosophy that we did and that my dad instilled in me. We work hard, we have high expectations, we treat people the way we want to be treated and create a family atmosphere. That is still how I try to manage the feedyard today.”

That philosophy is expected to trickle down into the way feedyard employees complete their job.

“If our team has heard it once, they’ve heard it 100 times, we treat people, cattle, equipment and people’s cattle the way we want to be treated,” he said.

Their people-focused business model allows them to work with a large group to produce a product in which they believe.

“We are out here as a family, feeding our family, our community and our employees,” Kirkland said. “We are trying to produce a safe, healthy product while working with customers to accomplish that.”

At any one time, Kirkland Feedyard has about 70 different customer’s cattle on feed. With that comes opportunities to help each one meet their goals.

“In our situation where we are feeding lots of customer cattle, we are working with customers, ranchers, feeders and producers that are trying to meet a goal, too,” Kirkland explained. “At the end of the day, we are all trying to make a better and profitable product, we can’t do it just to do it, we have to be able to be profitable while doing it. So, our goal becomes multi-targeted from a standpoint of working with customers and providing them what they need. The customer’s wants, desires and needs to be sustainable and profitable carry over to us.”

Kirkland enjoys being able to pivot and try different approaches to help each of their customers successfully produce a beef product to feed consumers across the globe.

“Working with 70 different people on their goals or expectations is a challenge, but I enjoy the competition and try to be the best we can be,” he said.

​If you ask, they will come through. That, more than any, describes the value that the people in cattle feeding bring to their communities.
 
Wheeler County in the eastern Texas Panhandle isn’t the largest county in the state. Nor the most populous. In fact, with a population around 5,000, the county is home to more cattle
than people.
 
It is, however, likely the biggest county in the state to, per capita, boast the highest number of Eagle Scouts at 54 and counting. And that’s not all. “We’re building a brand-new baseball field,” Pat McDowell, rancher and county judge said. The feedyard in Wheeler County is the title sponsor.
 
Those things don’t just happen, McDowell said. They happen because the people who live in a place where cattle fuel the economy make it happen.
 
In communities throughout Cattle Feeding Country, they do that by showing up to help, to offer leadership. They do that by contributing money and resources to local causes. They don’t brag about it. They don’t do it for recognition. They do it because it’s the right thing to do to make their community better, stronger, more resilient.
 
Wheeler County is just one of many points of light that illuminate how important people are to creating a thriving, vibrant community. And in the rural areas of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, where cattle and cattle feeding fuel the economy, it’s the people who make it happen.
 
Just ask Cathy Bunch. She’s the mayor of Hereford, Texas, and the wife of a feedyard manager and owner. Her dad shod horses for feedyards. “I worked for a feedyard growing up as a teenager. So I’ve been around feedyards and know how important they are to our community.”
 
She recalls the first time she asked feedyards for a community contribution. It was to fund an air-filled arch for the high school football team to run through at home games. “And the response was, ‘Yes, whatever we need to do for the community.’” She’s never been turned down since when she makes a request to help. “The feedyards are who we go to if we need something for our community.”
 
Like Wheeler to the northeast on the other side of the Texas Panhandle, Hereford will build a new baseball complex. “And I feel comfortable going to the feedyards to ask them to contribute, because they are always willing to give back to the community.”
 
While that community pride helps everyone, it’s part of how a feedyard helps its employees. “Their employees live in this town and I feel like they want to provide and help support their employees outside of the job to make sure their families have quality of life in Hereford,” she said.
 
“That’s good for the feedyard because if the employees are happy and their families are happy and they’re content living in Hereford and have a quality of life here, the community is better off and the feedyard is better off.”
 
While financial contributions are important, it doesn’t stop there, Bunch said. “They (feedyards) really like to donate hamburger meat. If an organization, 4-H or the Booster Club or something like that cooks hamburgers, we can go to the feedyards and they’re willing to support.”
 
Kevin Carter, CEO of the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation, sees it as two sides of the same coin. “I’ve lived in a small town and I know how dependent on agriculture that these small towns are from the economic standpoint, but also as a major employer in those towns.”
 
McDowell agrees. The feedyard in his county supports 24 families. Those families go to church, their kids go to school, the parents are involved in their children’s activities and likely are involved in other community groups as well. “The manager told me that his people may leave for the oilfield, but they always come back because they know he’ll always be there.”
 
Feedyards don’t operate in a vacuum and community involvement doesn’t begin and end with feedyards alone. “Another very important business to Hereford is Caviness Beef Packers, whether it’s meat for hot dogs at a parade or any other need,” Bunch said.
 
Then there are the companies and businesses that provide the goods and services feedyards need. They’re an essential part of the cattle feeding world and an important part of the people equation that strengthens the fabric of small towns.

​That “cooperation combination” came together in a very special way about six years ago when the cattle feeding world rose to fulfill a critically important need—food insecurity.
 
“Kids can’t learn if they’re hungry,” according to Dyron Howell, founder of Snack Pak 4 Kids. “The cattle feeding community has stepped up to make sure communities have the beef protein that kids need every weekend. The people have been instrumental in making that happen.”
 
While school children facing food insecurity get meals at school during the week, weekends can be a hungry, scary time. Snack Pak 4 Kids works with the schools in communities in the Texas Panhandle and South Texas to provide food bags on Fridays for kids to take home.
 
Those food bags now contain beef sticks, thanks to the people in the cattle feeding world.
 
It came about with a meeting between Howell and TCFA staff to discuss the protein needs for food-insecure kids. “Then feedyard members got involved and asked, ‘What can we do?’ Then other companies that support the cattle feeding industry got involved and also asked, ‘What can we do?’”
 
That simple question, “What can we do?” has resulted in more than $600,000 raised from an annual cattle feeders’ golf tournament, all of which goes to buy beef sticks that are included in the Snack Pak that kids in need get every week.
 
“Every year we have 28 teams play in the golf tournament. It’s just been a snowball that has been rolling downhill once people were aware our kids needed what they needed,” Howell said.
 
In Howell’s mind the program is more than food. “It’s not a bag full of food. What we’re giving kids is a bag full of tools that lets them open their minds and opens up opportunity that we all have been blessed with,” he said.
 
While it’s true that kids can’t learn when they’re hungry, Howell offers this perspective: “Kids can change the world when they’re full. And making this investment gives them the tools they need to be successful. And then, you unlock all this potential for these kids.”
 
Unlocking the potential in kids—all kids—is what Mike Ray is about. He’s a cattleman from Guymon, Oklahoma, and part owner in a feedyard. He epitomizes the ethic and mantra of the people who make the cattle business strong.
 
“I believe if you live in a community, you’ve got to work to make it better. And that’s volunteer work, whether it’s the school board or being involved in civic clubs or whatever.” He served on the Guymon School Board for 15 years, then rose through the system to become president of the Oklahoma State School Boards Association.
 
While the Oklahoma Panhandle is home to a strong cattle feeding community, Guymon is a packing plant town, he said. And that creates interesting and sometimes controversial dynamics. “I’ve worked with schools all over Oklahoma, and we’re probably the most diverse school system in the state.”
 
In fact, 38 different languages are spoken in Guymon schools. While that’s a challenge, it’s also an opportunity in his mind. His kids and kids from feedyard families in the area were part of that dynamic. “My kids got to see what the real world was before they ever got out of high school, the diversity and the different cultures,” he said. “I think it gave them insight into how to function in society that sometimes you don’t get if you don’t have multiple cultures.”
 
He passionately believes that a school’s responsibility is to educate every kid it gets, regardless of where they’re from. And when that occurs, good things happen in a community.
 
“The kids of feedyard employees, packinghouse employees, they get established in the community and they become the community leaders,” he said. “It’s amazing how many of those kids have gone to Guymon schools, gone to Oklahoma Panhandle State University, and have started businesses or are involved in a business. They’re the next generation of leaders. And that’s what you need.”

When Gene Lowrey became a part of the cattle feeding industry 30 years ago, he hit the ground running, with a desire to learn, a passion to give back and to advocate for the rest of the industry, which is likely the reason he is serving as the Texas Cattle Feeders Association Chairman. 
 
“I was going to will my way through no matter what,” Lowrey said. “I was going to work hard, be honest, listen to people who knew more than I did and I was going to learn everything I could.”
 
Lowrey grew up on a commercial cow-calf operation in Southwest Alabama. Growing up on the ranch taught him the value of hard work, the importance of dedication and created a love for the cattle industry. 
 
He packed his bags in 1991 and moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma to pursue an animal science and business degree at Oklahoma State University (OSU). He left with a burning passion to be involved in the cattle business. 
 
“Leaving home wasn’t the easiest thing, but on the other side of that I found a great opportunity where I am, and I have been involved with things that I had no idea I would ever be involved,” he said. 
 
While in college, he worked at the OSU Wheat Pasture Research Station. It was there that he was introduced to cattle feeding. Some of the cattle on trial were sent to Cimarron Feeders to be finished. Lowrey met John Rakestraw at the feedyard and later Rakestraw offered him his first job after college. He started as a feedlot trainee and has not looked back since. 
 
“I had no idea that I would stay this long, but I have no regrets, nor would I do anything different. I have learned so much and met so many great people,” he said. “If I would have picked up and moved back home and lived in my own little world, never ever would I have been exposed to the things I have been exposed.”

A desire to learn
Growing up in an area of the country that is not conducive to feeding cattle meant that Lowrey had not been around the size or scale of operation that was Cimarron Feeders. 
 
“The learning curve was pretty steep, I knew nothing about nothing,” he said with a laugh. “I had never been exposed to anything of that scale. The most cattle I had ever seen was at a sale barn coming from the southeast.”
 
While the knowledge gap was big, Lowrey was passionate about gaining the knowledge it took to manage a feedyard and to manage people. 
 
Lowrey spent four years at Cimarron Feeders where he said he learned everything he could before moving to Hartley Feeders in 1998. He started there as the feed manager and again took every opportunity to learn. Eventually, he was promoted to general manager at Hartley Feeders and in 2009 he moved to XIT Feeders in Dalhart where he currently works.  
 
He loves being able to share his knowledge with young employees and help them grow. 
 
“A big part our company’s philosophy is developing people from within,” Lowrey said. “It is tremendously exciting for me to see young people move up through the organization and take on more responsibility and produce great results. That is the thing that keeps me going at the feedyard.”
 
Paying it forward
Giving back to the industry that has provided him with unique opportunities is something Lowrey set out to do since the beginning.
 
“I always felt that if I was going to make my living in this industry, I needed to give back,” Lowrey said.
 
TCFA has provided him the opportunity to give back and play a role in moving the industry forward.
 
Lowrey is the kind of leader that is quick to listen, while bringing knowledge and perspective to the table, TCFA President and CEO Ben Weinheimer said.
 
“Gene Lowrey has been an engaged and productive member of TCFA for many years,” Weinheimer said. “He is passionate about feeding cattle and upholding the values of the industry and association while moving them both forward. We are thankful for his leadership and willingness to represent TCFA membership this year.”
 
Part of Lowrey’s efforts to give back include leaving the feedyard to make trips to Austin and Washington D.C. 
 
“While I may not be at the feedyard, I am still trying to help the people who are at the feedyard by making sure that the things that don’t need to happen don’t happen and that the things that need to happen do happen,” Lowrey explained. “I think it is a privilege to be a part of all of that.”
 
In his many years of involvement within the feedyard industry, he has seen it evolve and grow. As chairman, he wants to see the industry continue to make progress. 
“If we get complacent, the world is going to pass us by and it will replace us with something that doesn’t have the story and doesn’t have the benefits that our product has,” Lowrey said. 
 
He is ready to take on the challenges thrown the industry’s way this year. He wants members to pull up a seat at the table and continue to move forward together. 
 
“Everybody has a chance to say what they need to say and be a part of making the decisions and getting the decisions down to the people who need to hear them,” Lowrey said.
 
He wants to leave the industry better than where it was when he started. 
 
“It is a privilege to do this, and I do not take it lightly. I will do whatever the association and industry needs,” said Lowrey. “I care deeply for it, and it has afforded me a very good living. I have raised my family, and I am going to keep doing what I can to make it better.”
 
A passion for the cattle business was instilled in Lowrey years ago on a small family cattle operation, a passion that has not been lost in the shuffle of life but has grown and developed into the thing that drives him. 
 
“The industry has to remember that we are there for a bigger purpose,” said Lowrey. “It gets me up and going to work each day. Being a part of feeding people is something that feels good. It gives everyone a sense of higher purpose. We are able to do what we do, and people enjoy a good steak or hamburger. It is more than the long hours and cold days and hot days. We are doing something people like and want to eat.” ​

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Since 1971, the Texas Cattle Feeders has issued an annual publication to serve TCFA members and supporting sponsors. The Resource Guide is an exclusive publication distributed to approximately 5,000 professional cattlemen and women throughout the country.

Every TCFA member, including feedyard managers, general managers, owners and customers receive a copy of the Resource Guide. These individuals are the decision makers in the multibillion-dollar cattle feeding industry.

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