Life Lessons from Lonesome Dove

BY BEN NEALE, YPC Leadership Board

Growing up as a boy in rural middle TN, our family only had the basic four or five main network TV channels…we were too far out to get anything else and even today my parents don’t care to get anything more. (We did however have shoes, electricity and even running water, contrary to popular beliefJ)

The quality of the reception on these channels was dependent on the season and weather. Sometimes we would have two channels, sometimes three. I know this can almost sound preposterous in today’s entertainment-soaked society and is what some could even ascertain to be abuse! In our household this intrinsically led to Sunday afternoons of watching either that fuzzy haired painter guy (Bob Ross) or “The Woodwright Shop” on PBS. Most often though, my father would opt to watch a movie such as ‘Lonesome Dove’ or ‘The Sackett’s’  for about 15 minutes before he fell asleep for a nap. I’d then be left with the choice to go outside or stay in to watch it while unknowingly soaking up some of the ideas that have molded me as a person. To speak honestly, the repetition of these events have probably molded me, for the good or bad, more than I would care to admit.

Probably one of the primary drivers of admiration I had as a young boy in the men portrayed by Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones or Tom Seleck in these movies was their perseverance in the face of adversity. For that reason, I would like to start a conversation or at least offer an idea on how we as young cattle people will deal with the setbacks that will inevitably come to us.

In the last few weeks, I have had to come to terms with losing some very close friends of mine and also deal with a painful back injury that has not allowed me much besides staring at my ceiling and thinking. When there’s problems all around, being still can be one of the hardest actions to choose! Yet for me it can be one of the most rewarding because it forced me to mentally deal with the situations that arise.

I realized that I had, for at least a brief time, developed a misguided expectation that I should not have the problems I was experiencing. I had ‘worked hard, ‘been good’ or (insert other excuse here) that allowed me to think my current situation was unfair. Sometimes I/we can tend to think this when there is something or someone in a position that may be preventing us from reaching a goal. I wholeheartedly agree that we should set goals and try to achieve them but we cannot forget to plan and be patient with the expected bumps in the road on the way to achievement.

This reminded me of the quote from Gus McCrae when talking to Lorie about San Francisco.

“Lorie darlin’, life in San Francisco, you see, is still just life. If you want any one thing too badly, it’s likely to turn out to be a disappointment. The only healthy way to live life is to learn to like all the little everyday things, like a sip of good whiskey in the evening, a soft bed, a glass of buttermilk, or a feisty gentleman like myself.”

I don’t mean for this to be taken out of context and that we turn from a goal-oriented attitude to drink whiskey and stay in bed. Although it has sure helped my back the last few days! My point is that achieving a goal is only one part of the enjoyments of life. We also need to be enjoying the adversity and the challenges that come almost as much as the achievements. If we expect too much satisfaction from climbing a ladder of success then when we arrive at the top we may find we had leaned it against the wrong building.

In the closing scene of the movie we can see that Woodrow’s vision of his life is the good with the bad. Often times I think some of us that have not had the privilege of years of wisdom look to the generation ahead and think they somehow just arrived where they are. That they didn’t have adversity to face or difficulty in taking over the reins from someone else. The more I have learned I cannot believe that this perception is reality. I have come to understand that the ones before us that have really achieved what we desire have done so, not without problems, but in spite of them.

There will be problems that come and mistakes made by us all on our way through life. The best we can do is live as honorably as we can, limit the mistakes we make where possible, ask forgiveness from God and others when we don’t and persevere in the face of our consequences.

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

YPC? Is that some sort of rap music group?

BY WALKER MILHOAN, YPC Leadership Board

THE INTERNET AGE

Hadoop, Mustache, Java? Exabyte, Zettabyte, and Yottabyte! Excuse me, but did you just say, “Crazy Horse and a creature from Star Wars, were drinking from a Hadoop, and Crazy Horse got coffee on his mustache?” You’ve gotta be kidding me, right?

Have you ever pondered the thought of “what exactly, is the internet?” It’s location, it’s infrastructure, how much it weighs? This “Twilight Zone” phenomena can strike fear into the imagination. To others, a simple blue and black, Linksys router with dual antennas, nestled dust-covered and blinking behind a couch comes to mind. All physicalities aside, what the internet really is, is life. Without it CattleFax and risk management would cease to coexist, Safeway and Cargill couldn’t produce Rancher’s Reserve branded beef, and the screens of Superior Livestock would look like millions of diminutive marching ants. Yet we as a nation, as individuals, know so little about the single most intrusive and important aspect of our lives.

INTERDISCIPLINARY DEGREES

I recently read an article by Tom Friedman in the New York Times aptly named: Need a Job? Invent it. From within the neatly formatted web page, Friedman notes “My generation had it easy. We got to ‘find’ a job. But, more than ever, our kids will have to ‘invent’ a job.” Sound like an accurate prediction? I’d bet the farm on it! With modern technology controlling the show at every corner of the ranch, simply “finding” a job will become harder and harder to do as we compete against more and more technology. Smart tractors will replace the need for an operator, precise data accounting systems will eliminate office receptionists, and advanced algorithms will lock in profit margins at a predetermined price point, eliminating both the cell phone call to your broker, and eventually the broker himself.

In 2011, after graduating from TCU Ranch Management I yearned for more education, which lead me to The University of Montana. It was at Montana that I was introduced to Management Information Systems, a degree I’m certain will change my life forever. Over the last three semesters I have learned how to program computers, talk to databases, create amazing videos for YouTube (the second largest search engine behind Google), optimize websites with Search Engine Optimization, and precisely target Facebook users with Analytics.

But by far the most interesting project that I have had the opportunity to work on while studying at the U of M is creating a disruptive innovation with a team of four other classmates. Our current technology project couples cloud-based data systems and search engine algorithms into a ranch management software suite that will help producers manage their resources more efficiently. We are very hopeful that this new product will be given a trial run this summer on ranches in Ghana, Panama, Brazil and France. Talk about inventing a really sweet job for yourself!

THE FUTURE

What’s in store for the youth of agriculture in America? Personally, I would argue an extreme amount of opportunity, especially if those youth are open-minded enough to learn about computer technology, world travel, and getting involved with groups like Collegiate Stockgrowers and the YPC. Tomorrow’s leaders in agriculture will be required to harness a very broad and deep set of skills, and having a solid understanding of how to manage massive amounts of information with computer science technology coupled with a knowledge of how to make things grow, will dovetail nicely into feeding 9 billion people.

 

Choosing Beef: Meet YPC Member Zeke McCarty

BY ZEKE McCARTY, YPC Leadership Board

I’m just your typical small town, country boy from NE Texas that found his way to colorful Colorado through beef.

My background may not be your typical cattleman’s or cattlewoman’s story. I didn’t grow up on a family farming or ranching operation. I always thought of my background as more along the lines of “Old MacDonald had a farm.” My parents were either extreme animal enthusiasts or just allowed me and my siblings to be. We had pigs, chickens, dogs, cats, cattle, goats, rabbits, a turkey, and many more odds and ends critters. I believe my interest in cattle, specifically, began at an early age mostly due to hanging around my best friend’s family cow-calf operation. That, in turn, led to joining FFA which turned into signing up for the Animal Science degree at Texas Tech University. Within the four years I spent in Lubbock, TX, I found my passion for agriculture and my desire to be involved in the beef industry.

My reasoning for getting involved in YPC was two-fold. First, it is my belief that what sets our industry apart from others is the people. I can’t imagine surrounding myself with anyone other than the down to earth, genuinely good-hearted people with great values and ethics that are involved in NCBA and YPC. Although I only have a year and a half of experience in YPC, I’ve developed great relationships with great people and look forward to many more in the future. Secondly, I wanted to understand more of the policy side of NCBA. What actually happens in the organization and how do things get done? How is the neighboring stocker operator linked to the lobbyist in Washington D.C? Those were the type of questions I wanted to learn the answers to and the best way I’ve discovered to learning is jump right in and start asking.

All in all, I’ve enjoyed the beginning stages of education and involvement in NCBA and YPC. I look forward to learning more about our great industry all the time and hopefully can contribute to the success of something that’s bigger than me.