Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Welcome back to another episode of Conservation Stories. Conservation Stories is a podcast brought to you by the Sand Hill Area Research Association.
And I'm your host, Hilary Timmins Sims. And I have my a lovely new friend, Jody Hodges with me today to talk about one of my favorite places, the Ranching Heritage center, which it has a better. It has a. It's the National Ranching Heritage center, but it is, it is a museum at Texas Tech, if you have not been. It's amazing, and Julie is part of why it is so amazing. So, Julie, give us a little bit about you and your background, and we'll go from there.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: All right. Well, I am currently the Helen de Vit Jones Endowed Director of Education at the National Ranch and Heritage Center.
I've been there for 12 years. In February, it'll be 13. I'll start my 13th year at the National Ranching Heritage Center. I've been a informal educator for my entire career, minus a brief stint at a local newspaper in Lamisa, Texas, which was a lot of fun.
Yeah, it was a lot of fun to work in Lamisa. I'm a Texas Tech grad undergrad and range Wildlife and Fisheries management graduate school was in heritage management at Museum Science.
And I really love getting kids to go outside.
I really love getting people to think about our heritage so not just the past, but what it means to us today and how it guides us in the future.
And then also about this place where we live, the Great Plains, which is a magical, wonderful place that requires you for sometimes to stop and take a minute and look at what's going on. Whether it's in the soil, in the plants, or in the people. This place has so much to see and so much to learn.
So getting kids outdoors and adults to think about where we are and what that means and how we got here is just magical to me.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: That's amazing. So did you grow up here?
[00:02:24] Speaker A: Born and raised in Lubbock and went to Texas Tech. And so you're native through Love It Girl? Yes.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: Southern High Plains girl.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Yep. Yep. Well, that really does give you a heart for the people around you and your neighbors. And we are often an underrated and overlooked place. And our organization has spent a lot of time in the last two years just bringing awareness to other parts of the country and to other even places in the world where they're relying on some things that we do and grow here and they don't know it.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Oh, I love that. What a, what a wonderful mission. And we, we are new, good friends because Our mission is very similar.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: Yeah. We want people to know about our area and then we want the people in our area to value what we have so that we steward it well.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: I love that. That's beautiful.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
So tell us a little bit about. For people who have not been to the ranching Heritage center. If you live in Lubbock, it's a must see, in my opinion.
[00:03:44] Speaker A: And that's right.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: It is something to do. If you complain that there's nothing to do in Lubbock and you haven't been to the ranching heritage center, you haven't done everything there is to do in Lubbock. So tell us a little bit about it because it really is an amazing place. But don't talk about the.
Okay. The special exhibits. Yes.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: Okay.
So the national ranching Heritage Center. We are on the campus of Texas Tech University, but we're on the edge and we have free parking. So those of you that are local, don't worry about parking. We've got our own lovely parking lot. You can come see us seven days a week, free admission. We're only closed on Texas Tech holidays, so you can check our website or social media to follow us along and make sure we're open on a day you might want to come.
And we have seven galleries in our beautiful museum. And then the real jewel is outside.
We sit on 27 acres and the back 19 acres is our historical park, which features 55 structures brought from ranches all over, put in chronological order from 1788 all the way to present day. One of our newest structure in the. In the timeline was used up until 2003. So we. You can literally walk through the history of ranching and then you can come inside and think about contemporary ranching issues through our wonderful exhibits that is put together by an amazing team of folks who really want to tell those stories. Stories. We are in the business of telling real stories about real ranches.
And we're also in the business of letting folks know that ranching is not something that occurred in the past or only occurred in the past. It's still happening today.
If you eat a steak, you are supporting a rancher somewhere.
And it's really important to know where our food comes from. And it's also important to understand why this amazing place that we live in, that we, we, we both love so dearly, provided the perfect environment for ranching to occur and as a way for people to make a living and take care of the land hand in hand.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah. And we, we do talk often about the. You Know what?
[00:06:11] Speaker A: We.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: We're seeing that this conversion back to grassland in so many places and that that's going to continue to happen. And it's important for us to learn those lessons from the past.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: That's right. That's right.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: We don't have that history to know how things were managed in the past and what we can. And we should do that they did great. And what we shouldn't do because it might not been the best thing.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: That's right. And what grass does for. For our ecosystems and our biological communities. It's amazing. It's so amazing what grass means to. Whether it's migratory birds, whether it's soil systems, whether it's people trying to find a way to make a living.
Grass is the key element.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It is.
It is amazing.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: If you break it down, all ranchers are grass farmers.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Just want that grass to grow.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: That's right. Exactly. It's exactly right. That's right. We do have an amazing history, and I think it's easy for us because, you know, there. There's kind of this divide when you go, like, south of Lubbock, you just don't. You don't see it as much. You know, there's. It's more row crops, you know, go. The further north you go.
Historically, it's been less row crops, although I would say that there is way more cotton there now than there has been in the past.
But I. I've definitely seen a difference as you make that transition north. We moved from south of Lubbock to north and west of Lubbock. And it was the first time I had seen people like. But their cows out, you know, winter them on their wheat or even during the season. Here's some over here. You know, so, you know, they're ranching and they're farming or they're, you know, contracted with someone who is ranching, and they're, you know, making a little money on the side with their, you know, leasing out their land for grazing.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Right. Well, great.
Ranchers are hard to see too. Right. They don't have a giant factory or smokestack out there that you can spot from miles away.
So we work with our. The president of our Ranching Heritage association board, actually ranches outside of tahoka, so just 30 miles south of Lubbock. So they're all over and they're kind of like the Great Plains and that. You really gotta look if you want to find them.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: Yeah, it's really true. That's really true. I think it's Important, even more than ever, for us to make people aware of the impact that our ag industry, whether it's proteins or commodities, that it has a huge impact on. On our everyday life in Lubbock.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: That's right. It sure does.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: So I love. I love the outdoor piece of the museum and the church.
[00:09:03] Speaker A: Yes. Trinity Mission.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: The church was in Brownfield, and I grew up in Brownfield. And I remember for many years I thought, I cannot believe that I was never aware that that church was there. That is the most beautiful building in all town. All the town. And how have I missed it all my life? And it was. It wasn't until I went to the museum and slept there that I realized I wasn't crazy. They moved us into Brownfield.
They was there the whole time.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. It had a traveling. Traveling history.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: Some great ties. Clifford Jones of the Spur Ranch.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: He.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: And. And we know his name at Texas Tech very well as well. What a. What a great leader. But he swept the floors of that church on Sunday mornings right after it was built. And I just think people are. What make those buildings come to life.
We love finding the stories of the people who interacted in those buildings every day or passed through, because there are so many amazing stories and opportunities to share our heritage and what really. The first settlers in this part of the world, what their challenges were, how they faced them, and if they were successful, because some were not. And that's an important part of this story. It's very true.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: And, you know, because I didn't realize that we had a Quaker settlement here before anything else in the cemetery is still there.
Those have got to be by far the oldest graves in a wide area around here. I mean, like, they were there well before the rest of us were.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: They were. The Quakers were not afraid to venture out and settle really far away from. From everything.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. I just. But then I was like, oh, that's why. Maybe we have Quaker Road.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: Maybe.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: I don't know.
I don't know. I've always wondered about that. But it. That's an interesting part. Do you guys ever.
Do you pull from the Southwest collection information from there?
[00:11:16] Speaker A: We do. So we were set up at the same time as the. Okay, well, with the museum and the Southwest collection in mind.
So we collect the things, and Southwest collection collects the documents of the things.
So they have. We have buildings from the Matador Ranch. They have files, records, log books from the Matador Ranch. So we have a very great relationship with them, and we are working together to Preserve the full story.
Yeah.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: That's really great. I've been there recently and visited with them about just, you know, how much of that story will be lost because it's all digital now. If we don't find a way to preserve that, you know, in some form, what we have on Instagram or Facebook will be kind of, you know.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: All it'll take is for Instagram to say, we're closed, we're gone, and everybody's lost all of those memories.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: That's right. The world of preserving things in perpetuity is ever changing, ever evolving, and it's a really great way to make our curators scratch their heads and figuring out what format is best to save this. And now what do we save? And what. What do we have space for? What can we care for for forever? So it's a big challenge to. To keep up with that.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
So I want to shift gears for just a moment, and in. In my estimation, the best series of books ever written are the Hank the Cow Dog books. And I. You can disagree with me. I do love CS Lewis. I love me some Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings.
I do. But if you're from this area and you want, like, to know, like, somebody that understands you, understands your life, if you grew up on the farm and you want someone else to understand our culture and what we think and how we think.
No one's better than Hank.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: That's right. Nobody's better than Hank. I was raised on the Hank the Cow Dog audio books. In the 80s. We had our cassette tapes and. And that was every road trip forever.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: Absolutely. You can't. Okay. And that. That is the thing people need to understand is you really do need the audio. This is a book that you should definitely buy. And what are there? 80.
I don't even know how many we're up to now.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: I think 83 is coming out this year. So up to 83 in the series. So you have no shortage of reading material.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: No, no, no. And they're. Every one of them are hilarious. My very favorite quote about Hank is how he is flatulent in many languages.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: It's important skill to have in the world today.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: So I love that you created a Hanks exhibit. Is that. It's just amazing. And you said, well, go. We're talking about how important grass is. And one of the greatest grass exhibits it is. I've taken my nieces and nephews there, and then I have gone.
I've taken several people there, and I've Gone by myself just to see.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:14:41] Speaker B: I just love it.
It's amazing.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Thank you for doing that. Well, it's. It's been the honor of my. Of my career to get to work with John Erickson and Hank the cow dog and to partner with that brand to tell a story that anyone can understand.
It really started with I grew up a Hank fan. So when I received the position that I'm in now at the ranching heritage Center, I had an excuse to call one of my childhood heroes. And I called John Erickson, and he said, you know, I happen to be thinking about the ranch and heritage Center. He had done things with us many years ago, but hadn't been a while, and we came up with the idea that he should come to a concert on our back patio.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: I was there with my children.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: It was so much fun. And his concerts are amazing. For those of you who have not heard the audiobooks, there are songs that Hank and other characters sing, and they are very clever and very silly.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: Shameless plug. But my son spent a week on his ranch at a riding course and is actually background for one of those songs. He's the chicken, get the chicken, get the chicken guy.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: I love it. My favorite song is Rotten meat.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: When you can get an entire crowd of people of all ages screaming the words rotten meat, I think that that's genius. Yes, and too much fun. But so John came into this concert with all the fun songs, and it was 4 o' clock on a Tuesday because that's when he happened to be available. And over a thousand people showed up. We ran out of chairs. We had grossly underestimated the sound system that we needed.
But it was a crowd full of smiling faces that I got to see standing behind the stage of people just looking at him in awe. Big smiles and multiple generations, which is a huge thing. You had grandma with her grown son, and he's holding a baby in his arms because he wants that baby to hear. Hank the cow dog.
After that concert, John and I kind of looked at each other. We're like, huh, this seems to be a good thing we got going on here.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: A good place.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: And he mentioned that years ago he had written a series of Hank books that weren't the typical Hank books where Hank is solving a case on the ranch. But it's more of Hank teaching about ranching. He had done it because he had gone and done school programs all over the place.
And he always peaked in the library at an elementary school to see what books they had on ranching cowboying, that kind of thing. And he was disheartened from find that most of them were written by someone who visited a ranch one day and not someone who lived it. So he wrote a book about ranching for adults. And he told me nobody read it, but. So he thought he'd give Hank a chance to talk about ranching. And he created what's called the Ranch Life series.
And it started out as three books where Hank explains the business of ranching and livestock, and then he explains cowboys and horses, and then he explains wildlife, and then he goes into weather and the seasons on a ranch. And then the fifth book in the series is called Prairie Fire. And Mr. Erickson wrote that after the 2017 fires devastated the panhandle, including his ranch, he lost everything.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: His home.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: Lost his home.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: Everything.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: Some animals, all. All of those things. And it was heartbreaking all at the same time. And so Hank talks about what prairie fires are. John went on a mission to learn everything he could about prairie fires. Both the history of them, the use of them currently as management tools for ranchers, and then wildland fires and what it means when a wildfire starts and what causes that. So Hank dives deep, and he did it in a way that anybody could understand.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: Which was really fun. And he said, why don't you have a look at these books, Julie, and tell me what you think. And I went home and I read them, and there's a quiz at the end of every hang book. So I gave my husband the quiz, and I was so excited that I read all three of them.
And I called John the very next day, and I said, I think I know what we can do. Why don't we see if we can get these to kids in schools? Why don't we make it a part of their license school? So we raised funds. We got all five books published and out in the world.
And we got grants to give away 5,000 copies of each book to Region 17 schools, which is around the Lubbock area. And we gave away 5,000 books a year, so a total of 25,000 books. And then we created amazing educational standards, aligned activities in science and social studies and reading with the help of some amazing teachers and content experts. And we made it all free.
The books cost a very nominal amount of money, but all of the lesson plans, games, and things that we created were available for free. And we started training teachers. And to date, I've trained, oh, I would say near 3,000 teachers. We've given away about 45,000 books total. And I Don't know how many education guidebooks with all the lesson plans and activities in there.
And around that same time, we were hearing something interesting from our visitors at the museum.
So I'm in the world of schools. I'm doing these books. Our average visitor doesn't have much interaction with them, but they were coming in. And as they left, after they walked through our amazing galleries and park, they would ask our guard, so, what is a ranch?
And we thought, oh no, we've done a good job of talking about the art and the history and this beautiful park. But nowhere did we specifically set out to define exactly what is a ranch. So I said, well, John Erickson has done that already. What if we took these ranch life learning books and turned them into an exhibit that could answer the question, what is a ranch?
And that began a journey that led to the creation and opening of the Cash family ranch life learning center, where Hank the cow dog answers the big question, what is a ranch?
So it's a really fun place. It was a $10 million project. By the time we worked through all the design process and put it together and added onto our building, it's 3,000 square foot of indoor space and half an acre outside. And they're interactive hands on exhibits for visitors of all ages to learn what is a ranch?
How does the weather impact a ranch? Why is grass on a ranch? What are these animals on the ranch have to do with cattle? As far as wildlife goes, what are the cowboys doing there? What kind of tools do they use?
And we had a really fun time bridging the gap between Hank's fictional world and the real world of ranching. Hank is very accurate in his books for the most part. His pronunciation and spelling could use a little work, but he knows ranching. So we actually are board members. I would send out a list and say, hey, we're putting together a horse barn and I need five bridles, two reins, some bits. And people cleaned out their barns and brought us real equipment that they had used, post hole diggers, all these things. And so they're all on display in a way that kids can touch, see, interact with. And we created some really fun hands on interactive game tables where they can try to manage a ranch for a year using tools for the land. Or they can try to take a million dollars and 7,500acres and see if they can make a ranch profitable in a year.
And from there they really see that, yes, man ranching is not just some guy riding on a horse looking at cattle. It's far bigger than that, it's a business. It's a way of life. It's part of taking care of the land and stewarding future generations and the ecosystem in many ways.
And also you can have a little fun because Hank is guiding you through. So we have his voice throughout the entire exhibit.
We have sculptures of Hank Drover and Pete the barn cat. And we, we tried to build Hank's ranch. So all of the beloved places you've read about in the book, from the ranch house to the machine shed and horse barn and the cake house, Wolf Creek and the Enchanted Forest, the cap rock and the horse pasture, all of those things from Hanksville. Fictional world we built in real life so folks could come in and have a really good time, be a Hank fan, and learn about ranching at the same time.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: So I, I think it's brilliant.
I don't. I don't even know any other way. I mean, his books are brilliant.
He. He himself is just a treasure to the world and, and his. His brain is magnificent. And probably. Would you recommend people read the first book before they come?
[00:24:09] Speaker A: Or listen, I think you could do it either way.
Read it or come see it. And if you have a good time, then you can pick up a copy right there in the gift shop and take it home to read.
They're a lot of fun, and it's a great way to get kids excited and involved.
We didn't just create a lesson plan where we ask students to hear a passage and then write an essay. We have a board game that talks about the average day of a cowboy.
We have some hands on stem lessons where we try to build a windmill that can lift a load and face different wind conditions that they might see out here. So there's so much to do and so much.
There is a whole.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: There's a whole like water exhibit. A hands on water exhibit outside.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: Yeah, there is. That's. That's been a really fun challenge. So we wanted to explore the topic of watershed. That's something that kids sometimes have a hard time grasping. What is a watershed?
So we really worked really hard with our amazing landscape architect who helped us with that design portion where we have a thunderstorm painted in a mural in the background. And then as water comes down, we have hand pumps where kids can pump the hand pumps. And then we have little dams that they can put in so they can fill up a reservoir. They can let it flow to the creek. They can combine two pumps to see if they could fill a reservoir faster.
And for the science minded, they can measure how Many gallons per minute their little hands can pump. And it's right next to a solar pump, so they can see how many gallons per minute the solar pump is pumping. And then it's next to. To a windmill, and they can see how many gallons per minute the wind is pumping at that moment. So it's a great way to explore watershed. But also how do we get water and what kind of ingenuity do we humans have to get water to the surface? And then how much water does a cow, one cow actually need?
Which is staggering. You know, a mama cow who's exposed, expecting a calf needs 30 gallons of water a day. That's a lot of water if you, if you think about it. So we really wanted kids to be able to dive as deep as they wanted to, to explore through hands on experiences. Working with educators, I hear all the time that sometimes when they're teaching a lesson, they realize their students don't have any experience to think back on.
Maybe they don't have a big travel budget in their family, or they don't.
They haven't been exposed to opportunities where they get their hands on something, get wet, get dirty, get muddy.
To think about everything from physics to math.
Those hands on experiences really help. So we wanted to make that real life experience something that they can enjoy. And if they accidentally learn while they're playing, then we won. Yeah.
[00:27:09] Speaker B: And you have this great section of the. I cannot remember his name, but he makes the most amazing farm and ranch toy toys.
[00:27:20] Speaker A: Oh, yes.
[00:27:21] Speaker B: We have the happy toy master, happy toy maker. Oh, my goodness. Those are the most amazing toys.
[00:27:26] Speaker A: We knew the little ones would want to come in, and we do an annual event every day called ranch day. We've done it for 50 years, and it's the most fun day of the year. And as we were creating the ranch life learning center, we would always kind of laugh. And I know this is going to sound terrible, but one of the best parts of ranch day is that kids leaving our facility are screaming, crying, and throwing fits. And that means we did our job. They had so much fun, they didn't want to leave. So we love a crying baby.
[00:27:57] Speaker B: No, I have seen those when I've been there. I've seen parents trying to get their kids in the car. Yeah.
[00:28:02] Speaker A: And one of the things at ranch day every year, besides all the fun hands on in our historic park was the happy toy maker would come and he would set up a little place where kids could play and they would. I saw them wear holes in their knees because they would crawl on Our brick patio with those trucks. So we had to find a way to incorporate that into ranch life. Learning. We knew the Littles would come as well as the older kiddos.
So Sallie Mae's kitchen and little Alfred's play yard are dedicated to the little ones. So they come in the kitchen or cook or they can go outside and play with a fleet of Happy Toy Maker trucks, pickups, semis, corrals, animals, people. They can run their own little ranching operation right there. And I will tell you, those toys are well loved and very tough. Most of them were donated to us by board members who had purchased them for their children. Their children grew up. And so if you look at all of the Happy Toy Maker toys, they have brands.
[00:29:05] Speaker B: Yes, I did notice. I have noticed that. Yeah.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: Yeah. That's because those ranches donated them to us when their babies grew up.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:13] Speaker A: So they've got a whole new life and the kids adore them. We glue horns back on some long horns that are out there very frequently.
And they play out there and then they go into Sallie Mae's kitchen and they whip up some amazing platters of wooden food for hours.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: And you guys have a water catchment system on right there that really is.
I mean, it.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: Even.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: Even I was like, oh. I mean, I learned stuff like how much water you're catching there. It's amazing.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: So, you know, around here, we in Lubbock, you know, people say we get 19 inches of rainfall a year. You should have been here that day. Yeah, that happens. So it appears really dry. But if you quantify 19 inches of rain on how many gallons that is, that just falls on a little roof rooftop. It's an amazing number. So part of the story of ranching is resourcefulness. Finding a way to make new when there's not much and capturing rainwater is something that's been done historically for we have historic structures that have water catchment systems on them. So we thought, well, we're talking about resourcefulness. We have a garden where Sallie Mae has her vegetables growing, so that catchment take harvest water from two roofs. And then we use that to keep our vegetable garden going all summer.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: Yeah, it's really great. The education that's on there is amazing. And I also love. You have this one exhibit that is like a panoramic video roundup and branding and stuff. It's just.
I mean, you're just like right there.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: In that experience was wild. So it's a. We call it the 270 degree theater. So several projectors project scenes from ranches all over. And in order to get that footage, we actually traveled with a film crew with their fancy.
[00:31:12] Speaker B: Oh, I can believe it.
[00:31:14] Speaker A: 60 degree camera. We went to the four sixes. We went to the Cogdells ranch.
We went to another ranch in the Panhandle and we, we captured footage of gathering, happening at the four sixes. Gathering happening at another ranch, sorting vaccinations, horse training at the four Sixes.
And you know, they had us get up at 5 in the morning and join them for breakfast in the bunkhouse. And I got to be the one that asked the cowboys to refrain from using any colorful language as this will be on display for children. And that's a fun thing to say to a group of guys at play. 5:00am but they played along. Well, they. The cattle behaved for us. There was somebody looking out for this video and we captured real scenes and I think that's something that most people don't get to see. Our film crew was actually out of Boston and they. I think their jaws were on the prairie the whole time we were out there. They just couldn't believe what they were seeing and how amazing the processes are and, and how cattle are moved. It was just beautiful. And the men and women out there who are. Are working the land and the animals every day and, and the kids just really.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: There was like. It was multi generational and. Yeah, yeah, it was.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: Yes. It just keeps going. So we thought that was one way we could have you stand in the middle of a ranch and experience just a tiny piece of those things.
An interesting thing that one of our educators has heard is somebody asked where we got all that old timey footage from and she kindly explained that it was all filmed in 2022 and 2023. And.
But it's something that folks, they don't realize that that's still happening today. So it's pretty cool to share that.
[00:33:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And then there's a hologram of.
Of John.
[00:33:14] Speaker A: Yes, our orientation theater. John Erickson welcomes everyone. There's a special storybook that flips through and Hank jumps around and he tells you what to expect and a little bit about his history in the. In the area. So it's fun.
We have security headquarters right next door, which is. If Hank had an office with what we envisioned.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: That'S what he thinks it's like.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. It's on the, you know, it's a vast office on the third floor, the.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: Complex, which is actually under the gas tank.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: And we use that as a classroom space. So every Tuesday we offer toddler Tuesdays in the Cash family ranch Life learning center. And then every Saturday throughout the summer, we offer the ranch life summer series where we have demonstrations in our outdoor amphitheater. We try to bring livestock of some sort or some other hands on person and their expertise, and they do. We've done everything from working cow dogs. Dogs to actual cattle to horses, wildlife, reptiles, all kinds of things out there where kids can come for a couple of hours and have a really close, up close and personal experience with all these amazing people in the industry. So we have a lot of fun out there in ranch life.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: Amazing. You know that It's. It really truly is.
There really is a lot more to do, I feel. I think the hardest part about is trying to figure out where do you find out about everything? You know, we. I just feel like we don't have this like one single source where everything that's happening is right here, you know, and, you know, so also to reiterate, it's free.
You don't have to pay for each one of your kids and then you. Or what. I mean, it's just all free.
[00:35:13] Speaker A: Everything.
[00:35:14] Speaker B: The gift shop is.
If you need to ever get any kind of Texas really cool gift.
That gift shop is amazing.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: Or a Hank Plush. There's really baseball hats and all the fun things.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: All the things.
[00:35:33] Speaker A: So much fun.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. The whole staff in there has just done such a great job.
I don't think I've ever been to a museum gift shop that's as well equipped as that one is. Just the diversity and the quality of things is really great.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: We do have an amazing staff. I think every one of us there has a big why in our heart, why are we here? Why are we doing this? And I hope that that shows through everything from our clean facilities all the way up retail and exhibit concepts and how we present them.
We really try hard. We really care a lot. We have a board that cares a lot.
And we're also supported by the Ranching Heritage association, which you can become a member of and be the first to know about anything.
That association comes up with almost 60% of our total annual budget. So all education, all exhibits happen because of the Ranching Heritage Association. So if you want to be the first to know or the first to get an invitation to something, doing, that's the way to go. But you can also just check our website or follow us on any of our social media outlets. We have a team that's really great at trying to communicate what's going on when and where and it is a lot.
But if you want to know what we're up to. Yeah, we've got it there.
[00:36:53] Speaker B: Well, we'll put all of those links and everything in the show notes so people can just go Right, right to you on all the social.
[00:37:00] Speaker A: Check us out.
[00:37:01] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. And I hope people will take the time to come and see not just Hank, but all of the really cool houses. Like if it's a nice day and you want to go walk, go to the Ranching Heritage center because on that 27 acres there's just this beautiful winding path with all of this native grasses and everything's identified.
And it's so different in there because you've got some man made like hills and berms and things. So that it's really.
It's just a really great, unique place to walk.
[00:37:37] Speaker A: Yeah, great wildlife roaming around.
All the trails are ada accessible, so we even have wheelchairs you can check out if you want to bring grandma, but maybe she doesn't want to walk.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: A mile and a half.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: Yeah, you can do that. And then we offer trolley tours throughout the year. So if you want to ride through the park with a guide, we can do that as well. So we, we try to cater to any kind of visit you'd like to have. And I always tell people if you came 30 years ago when you were in third grade, it's time to come see us again.
[00:38:06] Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. I agree. I totally agree. Because I remember it back then and it is different. It's. It has a full size, huge, huge train. Like a train. A full size.
[00:38:16] Speaker A: We have a full train. And the depot.
[00:38:18] Speaker B: And the depot. And like all the cattle, you know, like ramps and everything for loading up the cattle. Yep. It's amazing. It's a great place. So I pretty grateful to you, Julie, for taking the time.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: Oh, thank you for letting me talk about my favorite place in the whole world. Thank you so much.
[00:38:39] Speaker B: I can see why it is and I think if you lived here forever and you haven't been, or if you don't know anything about this area, that is a great place to start, a great place go see you National Ranching Heritage center and all of the links will be provided. Thanks friends. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope that you will take the time to go visit them, check them out, check the show notes and then share the episode with all of your friends that need to also go. And go to the Hank, Hank the Cow Dog exhibits. And if you don't know, Hank the Cow dog will also link some information so that we can help you, educate you on Hank the cat dog.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:39:24] Speaker B: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
