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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, welcome to the next episode of Humble Ground. Uh, we're in the great state of Oklahoma today. Pretty excited about this one. Uh, gonna learn about an industry that I don't know a whole lot about. Uh, but Mike was willing enough to let me come down here and, and, uh, teach me everything I can know. Couldn't ask for a nicer person. Um, and I'm pretty excited. So, Mike, thanks so much for coming on. Um, gimme a little bit of background, uh, of how you got here

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well, I actually got here 'cause I got married and I met my wife at Oklahoma State University. We were both in pre-Vet and, um, my roommate and she were lab partners and comparative anatomy. And one night she came over to study and had a box in her hand. And then that box was a latex injected cadaver cat. And so I tell everybody who's really the smell of Hyde, that turned me on to Loie. Well, and so from that point on, we've been married 56 years. We had three children and six grandchildren. And, um, of course, here, here we're, her parents started this ranching operation back in 1932. They came outta Cat County Anadaco area and came up in here. His great uncle was Charles Page, which was the founder of Sand Springs. And so he brought him up here to help, which you don't know much about it, merely the world anymore, but used to be the Wit Colony, which is still here, the Children's home. Uh, and this was an industrial site. They had to <inaudible> on things for a lot of people work here. So Mr. Campbell had just come out of the Army Air Corps. His name was George. Her mom's name was Garnet. Flying stands for the, his career in the Army Air Corps. The G stands for Garnet and George Campbell. So interesting. That's how we got the Flying G Ranch, which is 1932. And as I mentioned, lots and I have been married 56 years now.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Well, first off, congratulations. Uh, interesting way to meet, uh, you know, but, uh, 56 years is, is, uh, incredible. Uh, so when did you, you know, the ranch started in 1932. When did you kind of come into that? I guess how, how did you come into that? Is that something where they owned it and you just were interested in it? Or did you come into work and, and kind of give us a little backstory of the, the early days.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Well, Loie had a brother, but he had passed away several years ago. So she's really the only child. And so we were, again, we were in pre-vet. And so when we decided to get married, uh, we got married in 1968. We graduated from Oklahoma State University in 70. But we had a meeting, did we want to go on, you know, with a family? Did we want to go on with careers in vet med or did we want to come back and keep the fences up on the ranch? Well, as a tremendous opportunity, and it's something I hate to ask her, to walk away from something that her parents had worked a lifetime, you know, for her to hand down. Same here with Luie and I to hand down to the kids. So we'd made a decision that yeah, we're gonna come back to the ranch.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
And so when we did that, I told her, I said, you know, I'm not gonna sit in the same class with you. I'm going to the College of Business and get my degrees in business accounting and agriculture if you want to stay in ag. And so she did. And she got her degrees in animal science. So we kindly, instead of, we kinda spread out our, our backgrounds and our education to help maybe make this operation go. So again, that's how we got here. So we came back to the ranch after graduation and on December and, uh, of 70 and, uh, been here ever since.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
That's a beautiful place. Uh, and it's really neat. You know, the boys got to see, um, how it's harvested and the stuff, and we're gonna talk through a lot of stuff. Uh, but you actually have a, a store here, which is incredible. So anybody that's ever, uh, what is it, I 44, is that right? West of

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Tulsa? We're on Highway 51 right here. Yep. But the orchards on I 44. Correct.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Okay. Yeah. So right west of Tulsa. So if you're ever down here, uh, the store, you can get, uh, I mean this is, this is incredible. We'll, we'll share some pictures and some video of this. But, um, so were you in production at that point when you, when you came back and started, did they have their own, um, you know, did they have their own trees? Groves? Is it groves, orchards? Well,

Speaker 2 (03:52):
It depends. If it, if it's a orchard, it's something that I planted. If it's a grove, it's something God planted, so. Gotcha. Okay. You're native, you might say, is, is a grove, uh, of trees. The pecan where we've planted with inlines is an orchard.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Interesting. Um, you had talked about Oklahoma is mostly native, not all native, but mostly native comparative to, you know, Georgia and places like that. Most of them would be orchards then, technically.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
That's right. Most of those are, and as I mentioned earlier, the, the pecan is native only to North America and all of North America. It's a river systems coming down through, uh, borders. Uh, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas. That's where pecans are native to. Georgia's a tremendously large producing state, but those pecans are not native to the state of Georgia. They were planted there. Same with New Mexico and Arizona. There's a lot of pecans out in those states. Right. But they're, they were planted there, not native.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Interesting. Um, I guess on that, uh, first, uh, I had a, I had somebody want to ask a question, and their question was, is it pecan or pecan? And, and why?

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Well, it could be either. It depends on what part of the country you're in. But if you're in Oklahoma, if you're out in the east, you'll ask for a pecan. If you're in Oklahoma, you ask for a pecan, because a pecan is what our grandmothers kept under the bed before they had indoor plumbing. So <laugh>, be careful what you ask for, 'cause you just might get it here.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Interesting. Uh, I guess on that note, what, um, like when you plant an orchard, um, is there, is there a set thing where, hey, we plant this far apart and the rows are this far apart and the trees are this far apart and it's a grid system? Or, or explain a little bit for people that don't understand an orchard, how far apart do trees have to be a, um, and b what kind of a timeline are you looking like from when you plant a tree to having

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Any sort of production? Well, of course it depends on what part of the country you're in. If you're in an area that has high humidity, such as Oklahoma and high temperatures, you know, you can hedge. And, and when you hedge, you can plant the trees in line real close together, maybe 15, 17 feet apart. For us here in Oklahoma, we wouldn't plant anything closer than a a 45, 40 foot by 40 foot, uh, rectangular system. And so the reason being, you can plant trees real close in Georgia, and then they hedge what they're doing, that they're trimming just like a hedge row. They're trimming the tree and they'll, it looks like a hedge. But when you cut the limb, you get a lot of sprouts. Other little limbs that, that grow out from that. Right. So you get a lot of production right there on that hedge row compared to a tree being spaced out 45 or 50 feet.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
And so you've got more trees, but you have a lot more producing area by when you hedge it. But we can't hedge in Oklahoma 'cause we have high humidities. So there's a disease called scab, which we have to spray for, to take care of, especially on certain varieties. Some varieties, scab real bad. Now, scab, I mentioned that it just, it looks like a scab on your arm or your hand, but it, what it does, it, it destroys the shuck, which the shuck then is like an embryo. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> of a calf or a human. And so if that's, uh, destroyed in any way, it affects the side of the nut. So it doesn't fill out as well. It's not the quality goes down this or that. So there's certain parts of the world as you can plant, you know, high density planting. But once we plant these trees, especially in Oklahoma, we're looking at at least eight to 10 years before we start getting any production.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Wow. Now you can get, uh, you can get a little bit of production, you know, in year six or seven, but if we're talking about commercial production, you know, we probably wouldn't even start harvesting until they're eight or 10 years old. 'cause the trees are still small. So the pounds per acre is gonna be small compared to after the trees, you know, get matures. 'cause some of these trees, some of these orchards can produce two 3000 pounds the acre. Now that's those hedge rows. And now in Oklahoma, you know, we strive for natives. We strive very diligently to get a thousand pounds of acre production. And um, you know, we, we achieve that. But we manage very, very heavily, you know, we'll, we'll fertilize in March, we'll come in there and the first thing we do, uh, the year for maintenance, we'll fertilize in March.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
And so we're putting out, we want basically a hundred units of, uh, nitrogen. And so we'll get that put on the ground march. And that gives it time to get down to the rich system. And so when the tree comes outta dormancy, it's high in carbohydrates, higher in energy. So as it comes outta dormancy, it'll come up and produce flowers in addition to the catkins and leaves. Now, if the tree's in a weakened state, if we don't fertilize or it had a heavy crop last year, or you let insects take off the leaves the previous years, the tree's gonna go dormant in a weak state, then it's naturally gonna come outta dormancy. So if we have a high carbohydrate level, and like I say, we manage to do that, then we're gonna get a lot of flyers in addition to leaves. Otherwise we just get a lot of leaves with very few fliers.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
It's the trees, well way of self-sustaining itself. That's incredible because pecan take a lot of energy to produce, puts the tree in a tremendous stress if it's over, has overpopulation of pecans on it. As a matter of fact, a lot of these varieties in, in August will come in and shake half of the crop off just because there's too many pecans on there. And so it puts the tree in a very stressful situation. And so what happens then? It's like any other crop, corn or anything, you don't put too many seeds together. 'cause you get a lot of plants, but they're all small and the ears, the corn are small. Right. Same thing with pecan. They're

Speaker 1 (09:40):
All fighting for nutrients.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
If you get too many nuts on there, they're gonna be small, low quality. You thin the, thin the crop, and then they'll be much larger with a much higher quality.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
So, so you said a thousand pounds is is the, is the goal an acre

Speaker 2 (09:55):
In, in native for Oklahoma in natives. Okay. We strive to try to get, now the, the varieties and everything, you know, we can reach 2000 pounds here. Some of the places in Georgia, New Mexico, and Arizona, which is highly, highly intensified on their management practices and they have irrigation. And so that makes a tremendous difference in production capability of pecan.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
I was doing some research. The US is the number one pecan growing country in the world. Is that, is that right? Yeah,

Speaker 2 (10:24):
There, um, of course now we, we start, there's, I was actually with, uh, Texas a and m researching in Old Mexico when they showing them down there how to put drip irrigation in. That was, shoot, that was probably 50 years ago. But Mexico now is one of our biggest competitors here in, in North America and, uh, south America. There are a few pecans down China. I've been to China several times looking at the products now. They were one of our biggest importers of, of pecans produced here in the US mostly the Georgia pecan. They one of the largest pecan they could get. And what they do, they would send those over there and they would crack those pecans, but not like we do. We crack 'em to get the nut meat out what they're doing. They're lightly cracking them to get a sauce in. So they'll crack 'em, they'll put 'em in a tank and it's a flavor that's that they like.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
I'm not sure we would like it, but they like it. And so they'll flavor those pecans still in the shell. Remember, it's just cracked. It's not shelled. And so then that's how they market a lot of their pecans over there and they like fresh vegetables and fruits. So for them, and it's a healthy snack, the pecan just is itself. Right. You put 'em in the pie and sugars and all that. It's the best tasting product in the world. I'm not sure that we can actually put the healthy heart check mark on the pecan pie, but we can on the nut meats, when you buy just a, a bag of raw pecans or even crack 'em yourself. Sure. Uh, yeah, we do American Pecan Council, we did the research and everything with American Pecan Council and the American Heart Association, and we now are able to have the healthy heart check mark for raw pecans.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
I believe it though. Like we eat a ton of pecans and almonds and you name it. Um, I love 'em. There's people that don't. But yeah, I think you put 'em in a pecan pie that probably takes the health piece out by a mile. Uh, is pecan pie your favorite?

Speaker 2 (12:15):
Well, absolutely, and of course, you know, when everybody, anybody thinks of pecan, that's the first thing they think of is pecans. But again, American Pecan Council, we've been, we've done a lot of work and research and you know, that the vitamins and mine minerals and the, um, acids and pecans is very healthy, great fiber source. Um, so we do, uh, promote. Now pecans is a healthy snack. Now there's a lot. You can go to american pecan.com and look on the there for recipes. There's hundreds of recipes, how to utilize pecans. Everything from pecan roasted and crusted, uh, uh, sweet potato casserole to prime rib roast. And so, and of course all the salads. And we start seeing now a lot of restaurants and even fast food chains that their salads and everything are, have pecans as an ingredient in them. So we're happy to see that. Uh, you know, this movement's coming about. American pecan started up in 16, 2016, and we are the oversight of the federal marketing order. And I've been involved with that since its inception. And, um, so we're getting a lot of activity, doing a lot of marketing research and everything with the industry. We can't get involved in prices as of being a federal marketing order. We can promote and research.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
No, and that's incredible. Uh, I think you're right. Like chicken pecan salad has just blown up. You see every restaurant almost has a chicken pecan salad. Yeah. Um, which is awesome to see. I guess speaking of markets, uh, the folks that I know that are grain folks would probably be super interested, uh, to pick your brain on a couple things here. When, when you harvest, uh, your operation maybe is a little different where you actually have a storefront and stuff like that. But is there, like, where do the raw pecans go? Is there like corn and beans? Obviously you got an elevator, you got your own bins. Like what's the process from getting them out to a storage facility? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
For, well, of course when you get a load of pecan, I mean, in the commercial, uh, a lot of pecans are sold just a a a paper bag going in or a towed sack going in into a feed store or something and bought. But then the accumulator is the one that's, that's responsible for, from the sheller standpoint, they have people that are hired, they're called accumulators. So once you get a load ready to go, you'll call an accumulator, they'll come out and so you're gonna, we're gonna call a load of pecan 50,000 pounds. They're going in a semi either hopper bottom or, uh, in a van and super sacks, which are 2000 pound super sacks going in. We don't use the, uh, coffee bean bags anymore. Did it back when I was young. But that was, you know, those, they weighed about 125 pounds and it was all bag burn.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
But now, you know, with these forklift and a, and a big super sack that has 2000 pounds in it, and we load 'em there, but the q and a will come out and they'll actually pull a sample, uh, from all that 500 or that 50,000 pounds, uh, group of cons. And they'll have a probe just like they use in the wheat and everything. They'll probe down the sack and get a sample so that they, they know that they're getting a, a good sample all the way up and down it. No one's maybe throwing all the good stuff on top and stuff in the bottom. Yeah, that never happens. Yeah, that doesn't happen though, I'm sure. But, and most of your commercial guys, because I mean, sooner or later you get caught up with it and the word gets out. But, uh, but they just do it to get a real good sample.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
And so we'll take 'em in and once they pull a sample, we may go in there outta that 50,000 pounds of pecan, we'll pull a sample out of 300 grams, which is less than a pound, 300 grams, and we'll sit 'em there and we'll crack 'em by hand. And then very meticulously pick out every flake of nut meat that's in that sample. So we'll put the shells on over here on this side, and we'll put the nut meats on this side. So we start out with 300 gram sample. Let's say for easy math, we end up with 150 grams of nut meats. Well, if you do the math, that's 50% of the total weight 150. Wow. So you've got a 50% nut meat that's in that semi trailer. So if that's a 50,000 pound load, what is telling to the accumulator? There's, out of that, there's 20 thou, 25,000 pounds of nut meats.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
And so if the market for the nut meat, you know, we don't sell 'em just as pecans a pound in the commercial. We sell it by the net meat. And if the net meats are bringing $3 a pound, then you take that $3 a pound times that 50%, then the grower gets a dollar and a half a pound for that product. So we're not really selling pecans, we're selling nut meats when it goes to the commercial. So now they are, they represent a particular sheller. And so then those pecans are loaded on, like I say, a semi going hopper bottom if they want in bulk or a van, if they, they want 'em in super sacks, but then they'll take 'em to a shelling plant, uh, somewhere in the United States, and then they're shelled out and, uh, you know, used for different pieces Sure. Or halves or whatever. Sure. Different sizes, mammoth halves, you know, are all the way down to the small native hat.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
Interesting. Is, is that something that, like corn will go in obviously at harvest, but it might not come back out till, you know, months later?

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Well, pecans could be a year later. So really, okay. See, pecans are harvested basically all across the United States, November, December, sometimes January, if the weather, um, hells holds us up to get, get it all out there. So what you've got here, we always have a surplus every year anyway. We never know how could be 200 million pounds or, or whatever. But that surplus is sitting in cold storage. And so as the harvest comes in, it's first, it's like any of the food product first in, first out. So if we still have this surplus here, as we're bringing in these new pecans, the shells are gonna be processing all year long. 'cause they can't crack every, all this 200 million pounds Right. Crop in one month or two months in November, December. It's a year long process. So they're, they're processing all year long. And so they'll bring, of course, whatever they had in cold storage will be the first out, then the new product goes in. But the thing about a pecan, they're very high in oil and definitely they're very adaptable to storage as long as they're stored at freezing or below. Now pecan sets out on the shelf for 45 days. It's high in oil, remember. So then it becomes, starts to turn a little bit toward the rancid, taste a little bit toward the darker color. Not that it's unhealthy, but it does change the color, excuse me, does change the color and the taste of that product a little bit. So pecan should always be stored in the freezer.

Speaker 1 (18:52):
Interesting. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
And that can stay for as long as two years and still be just perfectly,

Speaker 1 (18:56):
I've got some of those that have probably on been on the shelf a long time and, and, uh, it definitely changes the taste. But I, I think you're right. I'm, I'm excited to have some, some fresh ones, uh, or, you know, close to fresh ones. I, I saw your machines and stuff back there, so pretty excited to, to get some of those. Well,

Speaker 2 (19:11):
These have come off this year. The ones that we process it now, they, they just came off. These are early varieties we have. That's one thing about different varieties, you know, paper shell we're calling about. But we, we grew cans and nee and those come off very early. They'll come off in mid-October. Now, a lot of people think, well, you gotta have a freeze to harvest pecans. No, that's not true. We'll have all the cans and nee harvested basically before the first freeze ever hits. And so that's a good thing about having the fresh market for Thanksgiving and Christmas, these early varieties and Right. You know, and a lot of these varieties, they'll, they'll produce different percent yields, you know, a good native 45, 40 7% for a really good native. But these paper shells, 55%, 57%, you know, and then you've got the old Stewart Rodie, which is our grandparents, uh, I guess maybe me too, but our grandparents, that used to be the only paper shell that was known Stewart.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
And it's real popular still, especially with some of our older clients. They'll come in here, customers, and now they'll ask specifically for the stewards because that's all they've ever known. But now we have these newer varieties that have a much higher nut meat yield. And, um, they have other characteristics very positive too. But when they come off early, the, that's a positive thing because then there's no danger of getting that particular variety caught in an early freeze. If we get an early freeze, like last year we lost 30% of our Stewart crop in five hours, that two weeks too early because the freeze came before the shucks were split. And, uh, you know, when you see shucks split, all that's doing it means the nuts mature and the pecans just hanging there, drying like clothes on the clothes line. Pecans are gonna be high in, in moisture at that point when the shuck splits. So we've gotta get the moisture content down to around 4%. It could be seven or 8% as high as that, but that's, then you still have a spongy pecan. It doesn't crack. It tastes like coconut, not like a pecan. But as the carbohydrates start drying down and coming down, we start getting sugary taste and, and a good sweet, um, buttery taste and flavor to the pecan.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Lost 30%,

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Maybe lost 30% in five hours.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Five hours.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
And that temperature shut down to 25 degrees that crop now the stewards of later crop. But now we already had all the cans and ponty out. So that's one reason too, that we growers, you know, we're looking, we're always looking at a pecan that has several characteristics. And we have our research stations one here in, in Brownwood, Texas, um, from Texas a and m, that's A-U-S-D-A con, uh, breeding station. But we're looking at trace there. We want pecans to come off early. So we get away from the freezers. We want them to be as drought resistant as they can be. We want 'em to be as insect resistant as they can be. And then scab the fungus, we want them to be resistant from that. So we have a lot of wants. And so, but it does take a long time, you know, for these breeders to come up with the product.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
And the reason it does, because you can take a, you know, they'll isolate a flower from a known, uh, variety, put a cover on it bag. Yeah. And they'll take pollen from a known cultivar. So then they've gotta introduce that pollen into that flower, which will then will produce a nut. But then you gotta take that nut and go plant it and wait five or six years to produce that nut to see what you get. So it, it is a long time, but as we starting to breed these pecans before we get the results, so there's hundreds and hundreds of tests and trials, but very few of those ever bring us anything that we wanna propagate or give a name to. There are though names you speak of that there's probably over 200 different varieties of pecans across the country. Wow. But there's only a really a handful of 'em that really are conducive to having the traits that we wanna promote, uh, commercially.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
What, what's the, like for people that don't know anything about pecans, what's the one that they've probably likely, or the top two or three that they've probably likely ate that they wouldn't know? Hey, that's this variety. Is there, is there like a couple front runners that are

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Yeah, the new ones right now, especially in this part of the world, will be Ponty in Kansas again. They come off in October, uh, very high quality nut at yield 56, 50 7%. And that may yield again, they come off early. So we get away from the freezes. Uh, Kansas is fairly scab resistant, ponies are not. So we have to spay a fungicide for that, which means it, uh, costs us about as much control of the, um, fungus as it does, or the scab than it does for insects. So it does increase the cost. That's why we're looking for that pecan, that resistance to scab. So we don't have to spray for scab now. We spray that generally, generally we'll be spraying for an insect at the same time. So we're covering the ground on the same time, but yet we have twice as much chemical cost in that tank.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Speaking of, um, I'd love to go through some ballpark numbers. Obviously this changes by where you're at, I'm sure. But, um, so you're eight to 10 years before you're productive in a new orchard. What, what's a, like if somebody wants to get into a, an an existing, uh, operation, they wanna buy it and stuff like that, uh, one that's already producing stuff like that. I mean, how much, how much an acre is, is that going for ballpark? Obviously that depends on where

Speaker 2 (24:22):
We have, well, we sold in Orchard just in June the fifth. Yeah. And that Orchard brought 10,000 an acre

Speaker 1 (24:29):
And it was all established. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
Now of course, if you, you know, buying raw ground, of course, again, I, you know, I had farm appraisal at Oklahoma State University. So the whole thing is, you know, the price, the value of a piece of property is based upon three things. Location, location, location. Certainly the location helped that piece there. But it was one of the state's Premier Orchards. I mean, not because I had it, it just, it was, I mean, it, we started off with a good orchard. We turned it into a great one, put a lot of varieties in there, spent a lot of time, 40 years I spent over there in that orchard. And then the girl said, dad, you know, why, why don't you sell the orchard and then you can come back to the ranch and spend more time with granny and take the grandkids fishing more? Well, I got to thinking, you know, I'm 76 years old.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
I did that 40 years. We had a very, very well known and very highly, you know, respected orchard. And I got to think, you know, I, I don't have to be carried off this orchard. I can actually walk off of it. And so yeah, it kinda stung a little bit thinking about, you know, giving up that. But also there's something I've always learned too through, um, through farm appraisal and things from college that you never really own something. You just get to use it for a while. And so the whole thing about it for me is, is what the girl said, dad, you can come home, spend more time with granny. Yeah. Los has been here, you know, when I'm gone, of course, been involved with a lot of agriculture politics for almost fif well over 50 years. And when I was president of Oklahoma Farm Bureau, I was gone 187 days out of that year.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
And geez, Loie was here taking care of things. Of course, we had a hired hand or two, but she still was responsible for oversight. And so, you know, I tell young people, you know, if you wanna be successful in life, pick your spouses very carefully. And because without the support of OT and taking care of the things here, you know, she pretty well, uh, it was her parents that had this, this cattle operation started when we got married. And they came up from, uh, ca uh, anadaco. Mrs. Campbell, my mother-in-Law had the very first pole herford in the state of Oklahoma. And she brought, they brought up here. But my, uh, mother-in-Law was Comanche, and they were known as the horse people. And back in 1932, if you can imagine that they didn't have really high-end stock trailers or horse trailers back then. And, uh, her horse had never seen a trailer and that horse wouldn't load.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
But when they moved the cattle up here with trailers, Mrs. Campbell rode her horse, which is probably 150, 170 miles from, from here, this location. It took her a couple three days to get up here. But she did, the horse wouldn't load and she wouldn't make it and she wouldn't mistreat it. So she just rode it. And, uh, so that's, that's her. Yeah. She's Comanche and, uh, <inaudible>, my wife is Comanche and, uh, park Comanche, her dad was Scottish and in the Campbells. And so, uh, Loie is a, a Native American name, Comanche name meaning Bright Child. And, uh, we're right here in the middle of Loie, Oklahoma. That's kind another story about the ranch here. My father-in-Law was a old country lawyer. And, uh, he served in the legislature, uh, session. And so Towson Sand Springs, we have Keystone Lake here, just about four miles from here.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
And when it was being built, Tulsa and Sand Springs thought, Hmm, it's gonna be a great source of revenue tax and, uh, from recreation. And so he got to thinking that, you know, if they were going to fence line annex all the properties, certainly they were gonna fence line the Flying G Ranch. We have about 2000 acres here. And he didn't want the ranch to end up being in a town. 'cause he is concerned about what zoning might do if it was inside the city limits because of what we do here in ag. And he had let, uh, you know, and they still do. The Boy Scouts come out here and camp and uh, Thanksgiving, they'll come out a day or two before they'll have their Thanksgiving camp out and dinner here. And, and the boys are cooking and the parents all come. And so for years, uh, you know, the Boy Scouts a bit, but he was concerned that that might all change based upon fires and things, you know, campfires and things like that.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
So he knew the county commissioners pretty well. And, um, I, I say this jokingly, but I'm not sure that it wasn't true back then. Years ago. There's a lot of county commissioners all across this country going to prison, especially in Oklahoma for kickbacks and bribes. I tell everybody he knew 'em all well enough to put 'em all in prison 'cause he was a lawyer. And so that's how he, he went underneath the radar and got the town of <inaudible> petitioned to have the town of LOE formed, you know, if it, if it was gonna be in anybody's town. And he wanted his own town. So he formed it and named it after his daughter, which is my wife, <inaudible>. And so several years ago, gm, uh, general Motors came here. They were looking for a town and all the United States that had nine or less people in it because they wanted to put all those, that entire town in that suburban.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Well, lo and behold, we had to hand here with, with five kids. Our four, we have really five of us, but one of 'em was gone to college. So it made nine here on, on the ranch here in Loie, Oklahoma. That's why that sign up there says population nine. Now, of course, it's, we're the smallest town in the state right now. We have, uh, four of us here, one of my granddaughter and daughters here. So they did a shoot here of three days. And what they wanted the last 30 minutes of sunset. And so they brought this car in from California and they brought a chase car detail car spent those three days, they brought the cameraman in from South Africa. And you're too young to remember, but a lot of, maybe some of the listeners will, but they remember the Marlboro man who used to, for the Marlboro cigarettes.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Well, this guy was the photographer for the Marlboro, uh, campaign. But they brought him in from South Africa again, spent three days here last 30 minutes of sunset and right behind us there on Horse and Rider with the back cover on that. But the, the thing I think that sold it to 'em as far as choosing Loie, Oklahoma Loie, and it says in there Loie Native American name, meaning bright child suburban GM's name meaning bright, ideal. And so it's right all, all up there. That's awesome. It shows all of us with our dogs by an old fuel tank. And then right below it's just suburban there. And so it was a great experience and opportunity and we were proud to see it. And, and, um, I I, I was a private pilot for years. I had a Helio Coer here that we've, uh, enjoyed having for years.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
But I took flight lessons over at Spartan Air in Ogle and not far from here. And my chief pilot was Doug Mader. And he was later on, was flying commercial. He was Jets. I mean, these was flying, uh, industry. And um, so he was sitting on tarmac there in New York and he was reading a Forbes magazine and he flu through it. And he looked through there and he saw that ad. The ad didn't, he was reading it, but it didn't make a lot of sense other than the fact he saw the word Zi. And of course he knew us because he was out here a lot. I got involved with him, uh, and uh, actually part of the, the student, the flight instructors out there, they, they helped me build a hangar here. 'cause they didn't have anything to do on some of their days off.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
They can only fly so much. And so we had a great, uh, relationship with a lot of those guys. But anyway, he saw <inaudible>, so he called me from his airplane and wanted to know what the story was on that. And so we told him what happened there. But there was a campaign there, I guess it was in every magazine from National Geographic to Field and Streams for everybody. I didn't know you were that famous. I mean, I knew you were famous, but I didn't know you were. Well, geez, know it really, it's Lotes, you just got the bigger name. Yeah. There's all nine of us are up there in that picture. But, uh, yeah, it was a great experience. A lot of fun. No, that's awesome. But, you know, of course it all came about, you know, we're sitting here talking about batons. But you know, how, how did I get started in batons?

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Actually, I was down the, uh, in the bottoms with, on sitting on the dozer. I was cleaning up some ground and came back at OU and I thought, well, I'm going do something, make my mother-in-law happy, you know, I'm gonna make more pasture for her cows. And so I'm down that bottom taking out trees. And, and so some of those trees were kindly difficult to get out, and some of 'em were pretty big. And so after a while, you know, I kind of started looking at, and, and lo and behold there was pecans on 'em. I realized they were pecans then. And so I told myself right then, sitting on that dozer, if I can't get you out, I'm gonna make you produce. And so my goal in life right then was to produce enough pecans for my mother-in-Law to have a pecan pie on that Thanksgiving. And, you know, I had a goal of always trying to produce a million pounds. But of course we sold the orchard. We had all these young orchards coming in. I think I could have made it before I, uh, left this earth. But, um, we, we got a little over 700,000 pounds. So I got close.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
That's, that's incredible. Uh, I've got a few more questions and, and I just wanna say thank you so much for even, uh, I reached out, I think through your website or something. I was, I was gonna be going to Dallas for a project and I looked up in Oklahoma. You know what crops were different, right? Because I live in corn and bean country, uh, you know, there's some wheat and stuff, but, and I saw, you know, pecans on there. I said, man, that'd be interesting. So I reached out and you got right back to me. And, and I can't thank you enough for it. 'cause uh, this is gonna be, this is gonna be incredible. Uh, I think people are gonna love this. Um, you had said you'd traveled a bunch, what, 20 countries or something like that? Yeah. What's, was that all for pecan related? No. Oh,

Speaker 2 (33:55):
Okay. Not necessarily. It's for agriculture. I've served, um, I've served on American pecan, uh, council. I have since 16. I served in, in Tulsa County as Farm Bureau on there. I've served at their president for years. I've spent 50 years at that. I've spent on the State Farm Bureau board. I spent eight years as a, as a state director. I spent six years as a state president and then six years as a, with American Farm Bureau as president. I serve on real electric. Uh, I'm a trustee for Indian Electric Bureau, still on Noum, Conor. I'm a trustee for the, uh, for Tulsa County Public Facility Authority, known as the Tulsa Fair Board. And so those are the things that, and again, as I mentioned earlier, you know, if you wanna be successful in life, and I don't know what successful is, it's a definition of many.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
But you sure wanna pick your spouses very carefully. 'cause again, if without the support of my wife's taking care of things here as I, every one of the legislators I work with, you know, I may thank them, but I'll certainly turn back around with, with, um, Senator, um, Langford just Sunday, two da few days ago. And the first thing I did, I did thank him, but the first thing I did, I thanked his wife for sharing him with us because I know what it is for those at home still to be, uh, taking care of things while we're all gone. So yeah, the country's there. And, and mostly it was, it was all agriculture related, but I've been, I could get started on it, but I guess some of the most interesting, I guess is, um, our Secretary of Bag sent a group of us about 15 of us over to Israel on the International Water Symposium.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
And, and that there, of course, we, we did this symposium and, and learned a lot. Drip irrigation was actually started in Israel. We use it a lot here in this country. Sure, we use flood too, but in conservation, you know, drip makes better sense where you can use it. And um, but that's where it was all developed over there. And we went through the net of film, uh, company over there to see how all this was made. And, and the film used for, uh, moisture con, uh, conservation and everything to go down these rows and plant 'em through. But it was very interesting. But that was probably one of the most interesting. I've been to Cuba twice. I've been to China three times. I've been to, uh, south America, Brazil, Brazil, Chile, uh, South Africa, uh, Israel, Ireland, England, Canada, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, China again, China three times.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
But, um, just to mention a few of the ones. But, um, the interesting thing is, is that, you know, in, especially in Germany, we think that we are the ultimate in agriculture producing. We produce well, but there's other countries that produce just as well. But the interesting thing is now, you know, that, um, we're being told by the year 2050, we're gonna have to produce a hundred percent more food by then than we do now, just because of the world's population, the increase. And, you know, I think we can get there. It's just gonna be, technology's gonna have to help us. And, um, you know, a lot of 'em genetically modified. Some people are kind of scared about that. Some people are scared about nuclear energy. Well, my daughter works in a nuclear reactor. She works as a, a team leader in a medical reactor on, uh, university of Mizou called Merr.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
And, um, and I would tell you, you know, these aren't the same reactors that we had with Chernobyl and Five Mile Island. Uh, and, and I would tell you as her father, she's definitely safer in that reactor than she is just driving to and from work every day. Definitely. And so, you know, that's gonna be, and we're gonna need a good mix for energy, you know, for agriculture as well, because we, we use a lot of energy. We use a lot of the energy in irrigating. But you know, in Germany, I, I was over there, it's kind of interesting. And they had a, um, they had an engine that was run off of methane and that would, would reduce and turn the generator, provide electricity. But what they had a lot of, Germany had a lot of dairy. So they had, uh, methane digesters that they would capture this manure and air and, and, and have the methane gas that would run the generator that then would run the electricity, you know, produce electricity for that community.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Germany's not a big country, they didn't really want a lot of high lines running all through the country. So each of the communities county produced a lot of their own. And not only that, on every one of their, um, barns, they had solar panels. So they were utilizing that, uh, solar, you know, produce as well, which we had that here it's gonna take for the demand that, that we're being asked to produce, uh, for not only agriculture, but for, for all of our living needs and everything, um, we're gonna have to produce more energy. And there's, the way to do it is have a combination of all these, uh, nuclear will be our best bet in the long run. It's the one most people are most scared about or concerned about. But believe me, technology will, will take care of that, especially with AI coming on the amount of energy. And we'll use it in the ag, we'll use it definitely in ag.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
Oh, we see it. And we, we've got several clients Yeah. That

Speaker 2 (38:55):
Do it. But, um, so there's a lot of, a lot of things coming down the line that at 76, you know, I hope I see some of 'em, I've seen a lot just in my, uh, time here on earth. But I'm really anxious to see what's gonna happen as we continue down the road. Not only will it be for our consumers in town, and uh, but you know, for us here, you know, we used, uh, we were using GPS in our spray speed sprayers. And of course, uh, uh, John Deere's got some really interesting, I went through their plant and, uh, in Germany. But, um, no, it's, um, technology's gonna make life a lot better. So may may be simpler and it may be more complicated, depends on how you use it, but it's certainly, there's a lot of the neat things coming down the road.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
Definitely. I got two more questions. Um, what's been in, in all of your years, you know, 50 plus years, uh, you know, whether that be advocating for agri in ag or whatever, what's the most enjoyable part of what you've done? Uh, it seems like you've lived an incredible life thus far and, and absolutely loved it. And again, a lot of things goes back to your wife and your family. Uh, I understand that my, my wife puts up with a lot, my kids put up with a lot. But, um, what's the most enjoyable part for you? Or why, why have you done it all these years? I guess?

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Well, again, it's, I feel an obligation to give back to the industry that gives to me. But I guess maybe the most satisfying thing is that a lot of the things that I've been involved in, and I'm not a politician, but I was either appointed to him or elected him. I think just the fact that people have that mistrust in me to represent them. And that's the thing that I look at. You know, there's a lot of politicians that have a lot of different, uh, notoriety for a lot of different reasons. Some positive, some negative. But you know, you have to, in my position, you kind of have to overlook some of that stuff. There's things they can do in their own private life that maybe we wouldn't agree with. But the thing I have to look at is the, their policies. How does that affect me as an individual and how does it affect the people that I represent?

Speaker 2 (41:06):
And so sometimes that's a decision that I have to county make. But again, back to that, you can always come down to the, I can always come down to make that choice based upon, again, as I mentioned, how does it affect me, but more importantly, how does it affect the people that I represent? And, uh, but then that comes back to the fact that they've chosen me to represent them, I guess is really a heartwarming thing for me, uh, knowing that they put that kind of trust. But, you know, somebody's gotta do it. Again, I go back to my wife and I couldn't do it without the support from her. Again, if you wanna be successful in the endeavor, you pick your spouses very, very carefully. And the great thing, you know, just our location here is that for my girls, and there's no better place on earth to raise a family than on a farm or ranch.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
It's because of everything else that the kids learn. You know, they learn everything from life and death, the responsibility of getting up and feeding, taking care of animals, seeing animals being born, seeing animals being put down, you know. And so they have life experiences that generally the, um, the, uh, our urbanites don't, don't have. And so we're very fortunate now we're very fortunate to live as close to Tulsa as we are. We're only 14 miles from Tulsa, and yet we have a 2000 acre, we're kind of secluded this way, but which gives us that lifestyle that, again, can't be duplicated in town. But then we're close enough to Tulsa that sooner or later, um, we get an opportunity to enjoy the things all the world has to offer. 'cause they'll come through here. My grandmother or my granddaughter just last week took her to the Lany Wilson concert. So yeah, everything comes through here now. Uh, I didn't, we didn't get to go to the Taylor Swift concert, but we did go to their, her movie. So, uh, Kenley gets to see a lot of things, but again, she's growing up here. My daughters grew up here, all three of 'em. And so the benefits of, there's

Speaker 1 (43:04):
Not much better

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Culture plus what they get. So they get a, they get a good rounded education in a lot of things, but they have those experiences in life that the other kids probably don't get to have.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
I guess with you being this close to Tulsa, um, do you get people that come out of urban areas? Um, part of the reason for doing this show, honestly, is I think there's so much misconception about farmers and ranchers and producers, and, uh, do you get people that come from Tulsa that maybe don't have a clue about anything farmer related, and it gives them a chance to come out here and see what you do and talk to you. You're o obviously an incredible, uh, advocate for ag. How humbling is that to know that they can come out here and learn from you? And maybe just maybe somebody that thought, you know, farmers and ranchers are bad people or they're doing the wrong things. They get to come and talk to you and realize, you know, they're, they're just people that wanna raise a crop. They just wanna raise, you know, food for, for America. How, how humbling is that for you? Well,

Speaker 2 (44:00):
It is, and of course my wife works with the US State Department, so we have individuals coming from all over the world come here and we're, they come in here to Tulsa and of course we're really close to Tulsa and we're having agriculture. They also, they wanna see some of Oklahoma agriculture. And so, uh, mostly gets to host them. And that's really, that's kind of neat too. Of course. I mean, we have individuals that have never really even touched a horse, but to get an opportunity for them to get on a horse and put on a cowboy hat, now they may be dignitaries. We've had kings from out Africa land a helicopter from the airstrip bringing him in here to, to go over the ranch and everything. So we've had an experience with a lot of different people. But it is, I guess, one of the most heartwarming things though.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
And we've been fortunate because of the, my in-laws kind of had that same philosophy to share the ranch with whoever we can. But I guess through the years when now I run into kids that grew up with my kids or they were in Boy Scouts or whatever and, you know, 20, 30 years later, 40 years and say, and they'll find out where I'm in that come up to me and introduce himself and tell me, you know, we had some of the greatest times that we can remember. It all came from being at the Flying G Ranch. And so, yeah, I feel an obligation again because it's an industry that's given to me and my family. And, um, so I feel an obligation to give back and I'm just thankful that, that I have the gift of gab is, you know, if I can't pressure the intelligence, I'll baff you, you with bs. So it's up to you to figure out which is what,

Speaker 1 (45:39):
Hey, that's, that's the, the perfect way. And the last thing I do want to say, being around the industry this long, uh, we have a lot of young farmers and ranchers Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, and producers that watch this. Um, this is a good way to end, I think. What's, what's your advice to somebody that's maybe 16 to 20 to early twenties that's thinking about going back to the farm and thinking about a life and, and decades in agriculture like you have, what, what would be your advice?

Speaker 2 (46:05):
You know, the opportunity is what you have to, and that's something I tell young people too. You know, opportunities, some opportunities only come by once in a lifetime. And sometimes you can make an opportunity happen, but sometimes you just stumble into it. If it's something that you're really interested in, you need to really take a hard look at it and decide whether maybe that's something you wanna do or not, because that opportunity may never come around again. I was fortunate. Opportunity came by to me, this little gal came in that apartment carrying a box with a latex injected cadaver cat. That was an opportunity.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
And you took it

Speaker 2 (46:42):
And I took it. And it's the same for them now. It's very difficult, as we all know, to get started in. Now how do I get into it? I'm married into it. There's another way to get in easy that's inherited. There's another way to get in to just start from scratch. But that's very difficult. Now, there's a lot of ways to get involved in agriculture without being in directly in, in agriculture production because there's a lot of industry ag related things that you can get into. And so it, you know, just everyone that wants to be a farmer, they don't have that opportunity. But there can be a way you can be involved in agriculture, get those degrees and horticulture and, and, uh, marketing and ag communications, whatever. There's a lot of industry out there, a lot of opportunity to get involved in agriculture without having to actually get your hands in the dirt.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
But there's no better, no better feeling, no better mission on Earth is producing food and fiber for a hungry world. And there's a lot of opportunity at end because, you know, China's trying to buy up all the farm ground all across the world and what they're trying to do. And of course we as Americans, we export a lot of our food to those countries, but there's gonna be more demand on us if China is successful in getting all the high productive, uh, production ground in those countries. So when they get it and they start producing, what are they doing with it? Well, they're shipping that food that they took out of production for that country, shipping it back to China. Well that means it's gonna be more demand on us to help feed a hungry world because they've just lost that part of their food production in that part of the country.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
They just lost it to China. So, you know, we've got some issues here. Um, you know, we're trying very, you know, we hate to see foreign countries come in buying our ag land. I think that's something we certainly as Americans need to protect, not let that happen. We saw why this happen with grow houses and, uh, Oklahoma came up and, and allowed American marijuana. And in the state of Oklahoma I serve as a trustee for rural electric. We had over 200 grow houses on our lines, 200 grow houses Wow. On our lines. And now we're down to about a little over a hundred. 'cause some of the smaller ones went out, but what happened, the bigger ones bought it. And so, you know, is that a form of horticulture? Well, they grow plants, but um, but there's things there that it's not something produces food or fiber. And so those are the things I think that's important But back to your original question was that there are a lot of things that young people get involved in agriculture that doesn't necessarily have to be the production agriculture. And I would, those doors are, there's many of those doors open and I'd certainly back to, if you have an opportunity, take it

Speaker 1 (49:32):
Perfect way to end. Well, I wanna say thank you so much. Uh, I look forward to, uh, a long friendship and, and seeing you every time I come through. Um, I wanna thank everybody that watched this, uh, that's watched the previous ones that will watch the future ones. Uh, the biggest thing you can do to support, uh, make sure to go to their website, you can buy all of their stuff online, is the Flying G Ranch. Look 'em up. It's easy to find. Uh, if you happen to be through Oklahoma, uh, stop by. This is a beautiful place. Um, if you wanna support us, uh, like, subscribe, share it with your friends, sign up for the newsletter. We appreciate you watching, and we'll catch you next time.