[Jim Williams] There's an
old Spanish saying "mis raices están aqui" — my roots are buried here. If you're a rancher you have that
longing for that land you think of the people that have come
before you that have worked to keep this ranch going.
In the ranching business, you have good times and bad times.
In 1983 when cattle market crashed we had 8500 cows on partnership
with my dad, and you know one month they were worth a fortune
and in about 45 days they went from having an extremely high value to
nothing. It took my dad 18 years to pay that note
off. The ranching life is a difficult life.
It's a wonderful life. It's something about going out there and
seeing those baby calves being born or have a customer who you helped get
started and they reach success. You know there's a lot of good things
about it. I think you just have to have perseverance.
You have to have a strong belief in God that he still runs the show.
Sometimes he closes the door, but he always cracks a window
where you can have that opportunity. [Catherine Neumayr] When I think about the future of the ranch, there's no doubt that we're going to go through hard times, but
when those hard times come for my generation we're going to draw on
the legacy of those that came before us and see
that they navigated those hard times together and they got
through it and I believe that that's what we'll
continue to do as a family. [Jim] People will ask "how long have you all been in the cattle business?" I would be the sixth generation and then
my daughters would be the seventh and then my grandchildren would be the eighth. V8 in 2020 has changed a lot.
My dad and mom have both gotten older, not here at this particular time on the
ranch. My dad he's 87 years old and
my mother, she's 83. My dad loves commercial cattle. We run
about 2000 commercial cows/crossbred cows. Then we have about 300 registered V8 cows between our family, and then we have about
500 recipient cows. [Catherine] Over the years at V8 Ranch people have seen my grandfather Sloan Williams or my dad Jim Williams
as kind of the front men for V8 Ranch and both of them have traveled
all over the country, all over the world representing V8 Ranch and the Brahman
breed. What people don't realize about both my grandfather and my dad is that
they are the same people that are up every day tagging the calves,
when the cows get out it's their phone that rings,
when it's time to work the chute and brand they're the guys there that have
been placing the V8 on the cattle. They aren't just the front men, they're
the ones that are actually out with the cattle every day. My dad makes every mating decision on the ranch and has done that
for decades. Over the lifetime of our herd
it's just astounding to me that every one of these cows that roams our
place today is one that back in the time whenever
that mating decision was made, he was the one who made it and
so I can see his handiwork throughout this
herd. I feel pride knowing that my dad's
mating decisions have made this herd what it is. [Jim] I hope future generations, the kids trace back to me they'll say my
granddaddy always bred to those good cows. I hope they'll always remember that.
