D
ALE AND MARY BARBER BELIEVE IN THAT OLD CLICHÉ, “dance with the one who brung ya.” For the Barber family, it’s Hereford cattle that brought
them to the dance and it’s Hereford cattle to which they remain forever loyal. It’s not just about loyalty though. There is a true
passion for the breed itself and for the reputation cattle herd they have worked a lifetime to build. At Barber Ranch it’s a family affair, always has been. The passion and love of cattle, Hereford cattle, is just as strong in all 4 of their children and grandchildren. Located in Hartley County, right on the edge of the
Canadian River breaks, the ranch dates to 1904 when Mary’s grandfather, James Benjamin Brown, came west from Kentucky. “I’ve wondered lots of times why they didn’t just
go south of the Canadian River because when you get south you get more rain,” says Mary. “The weather is not so cranky, not quite so windy.” Back in Kentucky, the Browns were cattle people –
stock farmers really. “I think my grandfather just got tired of plowing
around those tree stumps,” she quips. “He wanted wide open country and he found plenty of that here. Out here you can watch the sun come up and go down.” On the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway, Chan- ning was the hub from which the XIT Ranch operations
were run. When the ranch was liquidated and the land was sold, William Powell, originally from England, bought some of the land and became the fi rst to breed Hereford cattle in the Texas Panhandle. Mary suspects that some of their early genetics originated from the Powell bloodlines. Mary’s mother was born on the ranch and up through
junior high attended a 1-room schoolhouse nearby. When she entered high school, the family moved to town and in addition to their cattle operation, Mary’s grandparents ran the general store. Long after it closed, the old mercantile was cut down the middle with a handsaw so that it could be moved to the ranch. Mary’s grandfather always bought registered bulls,
but he never kept up the registration papers. “He was strictly interested in raising good calves.” In 1950, Mary’s parents took over and they switched
from a commercial Hereford operation to a registered operation. Hereford cattle were quite popular back then. “There
were the XIT Hereford breeders at Dalhart. Pampa had the Top of Texas Hereford breeders and Amarillo had the Panhandle Hereford breeders,” Mary recalls. “My folks were friends with a lot of these people.” Dale, who grew up in central Texas, at Cherokee,
near San Saba, was raised on a commercial Hereford operation. The family also ran sheep, goats and horses. From about third grade on, Dale worked for Howard Derrick, who was a big operator of sheep and goats. As a kid, he stayed horseback a good part of the time
looking for wormies (screwworms). “If you missed a wormie in your rotation, a rotation being 3 or 4 days before you’d get back to that pasture, they’d be eaten up with worms,” Dale says. “It was a vicious cycle.” About the time he went off to college in 1961, they’d
begun the program to eradicate the screwworm. “I remember being horseback and the airplanes fl ying over dropping the boxes of sterile fl ies.” Dale started his college career at Texas A&M in
Terri Barber, right, is a sought-after beef cattle judge at live- stock shows around the country.
98 The Cattleman August 2016
mechanical engineering, but only lasted a year as he realized he wasn’t interested in spending his life in an offi ce job. Instead, he applied to and was accepted into the vet school. He graduated in 1967. He had hopes of going into private practice back home in San Saba, but the Vietnam War was ongoing and he and most all of his classmates had commissions to go into the Service. He was stationed at Cannon Air Force base in Clovis, N.M. He spent quite a bit of time in Lubbock and in 1968, he says, his life changed. That was the year he met
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