Letting go is the secret to survival for this Texas ranch

Sometimes, letting go is the best way to hold on to what you love.

On the R.A. Brown Ranch at Throckmorton, Texas, six generations of the Brown family, going on seven, have been able to “keep the ranch in the family and the family on the ranch,” in part by letting go.

Donnell Brown, 54, and his three siblings followed the stipulations of their parents, Rob and Peggy Brown, to leave the ranch for at least two years before deciding about returning. To come back, they had to either work as an employee on the ranch or propose a business plan to expand the family business.

All four returned, working together in the ranch’s core enterprises — seed stock, commercial cow-calf, stocker cattle, horses, and farming. Rob and Peggy were proactive in estate planning, giving a small but equal percentage of the ranch to each of their four children every year for 30 years with minimal tax consequences. In 2012, the elder Browns decided to pass the leadership of the ranch on to their children. The ranch was divided into four equal parts in 2013, but the ranch was in severe drought with 70% of the ranch without water, so the family decided to disperse the entire cow herd.

Donnell (the youngest) and his wife, Kelli, had managed and grown the seed stock business and the annual bull sales for 15 years. His siblings asked if they would manage the dispersal in exchange for embryos they wanted from the top cows before the sale, giving them the opportunity to continue the R.A. Brown Ranch brand and legacy on their portion of the ranch.

“Our family has always gotten along well,” Donnell says, “and we get along better now than ever.” All four siblings still own their quarters of the original R.A. Brown Ranch and manage them as part of their ranching operations.

Donnell and Kelli continued the family tradition, requiring sons Tucker, 30, and Lanham, 27, to take their turns away from the ranch after high school.

Both returned to follow their passions after college. Tucker fills several roles on the cattle side of the ranch, including helping with customer service, cattle management, and marketing. His skills as a social media influencer (@tuckerbrownrab on Instagram and TikTok) garner millions of video views a month and earned him the title of 2022 Advocate of the Year from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

Lanham came back to put his animal science degree to work, breeding the ranch’s performance American Quarter Horse mares and training horses for the ranch that have earned several top horse awards in ranch rodeos. He also trains versatility and reining cow horses and shows them successfully around the nation.

Memorable Years on the Ranch

Donnell Brown says 2013 was his favorite year, when "we were battling severe drought; 70% of the ranch was without water; we had the dispersal; and we divided the ranch per Mom and Dad’s desire.”

His son, Tucker Brown, recalls the summer of 2011. With no rain for 100 days, the ranch was shipping cattle to Colorado and Montana to graze leased pastures. In 100°F heat, the high school junior’s job was laying rebar and pouring concrete to build a new silage pit for the ranch. 

“It’s the hard times I remember the most — years that made our family even closer together,” he says.

For Lanham Brown, it was the wet winter of 2018-2019, “when we were without a foreman for a little while, so my brother was acting foreman. I was having to take care of all the cows, and it was a trying time around here.” (On second thought, he says he might need to say his most memorable year was 2021, when he married his wife, Josey.)