Helen Kleberg Groves, the second female Cowman award recipient, spent her life on ranches. Ms. Groves grew up on the most famous of all Texas ranches – the King Ranch – and she’s seen many ranching-related changes take place since she was little.
“I’ve seen a very lot of changes and, of course, they’re still going on,” Ms. Groves said. “When they started drilling for oil it was something Daddy hoped was never going to happen in his lifetime on King Ranch. He said, “Ranching as we have known it will be over. Everything’s going to change.'”
“Well, you don’t think so. You think, ‘Oh gosh. That’s just the older people talking like that.’ Right? But it did.”
Ranching as her father knew it did change. But there’s still so much to be thankful for about the lifestyle he loved – and he helped to instill the love of that lifestyle in his daughter. Today Ms. Groves lives on her Silverbrook Ranch, a ranch former Proctor award recipient Buster Welch calls “the best ranch in Texas,” in Callahan and Coleman Counties.
“This is not only an honor, but a great responsibility,” said Ms. Groves as she accepted her award. “The first person that I would like to thank for being here would never even dream of it, and that’s George W. Bush. I don’t know how many horses he’s ridden, but it didn’t take him a heck of a long time to realize that owning a piece of land in Texas, a ranch, was, if you could do it, something to aspire to and a responsibility to take on.”
