The West Texas Boys Ranch is a great organization that is providing much needed guidance and life skills to the great young boys an young men that live on the ranch. The teachings that they are learning today are priceless. Without an organization like this providing what these boys need they would not have a good start for their adult life.
West Texas Boys Ranch (WTBR[1]) is a Christian private residential community for boys located in Tankersley,[2]unincorporatedTom Green County, Texas, near San Angelo.[3] The 963-acre (390 ha) facility is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, and it is open to any qualified boy, regardless of his or his family's ability to pay the tuition. The ranch uses donations to fund its services. The ranch can accommodate up to 40 boys, who come from across the United States. The ranch does not take custody of its boys, and it is not a boot camp, detention center, drug rehabilitation center, or a 'last resort' for hardcore juvenile offenders.[1]
History[edit]
The ranch has provided a community for boys since 1947.[4] In 2003 a FedExCessna Caravan crashed on a plot of land belonging to the ranch.[5]
Operations[edit]
The facility consists of several residential cottages, each with eight boys. Each boy is assigned to a particular cottage, which is overseen by a husband and wife team. If a team has children, those children are also a part of the cottage household. Every boy participates in chores, such as cleaning his room, cleaning his shared bathroom, and cleaning his laundry. Several chores, such as mopping the kitchen, vacuuming the living room, and helping prepare meals, are rotated among the boys.[6] Each boy has a rank, depending on his behavior. The lowest rank with the fewest privileges is the Tumbleweed, while the highest rank, Tophand, has the most privileges. Each boy can see his progress on a chart so he knows what he needs to do to attain a certain rank. Each resident works with livestock, such as Longhorn cattle, horses, and Boer goats.[7] During the summer boys work in ranching jobs.[8]
Composition[edit]
The cottages are Brown Cottage,[9] Doss Cottage,[10] Minear Cottage,[11] and Stevens Cottage.[12] Minear, named after Roy and Evelyn Minear, was built in 1983.[11] Brown, funded by a donation from Wilbur Carr Brown of San Angelo, Texas, was built in 1984.[9] Doss, funded by a donation from the M.S. Doss Foundation in Seminole, Texas, was built in 1985.[10] Stevens, funded by a donation from Perry and Ruby Stevens of Fredericksburg, Texas, was built in 1985.[12]
Education[edit]
Every boy in the home is enrolled in the Irion County Independent School District in Mertzon. If a boy has an issue at school, the Irion County ISD staff will notify the West Texas Boys Ranch staff.[6]Irion County High School is the high school of the district.
References[edit]
^ abCantu, Lorie Woodward. 'West Texas Boys Ranch.' The Cattleman. February 2006. 1. Retrieved on August 25, 2010.
^TANKERSLEY, TEXAS from the Handbook of Texas Online - Retrieved on August 25, 2010
^'banner04.png[permanent dead link].' West Texas Boys Ranch. Retrieved on August 25, 2010. '10223 Boys Ranch Road, San Angelo, TX'
^'Boys Ranch Haven provides a temporary home and a future.' The Dallas Morning News. July 30, 2001. Retrieved on August 25, 2010. 'Since 1947 the West Texas Boys Ranch has provided a haven for boys with troubles but it may be one of the leastknown resources around perhaps because it is...'
^'Small FedEx plane crashes in West Texas.' Associated Press at News 8. January 24, 2003. Retrieved on August 25, 2010. 'turboprop Cessna Caravan crashed near San Angelo Regional Airport's Mathis Field during takeoff on land belonging to the West Texas Boys Ranch...'
^ abCantu, Lorie Woodward. 'West Texas Boys Ranch.' The Cattleman. February 2006. 2. Retrieved on August 25, 2010.
^Cantu, Lorie Woodward. 'West Texas Boys Ranch.' The Cattleman. February 2006. 3. Retrieved on August 25, 2010.
^Cantu, Lorie Woodward. 'West Texas Boys Ranch.' The Cattleman. February 2006. 4. Retrieved on August 25, 2010.
^ ab'Brown CottageArchived 2013-04-16 at Archive.today.' West Texas Boys Ranch. Retrieved on August 25, 2010.
^ ab'Doss CottageArchived 2012-10-28 at the Wayback Machine.' West Texas Boys Ranch. Retrieved on August 25, 2010.
^ ab'Minear CottageArchived 2013-04-16 at Archive.today.' West Texas Boys Ranch. Retrieved on August 25, 2010.
^ ab'Stevens CottageArchived 2013-04-16 at Archive.today.' West Texas Boys Ranch. Retrieved on August 25, 2010.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=West_Texas_Boys_Ranch&oldid=897151885'
Steve Smith was just eight when his mother left him in the care of Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch, a Texas institution for at-risk children. From the moment he got there in 1959, the place didn’t sit right with him.
“I cried probably more than any boy that I know that came out [of] there, just homesick, and I didn’t take it very well.”
Almost immediately upon his arrival, Steve was subject to the first of many beatings. For the following decade, he endured regular and arbitrary violence at the hands of staff. He also had to watch helplessly as his younger brother, Rick, was beaten by adults until he couldn’t stand.
Why don't we care about the biggest sex abuse scandal in sports history? | Bryan Armen Graham
Read more
Along with the physical punishment, Steve’s pets were killed, and his friends were worked to the bone in atrocious conditions. Some boys, including Rick Smith, were also sexually abused while under the care of the ranch.
The ordeal has permanently damaged their lives.
At the kitchen table in his immaculate home in the Amarillo suburbs, Steve, now almost 70, goes through all of the details of what happened to him without showing much pain. He’s a tough man – he served in the Vietnam war and was wounded in the line of duty – and his piercing blue eyes only sprout tears twice.
The first time is when he describes how a succession of dogs he owned, all called Boots, were killed by staff members. The other is when he talks about what happened to his younger brother Rick, and how powerless he was to help him.
Rick, Steve, and six other men the Guardian spoke to named staff members responsible for the abuse, which lasted from the 1950s until at least the early 1990s. They say the abuse went beyond them, and was systemic, affecting hundreds of others who went through the ranch.
They say Lamont Waldrip, a long-serving superintendent, was one of the worst abusers. Last month, at the behest of a wealthy donor who wrote a cheque for $1m to build a new dormitory, the ranch named the new building Waldrip House.
The ranch’s current CEO, Dan Adams, acknowledged the weight of the accusations against Waldrip, who died in 2013, but he said that other boys had had “very different experiences” with him and “admired and liked” him.
For the survivors who want to make the ranch accountable for the abuse – and have been encouraged to break their silence after Steve Smith brought them together in a Facebook group – this is an unbearable affront.
A very wealthy ranch – and a revolt
Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch is accustomed to the generosity of well-heeled donors, but is less used to having its reputation called into question. Almost since its foundation, the “Christ-centered” but nondenominational institution has been a byword in Texas for juvenile reform and a can-do spirit. There is no suggestion that there is abuse at Cal Farley’s now – indeed, there is broad acknowledgment, even from advocates for the men, that current practices at the ranch are in line with the best in the sector.
With 100 direct employees and 526 across its subsidiaries, it is no small fish, and notable individuals from the ranching and oil industries queue up to serve on its board. Cheques like the one that funded Waldrip House are not unusual: the most recent publicly available tax filings show an annual income for the ranch just north of $56.8m. About $43m of that came from contributions and grants. The ranch also owns parcels of land as far away as California.
The ranch’s founder, Cal Farley, was a professional wrestler and Amarillo businessman. He had been a prominent college athlete before he moved to Amarillo, where he gained prominence as the owner of a tire shop. Throughout the 1930s, he ran a sporting club, The Mavericks, which tried to channel the energies of troubled and abandoned boys in the panhandle. Eventually he was gifted land in Tascosa, a ghost town, by a local rancher, so he could set up a more permanent home for the boys.
But for all their organizational success, Farley and his staff had no special training to deal with wayward children. In 1950, the superintendent was overpowered and thrown in the river by a group of boys who staged an effective revolt, and for a brief moment they were running things to suit themselves.
My brother didn’t even have clothes on, just his underwear. He was screaming and begging and I couldn’t do anything