Gene Simeon Walker, Sr.

Gene Simeon Walker, Sr.
File:Texas rancher Gene S. Walker, Sr.jpgTexas_rancher_Gene_S._Walker,_Sr.jpg Texas_rancher_Gene_S._Walker,_Sr.jpg
Born	(1926-03-15)March 15, 1926 Laredo, Webb County Texas, USA
💀Died	January 19, 2015(2015-01-19) (aged 88) Vaquillas Ranch at Aguilares in Webb CountyJanuary 19, 2015(2015-01-19) (aged 88)
Resting place	Vaquillas Ranch
🏡 Residence	Vaquillas Ranch
💼 Occupation	Rancher Landowner Businessman
👩 Spouse(s)	(1) Mary Katherine Haynes Walker (deceased) (2) Susan Baker Walker (surviving widow)
👶 Children	Gene "Primo" Walker, Jr. James Patrick "Rick" Walker Elizabeth W. Scott May Kathleen "Kandy" Walker
👴 👵 Parent(s)	James Oliver and May Haley Walker
👪 Relatives	Tano Tijerina (great-nephew by marriage)

Gene Simeon Walker, Sr. (March 15, 1926 – January 19, 2015), was a rancher, landowner, and businessman from his native Laredo, Texas. The Walkers have operated ranches for more than a century in South and West Texas and Mexico. The family has also branched into petroleum, natural gas, real estate, banking, and retail concerns.

Ranching was more than a business for Gene Walker – it was a way of life for a man whose highest values were service to God and family and compassion for God's creatures. - from the Walker obituary

Background

Walker family patriarch James Oliver "J. O." Walker, Sr. (1888-1967), arrived in South Texas in the early 20th century from Grant Parish in North Louisiana. He had contracted malaria as a young man when he planned to enroll at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. His physician urged him to move to drier country. Walker first came to San Antonio, and in 1910, he followed a brother-in-law to Laredo, motivated by the movement of the railroad into the region. After a series of odd jobs, he became a foreman on a vegetable farm. He managed to purchase a hundred acres of farmland, where he and his wife, the former May Haley (1890-1975), raised their three children. That first 100-acre farm is where J. O. and May Walker began rearing their three children, Mary Elizabeth, J. O., Jr., and Gene.Later with a loan from the Federal Land Bank, J. O. Walker, Sr., purchased seven thousand acres which launched the family ranching empire. At the time ranching was paramount to the South Texas economy; it remains important to the history and heritage of the region even with the rise of other businesses and industries.

Gene Walker attended public schools and graduated from Martin High School in Laredo, Schreiner Institute in Kerrville, Texas, and Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

Career

Walker attributed his success to the realization that business conditions, no matter the field, constantly change: "A lot of my contemporaries who didn't change as things dictated they should didn't last very long. You ... have to be flexible and modernize and change."Walker said that land in South Texas had become too expensive for ranching pursuits because of wildlife and oil and gas production. Walker therefore purchased ranches in 1995 in West Texas and in 2000 in Chihuahua, Mexico.Total Walker ranch holdings exceeded 250,000 acres as of November 2000. In the dry lands of South and West Texas, thirty acres are needed to sustain one animal; in a humid region, one acre would be sufficient. The Walkers raise Hereford, Beefmaster, and Black Angus breeds.

Walker expanded the practice that his father began in the 1930s: leasing land to hunters, a lucrative venture that often netted more profit than raising the cattle. The senior Walker was one of the first ranchers in South Texas to lease land for hunting. It often allowed the ranch to survive repeated drought. In normal years, this part of South Texas receives eighteen inches of rainfall per year. Walker was always mindful of the need of moisture to sustain life on the ranch. The cattle had to eat prickly pear cactus to survive.

As a young man, Walker often participated in traditional cattle drives to the railheads. "We would leave horseback from headquarters before daylight and carry maybe a piece of dried beef and a piece of cornbread in our pocket, and that was it for the whole day," he recalled. The railroad has been superseded for such purposes by the 18-wheelers. Walker also used a helicopter to gather cattle from the brush. The copter greatly reduces the need for saddle horses. He had his own airplane, piloted by his younger son, by which he could reach in just over two hours the two West Texas ranches in Jeff Davis, Presidio, and Culberson counties.

In 1988 and 2003, Walker was named "Rancher of the Year" by separate organizations. In 1999, he was chosen as a Junior Achievement laureate, along with his brother and ranch partner, J. O. Walker, Jr. (1915-2001); sister, Mary Elizabeth "Bess" Walker Quiros (1914-2005), an art teacher at J. W. Nixon High School in the Laredo Independent School District, and brother-in-law, Lieutenant Colonel Evan Belisario Quiros (1918-2009), a decorated World War II veteran and expert marksman who handled the Walker accounting and oil and gas leasing operations. In 2002, Gene Walker, an Anglo, was honored by the League of United Latin American Citizens as a "Tejano Achiever."

In 2014, some six months before his death, the Laredo Chamber of Commerce honored Walker as the "Laredo Business Person of the Year" in a ceremony at the Laredo Country Club. Local banker Jose O. Zuniga praised Walker for his stewardship of the land and continuing efforts at business expansion: "The contributions of the J. O. Walker family to Laredo during the past 100-year span have been immense and demonstrate their commitment to our city."

For some two decades, Walker was an elected member of the Webb Consolidated Independent School District, having been the board president for a number of those years.He was a member of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, based in Fort Worth, Texas.

Legacy

Not too long before his death, Walker self-published with the help of his wife and a trusted employee, Tony Rodriguez, Glimpses of Life on a South Texas Ranch, which offers in 120 pages advice, anecdotes, maxims, and natural remedies. In his introduction, Walker writes:

For a number of years, people have asked how it is that I know how to use many of the plants that grow in this arid part of South Texas. From a small boy, I have always been interested in knowing abut the different kinds of brush I've come in contact with; so I've learned quite a bit over the past 75-80 years!

What I have learned was taught to me by old Mexican cowboys who had no medical (doctors) help when they became ill. Growing up when I did, in the ranching business myself, I acquired a great deal of knowledge by necessity.

I have been asked over and over to write down some of what I have learned so it will not be lost when I am gone or when I can't remember much anymore. I have always been too busy and on the go to sit down and undertake this project. ... This small field guide is a positive outcome of the very severe health challenges I have faced in 2010. ...

My hope is that this little book will help you appreciate the beauty and worth of all that is around us and that it will spark your interest in exploring the land and discovering these and more of God's bountiful creation for yourselves....

Walker lived on his 2,000-acre Vaquillas Ranch ("Little Heifers") at Aguilares in eastern Webb County. He and his first wife, the former Mary Katherine Haynes, had four children, Gene "Primo" Walker, Jr., and wife, Carllyn, James Patrick "Rick" Walker, Elizabeth W. Scott and husband, Joey, and May Kathleen "Kandy" Walker.

After the death of Mary Katherine, he married the former Susan Baker, the retired director of the Dr. F. M. Canseco School of Nursing at Texas A&M International University in Laredo. From this union, he acquired two step-children, Travis G. Baker and wife Holly of Orono, Maine, and Erin B. Albanese and husband, John, of Sammamish, Washington. He had nine grandchildren and three step-grandchildren.

His great-niece, Kimberly Walker Tijerina of Laredo said of Walker: "He took my children under his wings with the family legacy of how to work with cattle and taught them how not to expect anything from nothing. More importantly, he taught them to have a relationship with God."Tijerina's husband, Tano Tijerina, the county judge of Webb County, recalled: "He meant the world to me and taught me his trade. Even though I wasn't a blood relative, he always treated me like one. ... He was a pure gentleman."Jim Walker, also a local "Rancher of the Year" and the father of Kimberly Tijerina, said of his uncle: "He worked hard all his life and instilled that same work ethic into the whole family. It was imperative that you worked, or you weren't going to be able to eat."

The Walker Plaza in Laredo

Walker died at Vaquillas Ranch at the age of eighty-eight from complications resulting from a fall several weeks earlier. After services at the First Baptist Church of Laredo, of which he was a long-term member, Walker was interred the following day at his ranch.

The Walker Plaza in Laredo, a multi-story office complex at the intersection of Interstate 35 and Mann Road is named for the Walker family.Gene Walker Lake, a reservoir near Mirando City in Webb County is named in Walker's honor.

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References

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