Cowboys and The Old Wild West: Interning at one of the oldest ranches in the U.S.

It’s 5:30 in the morning, the sun isn’t up and there’s snow on the ground. The smell of warm coffee and bacon beckons you forward towards the warm lights of the cookhouse, snow is crunching under your feet and horses are neighing in the background. This is life in rural Texas, working on a ranch that is almost older than the nation itself. This wasn’t what I pictured when I applied for a communications internship at Burnett Ranches, where I thought I would be sitting in cubicle for 3 months in downtown Dallas. The organization believes in a boots-on-the-ground approach however, so I’ve found myself working on location at their flagship ranch in a county that has more livestock animals than people. When I enter the clinic however, it’s all business, I have a desk where I communicate with clients, work on market research, and try a figure out just how much Covid-19 is going to disrupt the beef market. By 10 am I have been working for four hours, I’ve Skyped with my corporate marketing liaison twice, once to go over promotional images I submitted the day before and a second time to hand in an Excel spreadsheet detailing how trends in the commodity market could impact the price of cattle over the next month. By the time we’re off for our lunch hour, I’ve designed templates for three new pages for the website and set up roughly 15 breeding contracts with new clients. After lunch I’ll go over research ideas with my supervisor for my own research project and then I’ll be spending the afternoon and early evening drafting interview questions for an upcoming issue in Western Horseman. By the time 6 pm rolls around, I’ve been working tirelessly for 12 hours, having done a variety of activities that I only ever dreamed about when applying for this internship in the fall of last year. The day doesn’t end there however, life on the ranch revolves around its animals and everyone is fair game when it comes to work that needs to be done. On this particular day, three mares decided to have complicated births – meaning I spent three hours trying and eventually succeeding in coaxing a foal to nurse. It’s 10 pm before I make it back to the bunkhouse, my mind whirling with the new research techniques I’ve learned, ideas for upcoming advertisements and still trying to crunch the numbers from the spreadsheet this morning and thinking about the foal that just came into this world. I fall asleep partially dreading my alarm going off at 5 am and also partially being beyond excited to see what the next day will hold for me. This is what it’s like interning on a huge and historic ranch, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. My friends and family are constantly asking “aren’t you exhausted?” I spend all day honing my communication and research skills, and then helping out with ranch work – so yes, the answer is I am exhausted. But.. I know that this experience only comes along once in a lifetime, and I will never forget what it has been like to intern at Burnett Ranches.