Moving hundreds of miles to a new home is always a challenge. That challenge gets big when you’re talking about moving a farm operation — lock, stock and barrel. That is especially true when the stock includes dozens of longhorn cattle and award-winning horses. When two of Lamar University’s newest professors moved from central Oklahoma to their Sour Lake farm, it meant moving not only their household effects, but a lifestyle as well. Sheldon and Patti Buxton raise registered Texas longhorn and Beefmaster cattle as well as Clydesdales and champion quarter horses.
Over the period of several weeks, the couple has been moving stock from their ranch near Union City, Okla., to the place they bought in July.
The move has stretched out over many weeks because one of the couple’s
trailers was compressed by a semi — fortunately it was empty at the time — and both truck and trailer were totaled. Now that they’re down to one truck and trailer, some of the couple’s livestock still wait for their ride across the Red River.
Sheldon taught 15 years at the University of Central Oklahoma, in Edmond, Okla., as chair of the advanced professional services department that included guidance counseling, school leadership and library and media technology. He taught school leadership after serving as a school superintendent for six years. At Lamar, he is visiting professor of educational leadership. “The program interested me because it is a comprehensive program,” Sheldon said, referring to Lamar’s new doctoral program, now in its second year.
Patti Buxton taught at Central Oklahoma for eight years and served as coordinator of its guidance and counseling program, then served two years as a dean of social sciences at Oklahoma City Community College. This summer, she taught three courses at Lamar in the College of Education and Human Development where she now serves as associate professor of educational leadership.
“Lamar has a reputation as a top-quality university,” Patti said. “The people here have been very friendly,” she said. “They have shown true southern hospitality.”
Now with about 30 cows, numerous calves, and a few bulls too many, Sheldon sees “Longhorn cattle as a heritage” that is much a part of the history of Southeast Texas and the Big Thicket where the original herds began.
The couple’s Clydesdales, Preacher and Major, will soon make the trip to Sour Lake and, after opportunity to adjust to the Southeast Texas climate, will resume their duties in carriage work that has seen them around the Oklahoma City area pulling the Buxton’s two Amish-built vis-àvis carriages to offer old-world charm to weddings and special events. Their stable mate, Deacon, now lives with a new owner in Virginia.
A veteran of the show arena, Sheldon has presented two top champions. He raises cowbred, or cutting horses, with a few mares on hand, including 16- year old Sneakers whose progeny has earned considerable money, including honors as 1994 American Quarter Horse Association National Champion Mare. That was Sheldon’s second top-winner. In 1984, one of his horses won World Reserve Paint.
“Sneakers has won a lot of money and has been the financier of a lot of the
other horses,” Sheldon said. “She will live with us in comfort until she departs.
“It seems my luck comes about every 10 years,” Sheldon said. “I think
I’ve got a colt now that might be another champion.”
That colt, Ike, was feisty from the get-go. “He’s wired 220,” Sheldon said,
and differs from his more affectionate 3-year-old sibling, Sneaky. Both have the potential to be breadwinners.
In addition to his cutting horses, Sheldon enjoys Traveler, a jet-black standardbred trotter he acquired to pull a carriage, but soon found that “nobody wanted to go that fast.”
The couple found their new property after viewing several places in the area.
It was love at first sight. “It was a gift from God,” Patti said.
“It fit us,” Sheldon said. “It had great facilities for the horses and the pastures for the cattle. Patti loved the house, and I love the barn.”
“I love the barn too,” Patti quickly interjects.
In the mornings, the couple enjoys the south breeze and coffee on the porch as they gaze across the fields where the longhorn and Beefmaster cattle graze. Then it is off to work at Lamar, helping prepare a new generation of leaders for Texas’ schools.
At the end of the day, when their work at Lamar is done, “it is a joy to turn into the drive,” Sheldon said.
“The whole setting is incredible,” Patti said. And while not everything is adapted for working Longhorn cattle, that, like the rest of the livestock, will come in time.
Hurricane Rita: Postscript
“The last three weeks are just a blur,” Sheldon Buxton said when he eturned to campus for the first time since Hurricane Rita befell Southeast Texas. He and Patti had worked feverously to move their livestock to a safe haven, but,
by the time they evacuated, it was too late to take all the animals out of Rita’s projected path.
“I had never left livestock behind for a storm in my entire life,” Sheldon said. Nor had he seen a storm like Rita.
He and Patti were able to “thread our way back” to the cattle the Sunday after the storm to attend to water for them. “We wove our way around trees and downed power lines for miles and miles,” Sheldon said. His welder provided the only electricity to pump water. “The fences around the property were virtually gone, but the cows seemed content to wait for our help,” he said. “We transported them one load at a time; 10 days and four round trips later all were evacuated to greener pastures with water.”
While the couple lost much of their board fence and many trees on the Sour Lake property where they had just moved from Oklahoma this summer, he sees it is an opportunity to change things around a bit. While there is still a lot of work to be done to set things aright, the couple are encouraged by the growth of one heifer they plan to show at the Winchester Futurity in Lufkin and at the Horn Showcase Championship in Fort Worth in the coming weeks.
“She already measures 4 1/2 inches more than the winner in her class last year,” he said.
As another reminder of the hurricane, one of the cows left behind delivered a healthy calf in the midst of the storm. “We will not, however, name the calf Rita!”
“The helpfulness of our neighbors and compassion shown by our colleagues here at Lamar has overwhelmed us,” Sheldon said. “Truly, Southeast Texas hosts a culture of durability and sensitivity.”
