Winter and exciting don’t often have a place together in the same sentence, but we find this ‘bleak mid-winter’ time very exciting as we are in the final stages of hiring our summer staff.  We get excited about the caliber of fine folks who express a desire to join our Latigo team.  Not only do we see them becoming great additions to our summer program, but we also see the potential for them becoming life-long friends of our family.

We were reminded recently of the special relationships that can be formed as we work alongside our crew each summer.  In 1987, we celebrated our first summer at Latigo and had a crew of 14.  They worked so very hard for us, and many of them returned to help us again the following summer.  For Dawn Birdsell, a wrangler from Oregon with a very long braid of hair, that was the first of many summers.  She even recommended a young man for our maintenance crew, and from that summer on, Dawn and Chuck were quite a fixture at Latigo. 

They came for a weekend visit recently, and we snapped a shot of them standing in front of the trail map they made for us 2 decades ago.  That’s just one of many special items that carry their fingerprints around the ranch.  What a treat it was to catch up a bit and reminisce about Latigo life in the olden days.  Chuck stayed on to work for us the winter following that first summer, and was kept busy with many remodeling projects.  I vividly remember him giving me a bouquet of roses when David was born.  David turned 29 last month, so that’s quite an accurate illustration of the longevity of our friendship with the Neelys.

That’s the main reason we get excited about hiring.  We see the potential for a whole new set of people who will have very special places in our hearts for a lifetime.