Building a Legacy | David Isham, Founder & CEO of National Roper Supply

What does it take to build a company that stands the test of time?

In this episode of The Brooks Show, I sit down with David Isham, Founder & CEO of National Roper Supply, to discuss his incredible journey, the importance of family, and the legacy he's building through faith, hard work, and leadership.

If you enjoy conversations about entrepreneurship, perseverance, and the values that matter most, this is an episode you won't want to miss.

🎙️ Watch now and let us know your favorite part in the comments.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, most coffee companies tell you their beans are premium. Mine actually are. This is Red Iron Coffee. It's high quality, single origin Colombian beans roasted by guys who have pulled enough overnight shifts to know what coffee is supposed to do. So if you are like me and you love your caffeine, go on down to Rediron Coffee. Pick yourself up some today. That's redironcoffee.com. Like I said, that's redironcoffee.com.

unknown 0:36

Mr.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Isham, thank you again for doing this.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

So um I want to start out. I usually start out every episode with um a little gift. Swiss. This is uh little company I'm co-owner of. It's uh it's a coffee company. It's made by a fireman. So awesome. Yes, sir. We've got uh got you a couple bags here, a couple different stickers.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

So well, it's almost like you did your research.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

You're a coffee drinker.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Oh my gosh, it's like I can't, if I don't have a Yeti in my hand all the time full of coffee, I can't function.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Yes, sir. Well, this is yours. Thank you. Got you a couple bags in there.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Awesome. Absolutely. Man, I look forward to this. Yeah, I'm I am a big coffee buyer, love trying new brands. So perfect. Well, I'm hope hopefully you like that one.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yeah, so it'll be good. I'm gonna start off with a little bit of an introduction and then just kind of go from there. So um, David Isham is the owner of National Roper Supply, one of the world's largest and most respected brands in the Western rodeo world. Raised in Decatur, Texas, David built NRS from a local shop into a national powerhouse. And he has recently been inducted into the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame. He's a lifelong cowboy, a visionary entrepreneur, and he continues to lead his business alongside his family. So is there anything else you'd like to add to that?

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Um well there's a there's a lot more to it. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. That's just skimming the surface. There's a lot more to it. But yes. Um, I don't know, I don't know what specifically to add, but uh yeah, it's been a it's been a 37-year journey that I never dreamed would um I'd ever be at this point. And uh I just tell people every day I'm living a beautiful life. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Well, let's get into I want to kind of start out just um getting to getting to really know you, like what what your childhood looked like, where you grew up, yeah, you know, what you were interested in. So can we kind of go into there? Where'd you kind of grow up? Yep.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

So um as a little boy, um I was um I was born in Arlington, Texas, uh, was there first four years of my life, went to um San Antonio, Texas, uh following our my dad's job. We were there four or five years and came back to Arlington for a couple of years. And uh we were in a situation where my older sister was about to enter one of the big massive high schools in Arlington, and and uh my parents were worried about that, and it was a pretty rough school at the time, and so they uh really wanted to get us to a smaller town, um, have some land, uh, be smaller schools where you can participate in every sport and you know all kinds of stuff. And and so we ended up in um my dad kind of drew a circle around his uh company and thinking about how far he could commute. And uh we ended up choosing Decatur, but we chose Decatur because there was a family here, the Bacchanon family that owned a dairy. My dad was an accountant and he did their tax work, and uh the Buchanans were um really practically um mom and dad to my dad. And when they heard we were looking for a piece of land, they uh they said, no, you're coming to Decatur and uh helped us find our first 20 acres on this road right here, and and there was nothing here back then, and um yeah, so here we are. So um, you know, I I was sharing the story just a second ago about uh uh my first day of school in Decatur. So we move up here, I don't know anybody, I'm 10 years old, and uh, you know, to me, we just got to move to the country. Um you know it was it was August of 1975. You uh um your 10-year-old little boy, suddenly you've moved to the country, you get to play out in the woods all the time, you kind of just dream of being a cowboy. The local Decatur Sheriff's Posse Rodeo was uh it's always the it was always the middle of August, and one of the first things I remember doing in this town is going to raise westernware up in Decatur and getting my first pair of boots and jeans and shirt and cowboy hat and going to the Decatur rodeo. And uh so I remember just sitting there in awe, you know, of what uh you know, of the rodeo and dreaming of being a part of it. And then lo and behold, the uh my first day of school for fifth grade, when I get my locker assignment, you know, from the office when you check in, I went and put my stuff in my locker, and the very first kid I met was Willie Gasperson. And I know that the Gasperson family is important to your family, um, but Willie became my best friend, and uh his family took me in like family, and from just spending the night at their ranch in Bridgeport and hanging out at the barn in the arena over the next decade, um man, they just taught me everything I know about being a cowboy, and just it was just uh I always had this perspective of this being this city kid that got lucky to meet the real authentic family who just took me in and uh you know just showed me the ropes, and uh I'm just so appreciative for it, and we can get it into it later, but that it just really set the stage for so much that I did here because I wanted to be a place where that city kid that didn't know how to break into the Western lifestyle, that this could be the place that allowed them to do that. And that leads all the way to the arena and the things we've done at the arena and that kind of thing. But uh, you know, at the Cowboy Hall of Fame Wednesday night, I said, you know, I told them, don't ever underestimate how the effect you can have on somebody just for allowing them to warm your horse up. And that's the way it was over at the Gasperson space. You'd go over there and and um catch horses, saddle them up, warm them up. I used to warm Rojo up for Bob Gasperson, Willie's dad, and I'd warm him up and you know uh uh catch the steers, wrap the steers, you know, work the chutes and all of that. And I remember uh the day, you know, in high school when he was, you know, by that point, I still never dreamed I would rope. And but I would hang out over there all the time. I'd rope the dummy just constantly with Willie. And so never even dreaming I could rope someday, I could rope the dummy a hundred times out of a hundred times. You know, I mean you just sit there and that's all they did, you know, it's all we did. And uh, and then you'd warm horses up, and while you're warming one up, you'd get to track the steer to the end of the arena, and then you know it's kind of funny because um it's you realize uh I realize now more, and then as as I've done the same thing, every good cowboy and family and arena, they always have the um the beginner around. And because, first of all, in their heart they truly want to help people, but it's funny because that kid is great for opening the gates as you're driving through the ranch. That kid's great to always bring the steers back, and he's constantly learning, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's it's like they're using you, but they're molding and shaping you at the same time. Yeah, oh yeah. And so, you know, I remember the day that Bob said, hey, just back my horse in the box and see if you can rope one. And I didn't realize what I knew at that point. But gosh, you'd tracked a thousand steers down the arena, you know, after they'd roped them, you'd brought them back, you heal them coming down the you return alley, you know, just like we all have. And um and I caught my very first, you know, slick horn, my very first steer. And man, I think back to that moment and wow, what a what a moment that just dictated really the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

You were hooked at that point.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

Well, yeah, I mean, I was hooked a long time before that, but but I never dreamed that um that you know, little boy, you know, son of an entrepreneur in the Metroplex, you know, that uh was really going to do this, you know, and uh and then it, gosh, 40 years later, you know, here I'm sitting here and and right in the thick of it and owning a company called National Roper Supply.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Yeah. So yeah. That's awesome. So what uh did you end up going after high school? What did it look like for you after high school? Did you now did you rope all through high school?

SPEAKER_02 10:03

So um, so I was a serious basketball player. Okay. And um my coach would threaten me to, you know, stay off those horses, you know, and so I was just I would hang out and obviously warm horses up and stuff like that, but it was just so focused on high school and uh basketball and and stuff that uh that it was it was really call it the day after basketball season, my um senior year, where it's like, okay, I'm getting my own horse and I'm gonna go do this. And that's really where Willie's uncle Bill stepped in, um who I know is an important part of your life and and both mine, um, and started hauling me all over southern Oklahoma and North Texas, you know, in search of my next great horse. And so almost every horse I owned in the early days came from Bill and I wandering around Oklahoma and Texas and uh in search of one. And uh man Bill introduced me to families like the Pogue family up in Oklahoma, which is Charles Pogue and his dad Bill, and I remember going there and Charles was just the most elite young up-and-coming, you know, roper in the PRCA, and and uh we'd go to his house and rope and try some horses, and I'd just sit there and be in awe of you know watching those guys. And and then uh man, I bought one of my well, the horse I ended up rodeoing in college off of, his name was Jose, but he was this not a really big horse, um not that pretty, but we had tried horses for weeks up in there, and and Bill finally took me to this older man's place in Bonham, and he had this antique store, but his name was Red Pope, and he was this gentleman uh of an old man that behind his antique store had a rope and arena. And he kept saying, Y'all need to come try this horse, y'all need to come try this horse, and uh, and so we did. And of course I'm 6'3, and this horse was probably 14-3, and you know, in my mind you need a fire-breathing, you know, 15 and a half hand, big old head horse, and and uh this wasn't it, but but oh my goodness, I got on that horse, and it was just like he did it all for you. You know, I mean it was the first time I'd ever been on a horse that I was just like, oh my goodness, I mean he just just runs to the hip and um lets you rope and just just big heart and quick footed, and and uh you know, I was just like, man, this is not the horse I see myself on, but oh my goodness, he's just so nice, you know. So uh, but the the the people you get to meet when you're in the pickup, driving around the country, trying horses, um, those are just priceless times, really. Yeah, absolutely. So you rodeoed through college, yeah, yeah. I didn't even answer yet. So I did not rodeo in high school. Okay, okay, but I was with Willie at every high school rodeo. And Willie was obviously always one of the top rodeo kids, and man, I just sat in on the fence all the time at these North Texas high school rodeos and region three high school rodeos, and I'm just like, man, like to be a part of this, you know, boy, I wish I'd have done that. And and uh, you know, Willie was handsome, suave, and uh all the rodeo girls just were in love with him and and stuff, and and uh man, I would just follow him around, you know, just uh, you know, just as a wannabe, you know, just man, I wish I could do that. And so after, you know, my that basically my senior year when sports ended, man, I was just all in. And uh I went off to school at Abilene Christian University, and Willie went to Tarleton. And uh I guess it's probably still that way, but in team roping, you don't have to rope with somebody from your own school. And so, you know, it's important in college rodeo that you have your vest on with your your school on it and that kind of thing. So, but really for the next four years, Willie and I roped at all of the college rodeos, um, with me heading from Abilene Christian and him healing from Tarleton State, and uh, and so those were just you know amazing times getting to go out to Alpine and Roswell and and Abilene and Wichita Falls, you know, just uh just all over the West and Eastern New Mexico going to the college rodeos. And uh we uh gosh, we came home from college. Um, my dad always pushed me, I got my accounting degree at Abilene Christian. And so uh as much as I fought it, you know, and wanted to uh just have a cowboy dayworking job, you know, something to that effect, which uh yeah, I'll tell you a short story about that. But in college, um Willie and I, Willie got me a job in the summers pushing cattle at the the actual Fort Worth stockyards. And so cobblestone alleyways and wood pins and and just right there in the thick of um uh the stockyards uh behind Billy Bob's and and uh but it was in the last days that that livestock sale was still open and Hampton Butler ran it, and he was from up here in this area, but just a true cowman, but he ran the sale there. And so uh I guess probably um for a couple of the summers during college, I was just making $7 an hour day money, you know, pushing cows at the sale barn and just dream dream job for me. And I remember my dad, it's probably the it would have been going to be the summer after my junior year. He's like, hey, what are you gonna do this summer? And it's like, hey, I'm going back to the stockyards. And he's like, you know, you're getting an accounting degree, you know, you probably uh you need to think about like an internship. And uh I was like, okay, I'll think about that, you know. And a couple of weeks later, he's like, you know, you put more thought into maybe an internship, you know, at a company in the Metropole X. And I'm like, uh, you know, I just I think I want to work at the at the sale barn. And he's like, well, you know, the bank that I've used forever in my business is as uh Texas Commerce Bank in Arlington. And I talked to them and they're willing to give you an internship. And uh, you need to call this guy. And man, I sat on that phone number for like a month. My dad calls me. Son, did you ever call them about that internship? I was like, oh no, I just I really haven't got around to it yet. And he's like, uh, you need to call them now. Yeah, you're not working at the sale barn. And uh so um so anyway, I called him and uh uh took the internship at Texas Commerce Bank, and so I would get up every morning during the summer while Willie's going to the sale barn. I'd get up every every morning and put my suit on and drive to the bank in Arlington, and you know, Willie and I would have roped late the nights before and everything, and I remember it was the hardest thing for me to do is to just absolutely stay awake during that job at a cubicle at that bank. And uh, but anyway, I did that, and uh um then my senior year at college, you start interviewing, and uh I had like five job offers from the major accounting firms to go to work for them, and I chose to go to work in Fort Worth at Pricewaterhouse. Um, so that's what I did immediately after college. But uh so I was kind of an anomaly at that firm because I was the suit wearing accountant by day, and they all knew that the second I got out of there, you know, I was headed to the practice bin, and then Willie and I, and um I guess, yeah, so Willie and I and uh were going to all the semi-pro rodeos around here and um you know most of them East Texas Way, Southern Oklahoma, and we would uh go to three, four, five of those rodeos, you know, a weekend. And uh so really a year into that job um these Willie met a couple of Australians that he met them at Northside and they had come to Texas and because they were calf roper team ropers and they came to Texas looking to find a place where they could practice and really get better. So, you know, the United States has always been well at that time was 25-30 years ahead of um Australia in terms of uh the score to team roping, especially, but just rodeo in general and that kind of deal. So they they wisely came over here. Um and so they were living in a van under the trees at the back end of the arena at the Gasperson ranch. And so every every evening um we would um we'd go practice and you know, and the the main guy that that we just really befriended, his name was Aleister Strachen. And Alistair was a cool dude. He uh he was kind of an all-around cowboy in Australia, and uh, you know, really, really a neat guy. And uh, but anyway, they're just living at the barn down there and roping every day with Willie and his family. And so uh this would have been the summer of 1988, and uh and so come to find out, the main reason they were they were here is because there was about to be this season of rodeo in Australia in celebration of Australia's 200th anniversary. So they're bicentennial. And so the the Australian Pro Rodeo Association was gonna have this um these 10 bicentennial rodeos all around the country of Australia, and they were inviting Canadians and Americans to come over there and participate in those rodeos. And so Alistair is like, man, y'all, y'all need to come to Australia and uh uh and go to these rodeos. And I'm just like, man, really? And uh I remember going home and telling my mom and dad about this opportunity, and they just looked at me and go, y'all need to go. You know, you're in a point in your life, you're you're not married. You know, you don't have um anything tying you down. You can always go back to an accounting firm or whatever, but you need to take this opportunity. That also says a whole lot about my dad, because there's not a lot of dads that I don't think would answer that way necessarily. But uh my dad had a real spirit of adventure to him also, but but he said, yeah, you need to go. And so Willie and I and uh another young man, Darren, uh from North Texas, um we followed these two guys back to Australia. And uh man, I think back of that, because I mean the amount of planning that I put into executing around-the-world trips right now is pretty extensive. And man, we didn't do a whole lot of planning. I mean, yeah. So uh we we packed a bag and got on a plane and and uh man went to LA and to Hawaii and then landed on the northeast coast of Australia in a little town called Cairns. And the three of us boys were by ourselves, you know, we're with instruction to meet Alistair at the first bicentennial rodeo in Mount Isa. Okay, so you know, Mount I, you know, the U.S. and Australia are about the same size land mass, and so Mount Isa would be the equivalent of being in um call it South Dakota, okay, you know, and uh middle of the country. We land on the northeast coast and uh have to figure out how to get to Mount Isa. And you think that Australia is modern, you know, and populated like the US. Um, but at the end of the day, Mount Isa is in the middle of the Outback, and it is a mining town, you know, that is in north central uh Australia. And so we we catch a bus going to Mount Isa. And man, it's probably a 24-hour journey, you know, across the country to Mount Isa, where we meet uh we meet up with Alistair and the rodeo that is there. And uh it was it was just unbelievable. Um, but we got mounted on horses while we were there, and I remember um so um I was gonna head for, well, basically you could enter these rodeos twice, so I was I was gonna head for Darren and head for Willie, and uh uh borrowed a head horse and uh won fourth place at the first rodeo there, and yeah. Horse you'd never been on or anything. And I think Darren roped a leg, you know. So go back to me saying that team roping was 30 years, you know, behind America.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

So what was that like though? Showing up, I mean, you don't have your own horse. It's a movie. You don't really have nothing, it's a movie.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Yeah. I mean, it is it is straight up a movie. You you pull up and God, it's this oasis of an arena down in there. I'll never forget these big, unique Australian trees all through the parking lot. The characters are out of this world. Yeah, you know, there are these guys. Um Robert McPhee was this mountain of a man, and he was kind of the dominant. Gary and Robert McPhee were these two brothers that were that were kind of dominated the the rodeo, kind of all around guys, and then some of the rodeos they'd be judging and and stuff, but Robert McPhee was like this six foot seven man that was just all muscle and kind and mean at the same time. And uh I remember shaking his hand with a he had a would have had an extra large white cotton rope and glove on. And you know, I have long fingers and a decent sized hand. This, you know, it was like it was like his hand was like a cinder block, you know, when I shook his hand. Right. But just this, these mountain of men. And then there was another guy there in his Toyota Land Cruiser outback rig, you know, pulling this trailer. Actually, no, they don't pull trailers, they jump them up in the back of trucks, right? You know, Utes, I mean, they're these cab over trucks with boxes, you know, like we call them cargo boxes and stuff, but man, they, you know, uh, we call them vans, and they'll they they convert these things into campers and and hauling horses, but but this this guy would have been in a land cruiser that you know they jumped their horses up into the back of and stuff. But uh he was uh I would say he's a guy that wasn't necessarily following all the rodeos, but he was there as a local guy. But he was a a day working cowboy in Australia. And of course, unless if you're in the rodeo arena, you had a traditional Western saddle. But if you're cowboying in Australia, you had an Australian stock saddle, you know, no saddle horns, you know, they're not they don't rope stuff and they use the they use the whips. I mean, it's straight up Man from Snowy River, and those are the guys, actually, most of the guys in that arena were the extras from when they filmed Man from Snowy River. Pretty cool, yeah. If you guys never, any of you out there, if you haven't watched Man from Snowy River, that is the movie from which my wife and I, or my wife fell in love with me, you know. So amazing, amazing movie. So go watch the movie. Go watch, yeah, go watch the man from Snowy River. So, um, but you know, so this guy is rodeoing, but his job is working for these big stations. So in Australia, a ranch is a station. And uh his job was catching the invasive wildebeest that would just wreak havoc out there on these stations, and they would just overpopulate, and they were a protected animal in Australia. And so you're just driving down the roads out there in Australia, and there's just there's just massive, you know, uh 1200, 1500 pound wildebeest, you know, grazing in the bargainage and stuff, you know, with their curl horns and everything. And and of course, these stations are the size of multiple counties in Texas. I mean, just massive places. And uh, but this guy was is the guy that they would hire to go catch and remove and haul them to preserves these wildebeests. But they would they had Toyota Land cruisers with hydraulic arms on them, and so they would chase these wildebeests down, and the hydraulic arm would come out and grab the wildebeest and then suck it up next to the land cruiser. Then they would drag, they'd push that wildebeest up to one of the trees and they would tie his horns to the tree so that wildebeest would be stuck right there. And then the next, you know, division of the crew would come by and they would load them into trailers and haul them off to preserves.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

So, what was that like for you seeing that for the first time?

SPEAKER_02 29:24

I mean, I mean, I'm telling you, um it it was like living in a movie. I mean, it it was because I had at that point, I don't know when Man from Snowy River came out, but it was right before then, you know, and really probably just a couple of years. And and I think Crocodile Dundee had been out already and stuff, and so you're going over there and you're going, this is the way it is. And those guys are just real men of all men living in the outback, and it's wild, wild out there. So uh, so anyway, we made our way around um um, made our way around Australia uh for the next three months going to all those rodeos. And you know, I mentioned that it was kind of like they were 30 years behind, but gosh, back in those days, the uh Australian rodeo was closer to what you would think of as a carnival. Um so with what, you know, derogatorily we would call the carnies, you know, back in that day, kind of a pretty rough group of people that would come to town and put on the local carnival. Well, the rodeos in Australia were a little closer to that than what we have over here. And uh so we go to that first rodeo, we catch the bus to the first rodeo, and then because Alistair said, hey, I'll work it out from there. And so, you know, we're at that rodeo, great weekend, and the next rodeo is gonna be in Darwin, which is the north coast of Australia. So straight up from call it South Dakota to the Canadian border, relatively speaking, but headed up to Darwin. And we're like, oh, how are we gonna get up there? And he goes, I got us a ride. You know, so uh we jump in. Uh, I just remember the last night after the last rodeo, jumping into this rig, which would be this, you know, these uh mid-size truck with a flatbed. So it happened to be this four-door, think of them as like the the old Ford 650 or whatever, but this larger, mid-sized truck, four doors. I'm sitting in the back seat, the truck is full, six people or so, has a big flatbed on it, and it's pulling one of the few horse trailers over there, and uh that had a not a living quarters, but let's just call it a dressing room, tack room in the front of it. And there were three or four or five guys traveling in the tack room, living or not living quarters, tack room, dressing room of that old steel trailer. Front of the truck is full. There's a couple of wives or girlfriends in there, well, probably two or three. And I noticed when we leave that there are these 55-gallon barrels of diesel in the back of the flatbed chained up against the headache rack in front of the gooseneck kitchen because we're going across the outback. And I mean, there's a town every four miles four hours, you know, and you're hoping to get fuel and all of this. I mean, and you're in the middle of nowhere. Kangaroos everywhere, wildebeest everywhere. Yeah. So uh man, I fall asleep in the back seat, middle of the night. Um, I wake up and we're pulling up somewhere, and I look out, and I see a chain link fence with a razor wire along the top of the chain link fence, and I'm like, where are we? Well, we're at our we're at one of these uh radio transmission stations out in the outback. So you look, and there's a big tower with all the deals on it, and and uh communication tower in the middle of nowhere. And uh sure enough, these guys pull up to the chain link fence right up beside it and start climbing over that razor wire with hoses, and they drape these hoses into the diesel tanks of the generators at this transmission tower, and they're siphoning the fuel out of these tanks into those 55-gallon barrels, so they're stealing the fuel, you know. So if there's a fuel, there's a way to man, I I am Mr. Goody Two Shoes. I've never done anything wrong in my life. I mean, I've I mean, I have a I avoid trouble, man. I am Mr. You know, favorite child, you know, in school or whatever, you know, never do anything wrong. And I'm going, oh my goodness, I am running with the outlaws. And uh have you back there, Sykin? No, I am just quivering, you know, sitting in that pickup watching them steal this fuel. But it doesn't end there. We we get back in that truck, and the next town is Tennant Creek. And uh and so we pull into Tennant Creek right before lunch, you know, and it's probably halfway up to Darwin from Mount Isa. So about lunchtime, we pull into Tennant Creek, and everybody makes a plan, you know, hey, go get something to eat, you know, um meet back here, you know, in an hour, or you know, whatever. So uh in those little towns, and just go watch the movies because really there's always in every one of those little towns just the pub, the tavern, the uh um that's where you eat. It is uh drinking is very important, you know, in Australia. Um, whole other set of stories. But uh I was never the drinker, I was the the designated driver. And uh, but anyway, we go to the local pub to eat, and there's always the plate lunch, you know, at the pub, which is actually awesome. It's always a flat steak and some vegetables, and there's always a fried egg on top of the flat steak. So we eat we eat lunch, and and uh most of the men are over there downing their pints of Foster's or you know, whatever it is, and we go back to the uh to the rig and everybody joins up, and the women, I just remember it's like I'll be in there in a circle, and the women start going, Hey, what'd you get? What'd you get? And next thing I know, they're pulling all this stuff that they have shoplifted from town out of their clothes. Yes. You are running with a little bit. That's why I think of well, yeah. I don't even, I never even knew any carnies like that, so I shouldn't have even said that, you know. But but yeah, so we get back in that car and I'm like, I'm not traveling this way across Australia. And so uh, long story short, we get to Darwin safely, compete at that next rodeo, and I hang out in Darwin for the next couple of days, and I'm gonna buy a car. And so I bought the cheapest car on the north coast of Darwin in of Australia in 1988. I paid $1,600 for a 1974 Mitsubishi Galant. And uh, it had fur on the dash and it had little mag wheels, and Alistair and uh a kid named Andy, rodeo kid named Andy, and Willie and I got in that car and started traveling across Australia, and we were so overloaded that every time you'd hit a bump, those mag wheels would rub the fingers. And and about every 200 miles, we would blow those back tires out because they rubbed and cut the tires, you know.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

So uh pretty soon you guys were siphoning gas off.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

But uh, but when I bought that car, I guess it was just Willie and I the very first night because we were headed to back to Tennant Creek for what would be the third rodeo. And uh so Willie and I were alone driving across the Outback, middle of the night. Willie's driving, you drive from the right hand side, I'm asleep in the left side with the seat back. But when I bought this car, when you're in Darwin, every single car, whether it was a some imported Cadillac or 18-wheeler, everything had a roue guard on it. So a ranch hand bumper, basically. But they call them rue guards. So no matter how fancy the car was in the Northern Territory, it had a Rue Guard. Every car except my 1974 Mitsubishi plant. And so I asked that guy at that little car lot, I said, hey, like, dude, do I need to be concerned about you know hitting a kangaroo or something? He's like, oh no, you know, don't worry about it. And and sure enough, that very first night, we're headed to Tennant Creek, and uh, I don't know, in my mind it was two o'clock in the morning or something, and and all of a sudden I hear Willie go, oh crap, bam, you know, and I raise up and there's just a kangaroo going everywhere. Oh man. Yeah, flipping right over the top of the car, and uh we get out, and fortunately the car is still running, but the the front of the Mitsubishi Galant looks like this now. So uh I spent the next three months visiting every junkyard in Australia as we traveled the country, you know, piecing that car back together, you know, on our travels. It was quite an adventure. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

Go from getting forth at a rodeo to being an outlaw to hunting kangaroos. Yes, sounds like what an incredible adventure that had to have been.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

Well, and then uh let me add a piece too, because it relates to my store. Because before we went, um Alistair said, hey, pack all the Wrangler jeans and classic ropes you can when you come over. Because you can't get them over there. They're like gold. And so uh it said, you know, just buy your size of jeans or you know, whatever, but just bring all the jeans and all the ropes you can. So I remember ordering a box of ropes through Smith Brothers, but classic ropes, um, back in that day, and getting them and gonna take this big box of ropes with me in a duffel bag. And then, you know, I I don't know, I took 12, 15, 18 pairs of jeans my size or something. And sure enough, we'd get over there, and the first thing the Australian Cowboys wanted to do was buy your buy your clothes. Oh yeah. Yeah, wow. And so you could sell your Wrangler jeans that in 1988 were $13.99 at the local Western store. You could sell them for $70. Wow. Yeah. So I basically we paid our entry fees, you know, by selling our ropes and our jeans as we traveled across. There's businessmen coming out right here. Yep, yeah, that's awesome. And so I remember calling my dad and making him uh ship me another box of jeans and box of ropes. And so, and I remember going to a random post office in South Australia, call it Galveston, Brownwood, the equivalent of Brownwood, Texas, all the way to the, we'd made it all the way South, um, Adelaide, where uh where I picked up those um those, and I'd had orders for them at that point, you know, and so picked that stuff up and sold it all at the next rodeo as we continued to travel. But that uh yes, that basically planted that merchant seed in my mind about you know the Western business.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

And so how long were you in Australia again? All the three months. Three months, okay. Three months. You come back to the stateside and like yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

So um, you know, to connect to all the dots, before I went to Australia, um one of my other good friends, Tony Shaw from here in Decatur, had told me uh so where I bought my Justin Ropers and my Wrangler jeans was at a little store in Decatur called Bryan's Westernware. Kenny and Gloria Bryan owned it. He was a local dairy man, and his wife ran the Western store. And so uh that's where I would get all my stuff. And uh their nephew was Tony Shaw, this kid that I went to work with, and his mom worked at that store too. And so he said, Hey, Gloria and Kenny are interested in selling their store. And uh, so all brewing before and after this this uh Australia trip um was this potential opportunity of me buying the local Western store here in Decatur.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Right.

SPEAKER_02 42:22

And uh so really I had already quit my accounting job really just a couple of weeks before this Australia trip came because I had talked to my dad about this idea that this store was gonna be for sale, and he's like, man, that sounds that sounds right up your alley. And he had actually encouraged me to quit my job, but get a job in an at another western store just to kind of learn that business. And so I actually, before I quit at Price Waterhouse, I went to um Lusky's Western store in Northside Fort Worth, famous, famous store. Um, and I walked in there in my suit one day and met Butch Lusky and said, Hey, I want to come to work here. And he was so nice and looked at me and he said, like, what do you do now? And I said, Well, I'm a staff accountant at Pricewaterhouse downtown Fort Worth. And he's like, Why in the world would you want to come do this? And I said, Well, someday I'm gonna have my own store. And he just kind of laughed and and he said, Hey, I'll hire you. It's minimum wage and I don't know, it's $550, $650, $5. I don't remember. It the money didn't matter. I had no bills at that point, you know, I had a $300 rent. And uh, and I had saved every other check from uh from Price Waterhouse. And so I'd accepted that job, uh, but I never reported to work because suddenly I had this chance to go to Australia. And uh so when I came back from Australia, the timing was right. Uh it was November of 1988, and uh basically February 1st of 1989, I was the new owner of Brian's Westernware, which immediately was changed to David's Western Store. Okay. And Tony's uh mom, Opal, and another amazing lady, Mildred White, were the two uh older ladies that worked for that store, and they became my first two employees at David's Western store in 1989. So incredible. You know, man, you guys are young. Um never underestimate just these little whys in the road that you come to and and which way you go. Yeah. And uh it's just I I you know, I'm in a very reflective period of my life right now, and you look back and and you just you just go, man, what if what if I had not had my locker next to Willie Gasperson? You know, what if I didn't meet Alistair Strachen from Australia and Go Rodeo? And just, you know, what if Tony Shaw had never told me that his aunt store was up for sale and you know, just a lot of things. And then, and then, but in the background, man, I had a mom and dad that were just encouragers to go for it, to go for it. Why not? You can always go back and get an accounting job, man. Just no time, you know, no better time to go do this. You know, so it was uh it was an awesome, awesome period in my life.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

Yeah. So starting out on the David's Western store, so was there a lot of stress involved or anything like that, or was this just more like I'll figure it out?

SPEAKER_02 45:59

So I I was always a smart kid, so I did really good in school and man um had uh uh an accounting background, you know. So basically been through business school. But more importantly, I was the son of an entrepreneur who was a CPA accountant, and but at that point uh owned and running his own business. So the language of business was just our dinner table language, right? And so you know, if you say stress, I wouldn't say there was really stress. Um when you have your dad constantly encouraging you to go do something, and you're bulletproof. You know, I mean it's just like because we all live in this world of not wanting to disappoint people or or you know live up to our potential or expectations or whatever. But when you have a support system that is that's never in question, you know, and and your dad is so happy that you're doing it and is coming by every morning with a cup of coffee to check on you and how's it going, you know, that kind of thing, man, it's just it's amazing. So, yes, I I I remember the very first day, you know, they hand me the keys and they walk out that first morning of February 1st, 1989, and I turn around and Mildred is a 62-year-old woman, and it's so funny because when I bought that store, it came with Mildred and Opal. Okay, and Mildred was kind of the manager, and she had worked there for 15 years or something like that, and this sweetest lady. Wealth of knowledge for you, then yeah, yeah. Okay, but she was 62, I'm 24, in my mind, she's 90. Okay, so yeah, because I just turned 61 and I am not old. I remember when I Mildred was my first employee in Opal, same age. I have these 62-year-old women working for me, and I'm worried that they're gonna drop dead. You know, I'm just like, how can they do this at this age? You know, yeah, and I just it just cracks me up now because I am that age now. And I'm like, what was I thinking? So, young people out there, man, you just never underestimate what a 61-year-old man can do. You're you're still fully functioning at that point, you know. So, and you can learn an awful lot from them. Yeah, you know, so uh so anyway, uh, you know, I turn around and there is Mildred, and within seconds, you know, the first customer walks in and needs his hat reshaped. And uh so there's your moment of stress. You know, it's like now I'm man, I'd been off rodeo and man, I I was a seasoned, you know, young punk rodeo kid at that point, creased all my own hats, but you did it with a you know, just a pot boiling uh, you know, on the kitchen stove. You form foil to wear the, you know, into a funnel and the steam would come out, and that's how I creased my hats. And then at the Western store, we had a jiffy steamer, you know. So we had the little jiffy steamer with the bottle of water, and go over there and push the button, and next thing you know, it starts steaming. So, but uh anyway, he comes in and says he needs his hat creased. I look over there at Mildred and she looks at the man and she goes, Well, here's David, he'll take care of you right here. And and so I have to go over there and then start shaping this hat, you know, for this man, this first customer that comes in. And, you know, it's just that old fake it till you make it, you know, kind of story. But, you know, sure enough, um, you just start creasing hats and you get your hands on a bunch of them, next thing you know, you're a hat creaser. But uh, but yes, the the the next days of just uh working in that store, and Mildred was just a most amazing employee that just knew how to perfectly fold every shirt, how the jeans are folded, where the sizes show, and then organizing the boots and dusting them all, and how do you fit these customers? And and so I had them right there and taught me how to run the dumb hundred dollar register from Office Depot, and and uh there it started, and um and then my professional development really came because now suddenly every sales rep from all the top brands, you know, suddenly they knew that that store had changed hands, so it's important for them to come and you know change the paperwork and the account and all that, get to know you, and you know, and they would all come in. It's like, wow, you're young, you know, I'm 24 years old and running this store and stuff. But but my my sales reps were just amazing. You know, they would come in and and go, hey, here's here's how our brand works, here's here's some things I really think you need to try. I never could get Gloria to try this, but I think you should try this. And and so suddenly, man, I'm just open-minded and young. Um you know, so anything new and fresh was something I wanted, you know, and because it appealed to me. And uh so the store just began to evolve. And it was only a Western store at that point, but here I am, this active team roper. And so very quickly I started laying the groundwork for how can I get out of that little building into uh a bigger building where I can have a tack department and sell ropes and saddles and all that kind of stuff. And uh really over the course of that next year, my dad, you know, wisdom shows back up, and there was an old Western Auto building that had been foreclosed on by the Small Business Administration right on Highway 51, right in the core area of town. And uh he said, Hey, I think we need to figure out how to buy that building and let's redo it and you can move in there. And so my dad helped kind of pave the way for that, you know, how we did that, and and uh next thing I knew, within well, by the middle of November of that same year, we were in a brand new building, redone building, and had a little tack department, and and uh we were off to the races. So really sounds like your dad, really kind of I mean he he paved the way yeah, yeah, like I said, just a great encourager, very calm presence and demeanor, uh, an amazing Christian man. He was the elder at our church for 28 years, so just very spiritual man, kind man. Um but yeah, just like I said, when there's somebody every day telling you, you can do this, you can do this, that's no big deal. Don't worry about that. Here's you know, you just you just have a mentor. I mean, it's just yeah, it's priceless.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

Right. How did now opening up your own store, being as young as you were, um, open up doors to meeting new people and building relationships with other business owners, um, of course, professional rodeo stars, and what um where did that really start to pick up and take off for you? About what age and what what time frame was that when you really started making new relationships with people?

SPEAKER_02 53:59

You know, um it all just comes from just taking care of business at home, you know, being at the front door because it's your customers that are just amazing. And so um I've I've always told my kids as I've raised them to just pay attention to the people that you meet every day. Just be present, listen to them. You know, um I'm pretty well known when I meet somebody and I don't think anything of it, but I just love, I just I'll meet somebody and go, what's your story? Right. You know, who are you? What do you do? And you know, a lot of times people are kind of taken back, but but man, I just I am I just want to know, you know, what makes somebody tick? I mean, what's your story? I mean, everybody has this amazing story of growing up, and sometimes they just don't realize it. You know, but anyway, uh, you know, you just do business, and and I've always been, you know, kind of one of my prayers and what I just preach to my kids is is just pray to God that you see the doors of opportunity that God opens in front of you every day. And man, I am a glass half-full guy, yeah, not a glass half-empty. All I see is opportunity, and all I see is amazing people. And, you know, I figured out, I mean, nobody is perfect at everything and good at everything, and uh, everybody has their weaknesses or their faults, but I really just choose to go through life looking for and looking at the good in people, and because people are amazing, and I don't ever get disappointed by what their weaknesses are or their faults or anything like that, and I choose to see what is good in people, and man, it's a that's a way to go through life because it's a lot less stressful, and um you sleep a lot better at night, and yeah, occasionally there's some rotten people that take advantage of you or whatever, but you just you just let that go and still see the good and knowing that hey, someday they'll figure that out. That's that's okay. Um but really as the business developed and we moved into that new building, so suddenly I had what was a pretty big store, the store that you visited as a boy, um David's Western store. It was a cool store, it was a pretty store. It was huge at the time for the little town of Decatur.

SPEAKER_00 56:53

I got my first wallet there. Awesome, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:55

So um, yeah, I had a neat tack department and golly, at times we had a custom bootmaker there, and um just it was the the perfect small town, what it should be, really cool Western store, and very proud of it. So, but it was bigger than the business that was in our county, and so and and everybody that walked in would say, Man, I wish we had something like this in our hometown. So if just a passer-through would find the store, they would come in and I would just always hear with man, I wish we had something like this in our town. And so it just got me to to thinking about let's call it the mail order business. You know, so I started running ads in the Pro Rodeo Sports News, probably in, I don't know, 92, 93, something like that. Because now I was selling ropes and obviously Wrangler jeans and Justin Ropers were the hottest thing in the world, and every store's lost leader was Wrangler 13 MWZ jeans, and you would sell them at cost, you know, to get somebody in the door, and then you would sell them the Justin Ropers at cost just to get them in the door. And it was a really broken business model back in there for Western retailers, but that's the way it was. And so uh I started running ads in the Pro Rodeo Sports News. I would buy quarter page ads in that newspaper because I knew every single cowboy, that's their Bible. Yeah, that's right, that's where you know what rodeos are coming up, way pre-internet, you know. And uh, so I would run, I created these little ads, I'd cut out pictures of a classic rope, a Justin Roper, Wrangler jeans, whatever, and and I had my cool Western font, David's Western store, Decatur, Texas, and our phone number and you know, call us kind of thing. And and uh, but I would sit there and know, you know, I'd get a couple of calls, but I would just know, I knew I had a really cool young hip western store that had the good stuff. But when I knew that when the average person in some other state saw David's Western store, that they would think of this old tiny, you know, cedar front porch western store like they'd seen in their hometown with a bunch of dusty old Westernware inventory in it. And I thought that's what it conjured up. And uh so I was like, man, I need a name that when somebody sees that name, they go, I'll but they're gonna have it. Yeah, you know, and so kind of one of those middle of the night wake-up epiphanies, and uh um I came up with the name National Roper Supply. Because I thought, man, if somebody sees that, you put that in the Pro Rio Sports News, and team roping was just beginning to explode, you know, in popularity. I was like, man, you put that in a newspaper and somebody's gonna go, well, if anybody's got it, they've got it. Yeah, you know, right. So then all you have to do is live up to that name, you know. So uh uh changed the name to National Roper Supply, and then at that point you didn't have a website, but you had an eight, a 1-800 phone number where they could call you for no charge. You know, you people don't even understand that you used to have to pay long distance, you know. Every time you called somebody of the town away, it was long distance, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:24

I've heard that in a bedtime story or something.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:26

It's just it's crazy, but your long-distance phone bills would be huge, you know. So if if you know, as a as a retailer, if you paid the long-distance call for them, that's an 800 number. And so uh, and it was really cool back then to have a vanity 1-800 number. And so that's when I was able to secure the number 1-800 go ropin. And so from one month to the next in the Pro Rodeo Sports News, the David's Western store morphed to National Roper Supply 1-800 go ropin with the same picture of a rope, the same picture of boots and jeans, and that just the ad changed, and boom, the phone just started ringing off the wall. Wow. Yeah. So uh that would have been, you know, um 1992-ish, and I would sit back there and answer every single call, and uh, you know, just uh pack a guy's order up in a shipping box or a Justin boot box or something and mail it off to him. But uh every single person that would call, their first question would be, Well, do you have a catalog? And I was like, No, I don't have a catalog, but I got everything you need. What do you need? You know, and so I'd kind of walk them through and and uh and so it just I just knew that man, I've got to have uh I've gotta have a print catalog. And uh so uh I started working towards uh putting a catalog together, and in fact, um he's here today, but the manager of this store is a gentleman named Mark Pingle that has been with me now 30 something years, one of my best friends. Um Mark Pingle was a young man and he was the driver for D Pickett and Mike Beers. D Pickett and Mike Beers were the current world champions in team roping at the time. And so Mark would haul them and their horses all across the country, or he'd he'd haul their horses to Cheyenne and they'd fly in and rope or whatever. And and but Mark's kind of home base was always kind of the Decatur area. And he was in one day and I was like, man, I really need help putting a catalog together. You think that was, you know, would you want to come to work for me? And he said yes. And uh, which if you'd have known Mark, Mark was a nomad. Mark was no matter what college rodeo he showed up somewhere or whatever, you would just see Mark Pingle. Mark Pingle was just everywhere and uh just always on the road somewhere and stuff. And so I remember when I hired him, I was just like, man, if I don't think he could sit in one place long enough, but if he could just help me, you know, this year put this catalog together, it would be great. And so you had a guy who, I mean, my goodness, he was hauling horses and saddling them for deepet and mic beers. So he, you know, you you know which way to put a head stall on, you know, and put a bit in a horse's mouth. And and so Mark uh started, we started clipping out images and just laying the basis for pages, and we found somehow, uh I can't remember their names, but we found a couple of young brothers that were graphic designers that helped us put this first book together. And uh the fall of 1993, we mailed our first little black and white catalog that had 40 pages in it or something like that. And uh, but I had about 2,000 names on little slips of paper, names and addresses, because everybody that would call and place an order, you know, I would write their name and address on this little, you know, almost like a little sweepstakes entry little form, and I'd write it in and I'd stick it in this boot box. And so by the time we mailed this catalog, I had like 2,000 names. And uh, but the fewest catalogs that I could print uh uh affordably was 14,000 catalogs, and so I'm just like, oh my gosh, you know, you know, so I got the first 2,000 catalogs to mail out, but then what in the world am I gonna do? You know, I've got all these books, and and so man, I took a picture of the catalog, put that picture in that pro rodeo sports news ad, and I was like, call for our new catalog. And man, phone just rings off the wall. We just start mailing catalogs out to people, and and the business began. So suddenly we were national roper supply.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:06

Yeah, it seems like taking those leaps of faith, like renaming, I mean between the faith your dad instilled in you, your faith in Christ, yeah, being able to take a leap like that, make those catalogs, write those names down, change the name. It's uh it's pretty incredible.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:21

Well, I just um I've always had this talent for being able to, I don't know, feel like to understand what somebody else is going through or how they would feel or how they would perceive something. So that is one of the talents that I think God's blessed me with is so everything I would do, I would, because it was just like I would sit there and know that if somebody just saw this word, this store, David's Western store, I would know exactly in my mind, it would conjure up an image to me. And and I'd know, well, everybody else feels the same way I do about that. And so it's just that realization of just trying to understand how somebody else perceives it and address that, you know, up front basically and solve that piece of the equation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:13

Seems like you've been building block by building block, growing and growing. So what gave you the idea to do the event center and the trailer and this location?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:23

But like for a leap of faith, how was that?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:26

Well, um, man, that's important. Um okay, so the business just continues to grow. We're we are producing a catalog every every year. We begin to produce two catalogs a year. Um, so I'll I'll take you back to when I was 18 before my beginning of my freshman year at college. And so I told you I lived at the Gasperson Arena, basically. I just I hung out there as much as I could, gleaning whatever I could, learning to rope. Okay. And I told you I was kind of this smart kid. Okay, and so you basically at the Gasperson Arena and at most arenas across the country, you learn through humiliation. You learn through getting made fun of. You know, you you you you're sitting on the chutes or whatever, or you you get bucked off or whatever, and they just people laugh, they make fun of you, you they give you nicknames, you know, you you learn by uh uh that's that's the cowboy what's the culture of the world. It is the culture. It's the culture, and so that's how you learn, and it it's it's awesome, okay, but very few people held the technical meaning or the technical um way to teach somebody how to do something. You just figured it out, yeah, and nobody ever had to put it in words, right? And so I always say this that every steer anybody missed in the 80s and 90s, the reason was you dropped your elbow. I mean, that was oh well, you dropped your elbow. Okay, okay, well, that explains it all then. Thank you. You know, no matter how the run went, well, I you dropped your elbow. Okay, you know, and so I'm just like, really? You know, that's all you got for every problem, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:31

One cure fits all.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:33

Yeah. And so, you know, I I'd said how important sports were for me. And so, man, you have a coach. Yeah, you have a coach and and he shows you techniques and form and you practice a certain way and it you learn, right? You know, it's like, man, if you're a top baseball player, I mean, if you're Tiger Woods, he has a coach, and you know, that his coach could never play golf as good as Tiger Woods, but he can pick Tiger Woods apart, right, you know, and taught him how to be the champion. Absolutely. Okay, so uh man, I was just like, there's got to be a better way because man, I wanted to be good, and uh, and it was just like, you know, as much as you loved it, you're just being taught through humiliation, you know. So uh I looked up in the Pro Radio Sports News and I'm like, man, I heard there are these roping clinics you can go to. And sure enough, D Pickett and Mike Beers, the current world champions, which would have been in 1980 uh 1983, 84, they were putting on a team roping clinic in Dalhart, Texas at the XIT arena. The XIT Ranch, you know, was either the sponsor of or had the big rodeo arena in Dalhart, Texas. And so I'm I'm actually at that point a freshman at Abilene Christian. And man, I load my horse and my truck and trailer, and I'm I go to Dalhart, Texas to be in this clinic. And I get there, and uh I'm a header, you know, and so D Pickett is my man, you know. D Pickett headers over here, healers over there, and you start roping the dummy, and all of a sudden, man, D Pickett starts explaining how to head, right? You know, and explaining body positions and your swing and angles and you know, just deliveries. And, you know, as an athlete, you know, he's teaching me like a coach, and all of a sudden the curl is just, you know, just coming up on the back of the horns, and and uh, you know, and that's all kind of roping this dummy, and I'm like, this is amazing. You know, I'm just soaking it in. And then, you know, we go to roping, and I'm riding Jose at the point. Well, at this point, I had uh uh managed to make Jose the worst ducking out head horse in the country, you know, because man, I'm a young whipper snapper, and you know, just how far can you throw it? And and then just your horse ducks and you try to get your dally and you go on, you know. So that's the way we did it. And uh wow, he he straightened me out and just I kick that horse back up in that hole. Do not let him duck out. Yeah, follow track him down the pit, get your dally, stay in there. Now lead him off, move him forward, push him with your you know, your your right leg and side pass him out of that hole and all of that. And man, it's just like it's just I just changed just dramatically during that weekend.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:40

Building all those fundamentals, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:41

And I won my very first buckle of my lifetime um at that clinic. I got the most improved roper award at the D-Picket Mike Beers Clinic and won a guest trophy buckle. And uh so it just that was one of those moments. Okay, let's circle back, mid-90s, late 90s, I'm doing business, and I always have this perspective. I'm answering these calls, everybody calls, and they need their Justin Ropers, they need their classic ropes, um, they need a bit, you know, and that's usually where the questions started. It's like, hey, you rope? I'm like, yeah, I rope all the time. Hey, well, I I think I need a new bit. You either dropped your elbow or you need a different bit in your horse's mouth. Yeah. That that's that's team roping. You know, so it still is that way today, you know. So uh they're like, hey, let me tell you what my horse is doing. What do you think? You know, and so you're just sitting here advising these guys. So everyone that would call, not only did they need their product shipped to them in a timely manner, they needed help. They were no different than me. We're all we were all the same. I don't care what ranch you grew up on or whatever, whether you're the city kid that moved in, everybody is just on this journey to become a better horseman. That's that's really what it is. And I think if you asked Trevor Brazil today, he would just tell you, I know nothing. You know, I'm just now learning, you know, so much. I mean, we're just all on this journey. But anyway, by answering these calls, you just realize, man, people, they just need help. They just need to know. So uh we uh um I'm just like, man, if I own National Roper Supply and I was so fortunate to meet Willie Gasperson and get to be a city kid who just got brought in to the authentic people that helped show me that most people out there never have that opportunity. Right. How do you get into this thing? How do you do this? You know, who is your Willie Gasperson? And and in my mind, I'm like, where can you go where it's not um where it's not a badge of honor to get bucked off on your first day? You know, in that world, it's like everybody's hoping you get bucked off that day. For the longevity of team roping, it's not really good to get a first timer bucked off. Right. You tend to want to go do something else, you know, especially if you break your arm or rib or something like that, you know. And so it's like, man, if I built a place and started putting ropings on or roping clinics on to give people the benefit of what I had when I went and saw D. Pickett and Mike Beers, if I could do that, if if if I'm National Roper Supply, I've got to teach people how to get into this sport and how to rope. And so uh, man, I thought, man, could I build this indoor arena? And uh, and so I had a practice pen at my house and just a panel practice pen down in the pasture, and so I started putting on clinics, and I would call Walt Woodard and Ricky Green and Tyler Magnus and these guys, and so we put our first 13 clinics on at my old place here in Decatur, and uh man, I was on to something. Yeah, so you need to take a minute? Yeah, yeah, figure.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:15

Huh? That one's fine. We'll go off of this one. Yeah, I don't know if you need to change batteries or whatever. Yeah, we'll just end with that one, but we'll I can keep going. Yeah, no, absolutely, yeah, but um go ahead and wrapping up on what we've been talking about. It sounds like your journey has just been absolutely incredible. Soma is full of adventure, feels like it's full of uh not necessarily leaps of faith, but calculated steps of faith, which has been been awesome. I mean, you've done really, really awesome things. And uh I mean, between all the relationships you've built, people you've met, and lives you've touched, especially with you know, the learn the event center out there, people getting to come and learn. Yeah, and it's just I mean, speaks volumes for what you've done. And so I would ask you for a young entrepreneur, yeah, like myself, I'd say, what is some advice you would give somebody like me?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:11

Um find somebody to be around that is gonna encourage you, yeah, and that has gone down that road before. Like I said, my dad was a businessman, and so it uh uh business is just business. I don't care if you want to uh be a H VAC contractor, a plumber, an electrician, you want to open some kind of store, you want to provide some kind of service, you know, business is just business. It it's all kind of the same thing. You've got to you've got to have a skill or a product that you can sell or you can offer. Um you you need to be good at it, you need to strive to be excellent at it. Um but if you can't get the word out for what you do, you're never gonna make it. You know, so the uh I was an accountant. Accountants aren't known for being creative, you know, or anything like that. But um I had to, well, I remember running the store. My I remember at very stressful points in my career, I'm just doing everything. I'm I'm working, you know, just way too many hours. I got a couple little kids. Uh I I called it running the store from the hat bar. You know, so I was creasing every hat, I was working with every vendor, I'm paying the bills in the back office, I'm working with the insurance people, I'm fitting guys in boots, I mean, I'm just killing myself. And I remember my dad walking in one day and saying, hey, this isn't sustainable. You're gonna kill yourself. You know, it's just you just, you know, your business, if if your business can only grow to the capacity of you and you're at a hundred percent right now, you're not, you can't do more. You know, so you need to begin to start surrounding yourself with key people. And uh man, that was a tough lesson for me because nobody was as good at it as I was. You know, if you wanted to be fit in boots, I'm your guy. If you wanted your hat creased right, I'm your guy. If you want somebody to help pick out a rope, I'm your guy. You know, and I'm then I'm the analytical accountant and a man working with the vendors and putting purchase orders together and building model inventories for my stock and all that stuff. I'm the guy. You know, nobody could do it as good as me. And my dad said, Man, Sonny goes, I know you don't think there's anybody that can do it as good as you, but I promise you that there are people, they nobody will ever be able to run your whole business as good as you could run the whole thing. But I promise you there's people out there that can take this little slice of the pie, they can do this part, uh, maybe as good as you, but uh, you know, son, they can probably do it a lot better than you if they get to focus a hundred percent of their time just on this part. You know, so you need to start looking for people that you can do that with. And so uh the very first key person that I hired was a friend of mine from college, Jeff Jones, who is actually uh big wig at Twisted X Boots now. Okay. Um, but Jeff Jones came in as my controller, you know, so because my dad said, hey, you you can't let that bookwork get behind, you can't get laid on your invoices, that back office needs to be handled, you need you have to work with banks, you have to make sure vendor invoices are taken care of. And I think you should go hire somebody for the back end of this to where you know that's getting done. And so I um was so fortunate that Jeff came to work for me, and uh suddenly, all of a sudden, everything in the back end I didn't have to do anymore. And I was just like, wow, this is amazing. And so that was that first taste of that. And if I I circle all the way forward today, I have a senior executive team that uh is led by my son Cade, now as president of the company. Um that team is unbelievable. There is nothing in this company that I can do as well as the people that work for me can do. And it is the coolest feeling. And uh, you know, so one piece of advice would be don't strive to be the best person in your company at doing whatever it is your business is because you might be excellent at it, but you can, it's not scalable, it can't grow, you can't be out in front of the business determining where it's gonna go, you can't be dreaming of what is next and and uh you know, and and taking the business there, but you strive to surround yourself with people that are better than you at what it takes to do that business. And you might be incredible at it, but imagine if you hire people better than you, then what it can be. Yeah, and that's what this company is now. That's awesome. That's great advice. So yeah, yes, sir.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:33

And last thing is if you had um three people that you could recommend that somebody like me that you think I could learn from or interview and get a good interview from, who do you think on that? It's just the top three.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:49

Man, I'd have to put some thought into that.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:51

And it don't have to be right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:52

Okay, so you got a few podcasts under your belt. Um let me ask you, have you decided who you're gonna be yet?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:05

So it's not necessarily, well, built not necessarily building it around myself. It's more so building it around the guys I'm interested, yeah, or the women I'm interested in talking to and getting their stories. Like I grew up, you know, roping and uh living on a ranch my whole life. And so taking trips up here with my dad to NRS to whether it's buying cactus ropes or buying new boots or something like that, I was like, you know, interviewing you was something that I was that's somebody I would really enjoy interviewing.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:36

Okay, so you want to focus on Western?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:39

Well, on the other hand, yeah, that's how you do a politician. Yeah, um, yeah, you know, I'm big into sport, I'm big into a lot of different things. And so somebody that I find interesting, that's who I'm gonna go see if I can talk to. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:51

Yeah. Um well, there's a lot of obviously in my world, it's kind of all Western.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:59

Um love to talk to some more people who would uh just tell me their life stories. Somebody somebody that you would recommend just uh you would find interesting yourself to talk to.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:14

Well, I immediately comes to mind um um well there's a gentleman named Kim Bray. So Kim Bray is the president owner uh of Equibrand, which is Classic Rope Company. Yep. Okay, so man, that's a guy who was college rodeoing when Willie and I were college rodeoing, who uh graduated and moved into the product side of this industry. Right. And we have been amazing partners, you know, over the last 30-something years. As um as we've grown, Echo Brand has grown. And as Echo Brand has captured new product and introduced new product, then we've grown. I mean it's just back and forth have just the most amazing partnership. Um his sons now are hardcore ropers. Uh, one of his sons made the NFR last year, year before, or something, and so he's uh I would think would have a very interesting story. His wife, uh B, or Billy Bray, is an amazing woman in our Western industry who is so much of the brain behind the marketing of Equibrand. And you know, it's Equibrand is Classic Rope, Classic Equine, Rattler Rope, Martin Satelly. I mean, just a lot of uh lot of brands, Cashell, uh, that they have the brands, amazing brands of products that they've created. So, you know, he'd be very interesting. Uh man. And I can take you completely differently from that standpoint. Um so my dad was a Texas historian. Um, he has a library. My dad passed away in 2012. Um, but he had accumulated a library of books on how Texas became, you know, Texas. Um now you guys are Oklahoma guys, so man, that might be crossing the line. But uh but well, uh yeah, but there's uh there's a man, my dad accumulated his his letters and paintings and maps and books that he collected at a lot of just auctions and stuff. So uh estate type sales or um oh there's the man that um Texas Historical Association um events. But there's a man in Houston named JP Bryant that has gotta be in his late 80s right now, that is the great, great, great grandson or nephew of Sam Houston, who's one of the founders, you know, of Texas.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:22

And so JP is a Texas oil legend. Okay, you know, that uh um had I think it's called Torch Energy, was his private side, but then he had a whole other more public side of his of his uh business. Um but then he's well a couple of interesting things. So Big Bend National Park out in Big Bend, Texas, it's an amazing jewel of geography in Texas. Very few people from Texas actually take the time to go way out there and down to Big Ben. It's amazing. You know, so national parks were made, or you know, were you know were land that were taken by the federal government because they were special and they wanted to protect them and stuff, so they would go in there and work with landowners and and uh a lot of them, you know, may have been abandoned at that time or whatever. But JP Bryant owns a ranch that is the only piece of private property embedded inside Big Ben National Park. Wow. Because he his family received that as part of the Spanish land grants when Texas was formed in 1836. You know, so I mean you're just you're talking about a guy who is all the way back to the beginning of Texas. But he uh bought um you know this is uh I I know this is stuff you're not necessarily gonna air, I don't want you to err, but um Um he he bought one of the only buildings in Galveston, Texas that was not destroyed by the hurricane at the turn of the century was the uh uh a children's home, a girls' home. Yeah. It was a beautiful building in downtown Galveston and it wasn't destroyed because it was this beautiful stone, amazing structure. Well, he bought it many years ago and converted that, uh redid that old building, and now it is one of the greatest Texas museums, Texas history museums that exist. I mean it's it's beautiful. But um anyway, he's a legendary guy, and I don't know that anybody has ever talked to him. So yeah, it'd be pretty cool. But anyway, you would you would find his museum you know and talk to the curator of that museum, and and uh but just remember JP Bryant, he'd be easy to go find. But uh he's a Texas gentleman.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:58

So there, you know, there's stuff like that. Um you know, and then there's always the the you know, the what Trevor and Miles Baker are doing right now is phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:13

What they're doing in the horse, the rope horse world right now, and the the what's happening today with all these rope horse futurities, um the money that is flowing through the horse world today in team rope and barrel racing and everything, it is unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:30

Just from my narrow aspect and scope, like it seems like after COVID happened, yeah, like in my where I'm at now in Tulsa area, I'm it blew up. I mean, people that had nothing to do with roping or anything, but lived on ranches, pretty soon they're going out and buying rope horses and they're talking about we're gonna go enter a jackpot, and you're like, man, I didn't even know you were into this stuff. But it's just absolutely exploded, it fit, it seems like.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:56

Yeah. Um, and this is this is important stuff for a video or whatever, or another video or something, but um you're right. Okay, so when COVID came, the world shut down. Right. Okay, Western lifestyle-minded people weren't going to have that. They weren't going to shut that. Exactly. It was normal to them.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:22

And everybody from the outside looking in is like those people are still getting after it and having fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:27

Yes. Yeah. So my business, we we experienced at the time 30 years of 3%, 5%, 8%, 12%, 4% growth. Right, right. Just grinding out 30 years of growth. And in the two years post-the-COVID lockdown, my business doubled. Wow. It doubled. It was a big number that then doubled. Wow. You know, so it was unbelievable. I mean, it was just every decision I'd made in the past to uh to buy good technology tech stack, to print catalogs, to have a good website, to to build a fulfillment center, you know, whatever, all of that turned out to be the best decisions I'd ever made. I mean, we were we were just ready then to go capture, take advantage of the flood.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:25

Because what happened is people turned back to their home. They turned back to their land, they turned to the outdoors. It was the outdoors was safe. You know, you didn't have to put a mask on, you know, when you went in, you know, you went outside. And uh, and the the whole services world, the service and experience world disappeared. You didn't go on cruise ships, you didn't go to ball games, you didn't go to concerts, you know, you didn't go to fancy restaurants. And so all of the money that had typically been spent there, people go, I'm going back to the ranch. Right. I'm, you know, my kids have been, I was a team roper, you know, forever. I stopped roping because my kids got in high school and we're at select volleyball, select baseball, and we are we're doing all of that, every bit of that stopped.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:18

And so now all of that energy, people just turned back to their horse, to their ranch. Right. It's like I need a new tie strap for my saddle that is rotten now, and and I gotta go find a horse. My family, we're gonna go do this. And youth rodeos kept going, and team ropings kept going, and and this TV show happened. So you got the Yellowstone effect. Yeah. So all of us that were already in this world, we're like, hey, we're like life hasn't changed for us. Okay, we're we're gonna go back to do what our family is all about. And you said it, these other people, yeah. It seems different over there. And Taylor Sheridan pushes this show out called Yellowstone, exposing people to what we know of is the most beautiful life, right? Full of the most amazing people that at the center of is this animal that can see into your soul. You know, that's that's that's what he then comes to realize himself and a story then that he wants to tell. And and so all of a sudden now the whole world is looking at the West. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:36

And it's yeah, so at post-COVID, like the year after, when stuff started to open up just a little bit, it seemed like the ranching lifestyle or the camping lifestyle really exploded. And so we went, you know, everything's not open up yet, quite yet. We went to Colorado for a big camp trip.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:53

And I bought a Jeep and put a rooftop tent on it, and I'm off to Colorado. Oh, it's I love this.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:59

But there's some people we know of there that uh well we don't, we just met them. They do like the big trail riding events, and they said, We are busier than we have ever been. He said, We're booked out. Well, it'll be next year before we can get some more people in here. There's so much so many people lined up to come out and ride.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:17

Everybody, it forced everybody to re-evaluate what was real, what was good, what was important, what was beautiful, and and so many people turned and saw that way of life, and they're and then you step into it. You take your first dude ranch trail ride in Colorado, and you're like, honey, we're buying some land and wilding, you know, and yeah, next thing you know, it's um land, places, horses, animal, the cattle business. I mean, my goodness, a yearling, a 600-pound yearling is selling for $2,800 today, you know. And uh people got a taste of that and fell in love with it. Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, you take that all the way to the tip of the spear of the most professional sense of the horse world today. And uh man, you got Trevor retiring, you know, I'm looking over at the Trevor Brazil Museum as we speak and all of his world championship saddles. But he retires from competitive professional rodeo, but then just dives head deep into the the showing, the breeding and the showing of the top horses for this industry, and has a horse called Dark Side, you know, that's the first, probably not the first, but pretty much the the uh current most successful syndication of a stud horse, you know, in the country. And and uh meets a young man named Miles Baker from the uh Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma, who is just one of the most talented young horse trainers in the country, and they begin to partner to build, you know, just one of the most amazing horse programs in the country. Yeah, so talking to either of those guys would be amazing. Absolutely. Um I can't think of her name right now, but alongside of them, Trevor and Miles are building their business alongside of this young lady, I think she's in her 30s, that has created Solo Select. And so go start following Solo Select on Instagram and stuff, but they're the ones that are housing and marketing all these studs and mares and and uh breedings for all these top horses. Okay. But she is a girl who I think just went from a barrel racer that didn't have a lot of money or whatever, to now being the top name in the marketing of the top stud horses in the you know, in the rope horse, barrel horse, you know, quarter horse world. Wow and is somewhere, I think, right over in the Aubrey area or something like that. Um but wow the the the changes and the differences that they're making today in the marketing of horses and stuff is is unreal. Um I would tell you to go talk to Ty Yoast. So Ty Yoast is the king of Wickenburg. So um Ty uh and his partner uh Ty Grantham own Rancho Rio. Rancho Rio, have you guys been to Wickenburg? Have you been to Wickenburg? Okay, okay. So Wickenburg is the the Mecca for team ropers, and uh Ty Yoast is at the center of it. You did you just roped there a couple weeks ago, didn't you? Yeah. So have you seen Ty or have a chance to meet him?

SPEAKER_00 1:37:49

I met him, one of my buddies work for him, Black Storm.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:52

That dude It's head. Yeah, and he is he is a legend. I mean, I he is the real deal. He is so cool, but he is the best promoter I've ever seen, you know, for uh events and rodeos, and uh we're just glad to get to be a part of what he's doing out there. But uh he has his pulse on the world of team ropen and has been all the way up into the the management ownership of the World Series of Team Ropen, um his deals, his his personal deals, national team ropen, um and then of course the US TRC and all of that, but he's just instrumental in all of how that world is working.