To help those hit by Texas Panhandle fires, a fellow rancher needs all the help he can get

GREENVILLE — Natalie Meeks parked her black Chevrolet Silverado, an empty 36-foot flatbed in tow, just outside the fence line of Wells Ranch.

The 47-year-old got up at 6 a.m. Wednesday to ensure she’d make the nearly three hour drive from Crockett to Greenville, a city in Hunt County about 50 miles northeast of Dallas, right on schedule. The trek she’d make from here was twice as long. It would be midnight before her tires churned the gravel atop County Road 2130 again.

“Looks like it’s five-and-a-half hours or so,” Meeks said, studying the route to the Panhandle on her phone.

“I love your optimism,” Lee Wells, 47, quipped. “When I see six, it’s seven with a trailer.”

Before Meeks volunteered to drive hundreds of miles for free, even paying her own fuel costs, Meeks and Wells had never met. A Facebook group looking to help ranchers and farmers devastated by the Panhandle wildfires brought them together, two people who know exactly what it’s like to lose everything in an instant.

Meeks, who works in the cattle industry, said everyone in this line of work is forced to start over at least once in their lives. Her turn was in 2005 at the hands of Hurricane Rita. Wells’ was in 2019, when a fire turned his property in Poetry to ash.

For those in the Panhandle, it was Feb. 26, the day the Smokehouse Creek fire ignited. The blaze has since burned more than 1 million acres of land, becoming the largest wildfire in Texas history and the second-largest in the country. After 10 days, it was still less than 50% contained.

The region is home to more than 80% of Texas’ cattle. Thousands of animals have been killed, and the ones that survived are suffering burned hooves and udders, blistered nostrils and seared lungs.

“Just because we’ve lost so much now, doesn’t mean it’s done,” Meeks said. “Some of the animals that are alive now, won’t be tomorrow, they won’t be next week.”

A rancher his whole life, Wells said the news that came with each updated headline felt like a “real exercise in empathy.” He’d had enough of watching and waiting. He had to do something.

“If you would like to donate money toward hay and feed going to Amarillo, I am taking donations to cover the cost,” Wells posted on Facebook just after 9 p.m. on March 1, gauging interest from the community. “I am also looking for folks with gooseneck flatbeds to help haul. Message me!”

The post was shared more than 200 times. Donations came one after another — $20, $40, $100. By morning, Wells had ordered 50 tons of feed and filled three flatbeds with feed, hay and dog food.

It felt good, Wells will admit, but if he was truly going to make a difference, he thought, he’d need to send at least 10 times that much.

His work had just begun.

‘Backbone of America’

About 11 a.m. Wednesday, Wells’ ranch foreman, Clayton Cook, was moving bales of rye hay from Wells’ stock with a red tractor and stacking them in rows on Meeks’ flatbed.

After laying the 14th bale, Cook hopped out of the tractor and walked over to Wells’ truck. Wells rolled his window down from the driver’s seat.

“I don’t think two more will go on,” Cook said, dirt smeared on the crown of his black cowboy hat.

“See what you can do,” Wells replied. “If someone is going to take the time to make this drive, I’ve got to make it worth it.”

After a few minutes of trying, Cook came back to the window.

“OK, how brave are you feeling?” he asked. “Do you want to stick some on the back?”

That’s how Cook managed to fit the last two bales, hanging over the edge of the bed and pushing the total to Wells’ goal of 16. Wells, Cook and Meeks then worked together to strap them down with neon yellow strips of nylon.

Meeks stopped to grab one last thing from the bed of her truck that she wanted to display across the back bales: Two flags that read “God Bless Texas.”

Farmers and ranchers, Meeks explained, don’t ask for help or handouts. She remembers how, in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita, it was communities stepping up like this that gave her the strength and ability to rebuild.

Still, she acknowledges that what they’re up against is far more than what feed and hay can fix.

“It’s losing animals, it’s not being able to feed your family, it’s the fear you feel because now you can’t pay the bank back, and you’re not sure you ever will,” Meeks said. “It’s hard to find the energy and the hope to start again.

“That’s the backbone of America — if they can’t, who can?”

For now, Wells and Meeks focus on the task in front of them. As Meeks got in her truck, Wells told her to head to a Wheeler County facility for donation distribution. From there, Wells said some of his drivers have been redirected straight to ranches in need.

“I’ll go wherever I’m needed,” Meeks said. Wells thanked her profusely before she started down the road.

“That’s one strong woman,” he said as Meeks drove out of view. “My kind of people.”

Saying ‘Yes’

Meeks was only one example of what Wells often referred to as the “power of saying yes.”

The weekend that followed Wells’ first Facebook post about collecting donations — when he realized how big this project was about to get — he reached out to Chuck Smith, general manager of the Northeast Texas Farmers Co-op in Sulphur Springs, to request special pricing on feed.

Wells said he knew the best thing he could do for sick animals is provide them with enough good nutrition to heal, but feed adds up quickly and Wells needed Smith’s help.

Smith said his “Yes” was a “no-brainer.”

“If I had a tornado come wipe me completely out, I would hope and pray that somebody would care enough to try and do what [Wells] is doing,” Smith said.

“He could’ve said no,” Wells said of Smith, “and the difference between yes and no — the difference he’s making — is somebody’s cattle getting fed out in the Panhandle today.”

Standing outside the feed mill Wednesday afternoon, Smith pointed to rows of 1-ton bags of feed that were propped up on wooden pallets, ready for transport. It’s all-stock grain, Smith said, meaning it can go to cattle, horses and goats.

“I wanted to make this as convenient as possible,” Smith said.

“Ten tons of feed was delivered to two ranches today,” Wells told Smith as another 2,000 pounds of feed pellets filled a bag.

“Wow, that tickles me to know somebody’s already being fed,” Smith replied, smiling wide.

“They’re not messing around out there,” Wells said.

Neither is Wells. This Friday, an 18-wheeler is heading out to the Panhandle with 22 tons of feed. On Saturday, he’s sending another with an additional 24 bags.

In total, Wells said he has racked up a nearly $20,000 bill at the mill. Donations have covered almost all of it.

‘Long-term commitment to a long-term problem’

Wells said he wants to send trucks out west for several weeks, but for that to be possible, he needs businesses to step up and help with larger donations. He needs gas cards, too, because the volunteer drivers want to make extra trips, but they can’t afford the fuel. He needs all the help he can get.

“There has to be a long-term commitment to a long-term problem,” he said. “That’s what I’m fighting, the decline in interest.”

There’s hardly enough time between each new call or comment to take any of this in: the days of grit, the dozens of selfless people raising a hand. Besides, Wells considers himself a realist, and the reality is that disaster fatigue too often cuts this kind of generosity short. He wonders if he would’ve even made a dent if this all stopped right now.

On the 30-minute drive from Sulphur Springs back to his ranch Wednesday, Wells’ phone rang four times. Two of the calls were about logistics for future pickups, one about a potential interview and one about a hay donation. Then, his phone lit up with another notification: $1,000 had just hit his Venmo account.

As long as fires are still burning, there is still work to be done.

Donations and contacts can be made through Lee Wells’ website.