auction representative

Joe Fenn started herding cattle when he was five. Now, more than 50 years later,
he’s still ready to help folks gather up, pair up and sell their calves.

In 1951, a horse fell on Joe Fenn’s dad and broke all of Button Fenn’s ribs on one side and punctured his lungs. Joe had just graduated high school at San Marcos Academy, and was considering a future that included studying medicine.

The accident shifted his focus to running the family cattle business for his mother, older sister and younger brother while his dad recovered. It was a year before Button could get back on a horse and by that time, Joe was hooked.

“Then I got ‘the disease’ and that ended school,” Joe said in a 1993 article about Button Fenn in The Cattleman. “All I’ve ever wanted to do since then was to be in the cow business.”

For 53 years, Fenn has done just that, in various capacities. Mona, his wife of 45 years, has been on this adventure, too, sharing life, family and the trials of gathering cattle from Coastal Bend pastures.

We sat around a table at Hinze’s Barbeque on Highway 59 in Wharton, with Joe and Mona Fenn and Sloan Williams, V8 Ranch, Hungerford, in early May.

While the rain poured down in buckets outside, the stories flew fast inside when Williams and the Fenns reminisced about cattle deals, traders and bankers.

For 20 years, Fenn has been a field representative for the auction markets at Edna and Wharton. These are roughly equidistant from his home in West Columbia and are owned by Billy Schwertner, who also owns the auction in Lockhart.

As a field representative, Fenn helps auction market clients gather and prepare their cattle for sale. His clients run the gamut of experience, as do the working conditions.

One trait that stands him in good stead under all these conditions is his ability to work cattle and memorize them.

“I thought I was pretty good with cattle,” Williams says, pointing his finger at Fenn across the table, “but now he’s the best when it comes to knowing cattle and pairing up cattle, I promise you. He’s got a memory like an elephant.

“I guarantee you, I can have a cow that’s 20 years old and he could have seen her when she was a four-year-old and he’ll remember that cow,” Williams says.

Mona agrees, saying they are forever getting phone calls from people needing Fenn’s help pairing up the cows and calves. “And he’s never seen the cows before,” she says.

Fenn just shrugs, spreads his hands and says, “The cow will tell you that’s her calf. You just have to watch her.” Easier said than done.

Fenn learned his skills from Button, who was recognized as one of the best cowboys and cowmen of his time. A lot of time, a lot of observation and a lot more time taught the Fenn father and son about cattle production and behavior.

For Joe, his time with cows started when he was just five. Mona remembers, “Mr. Jack Garrett told me that the first time he saw Joe was in 1938, that would have made Joe five and Mr. Jack about 25. Joe, one of his Daddy’s cowboys and his Daddy were driving a herd of cattle from Hitchcock to Arcola down Highway 6. Joe was in the front riding a little pony called Dime.”

Joe continues, “There’d be about four of us and Daddy would be in the truck and he’d tell me, ‘Now, you go ahead on and get in the front because those cows know where to go.’ And they did!”

About the time Fenn was seven years old, nylon ropes were new and interesting to young cowboys. Button gave young Fenn a 20-foot nylon rope and Joe started taking lessons from Curly Williams, a cowboy working for Button. They apparently didn’t see much need to let the elder Fenn know about these lessons.

Mona says, “Joe was riding little Dime. They were driving some cattle and a steer ran off, so Joe roped it. The rope was tied to his saddle horn.”

Little Dime might have had a big heart, but he wasn’t enough horse to hold the steer and was being dragged. “So Joe gets off Dime to help the little horse hold the steer,” Mona says. How? Seven-year-old Joe thought he could help by holding the bridle to make Dime stand still.

“About that time, Mr. Button rode up and said, ‘Son, you better give me that rope.’” Mona says laughing.

In the late 1970s, Forrest Warren ran cattle with partners J.C. Smith and Doug Florence on land leased from John Mecam on the Gulf Coast at Hitchcock. This interesting site was a former blimp base and had been used in the coastal surveillance program during World War II.

Fenn went to work for Warren and the FSW Cattle Company in 1978 and stayed with him until Warren’s fatal heart attack at age 52 in 1984.

The Fenns speak fondly of the late Mr. Warren. “He was a very personable man, but not into small talk,” Fenn remembers of the self-made inventor. Shortly after Warren’s passing, Fenn was encouraged by both Louis Pearce Jr. and Floyd “Sonny” Moore, to talk to Billy Schwertner at the Wharton auction. Fenn went to work for Schwertner in 1984 and thinks highly of his business abilities and ethics.

Sloan Williams nods from across the table, agreeing with the Fenns on Schwertner’s good character and the conversation turns to a story about the colorful Sonny Moore.

“I knew Floyd (Senior) well,” Williams says of Sonny’s father. “Sonny’s granddaddy told him, ‘Sonny, you’ve got to change your ways. Anybody that does like you do is going to have to go broke at least three times in his lifetime.’” Williams continues, “Sonny saw me the other day and he said, ‘You know what? You remember Granddaddy telling me that?” Williams said he remembered. “Sonny said, ‘I can remember that first time and I can feel that second one coming on, but I don’t know when the third is going to be.”

Fenn adds, “Sonny’s granddad could look at a calf and tell you what he’d be worth when he got through eating -- what he’d weigh when he got ready to kill him.

Prices for steers, heifers and even older cows have been unbelievably good this year. What’s going on? How long will it last? What does the man who’s been out in the field for 20 years see?

Fenn answers, “People are going to sell four weight (400-pound) calves this year. They’re bringing $1.25. They are selling lots of four-and-a-half weight calves right now. And this fall, that numbers going to be short again. Everybody’s calf crop in this country is short. I haven’t worked anywhere this spring that the calf crop was big.”

Williams agrees saying his calves came late this year. “That’s it,” Fenn nods. “Last spring was dry. That makes a big difference in the whole thing. You go north and you don’t see as many cows and calves as you do in this country.”

Williams comments that some of the special female sale heifers are selling for more than “any good cow and calf should be bringing.” How long will this run of prices last? Fenn admits he doesn’t know, “But I think it’s going to last longer than we think. Cement is taking a lot of country east of us over here -- Brazoria and Galveston counties. Cement is taking it all.”

Along with the development and pavement encroaching on the ranching land, Fenn sees fewer people keeping fewer heifers from the calf crop. “They might keep six or 10, but I don’t know but one person keeping big numbers of heifers. They are keeping older cows. But, one day they will have to start keeping back the heifers. Yesterday, at Edna, half of the run was cows. That’s not normal. But with cows selling high like they are, people are selling their old cows.

“But, Sloan,” he leans across the table, “you’d be surprised sitting at a sale how many cows four and six years old, come through the ring that never had a calf,” Fenn observes.

Williams answers, “They hadn’t worried about it when they were cheap, but now they’ve gotten high, they kind of look at them.” Fenn nods saying, “That’s it. But an old cow will have you a calf a lot more regular than a young cow.”

The national talk these days is about identifying every food animal back to its origin. The goal is to conduct surveillance for animal disease and to be able to backtrack an animal in 48 hours. This will take identification of premises, or each ranching operation, plus an aggressive program to identify each animal with an ear tag, either electronic or just plain plastic.

There’s a sizeable gap between the plan and practical implementation. Who will to stand in the gap? Fenn says it’s probably going to be auction markets.

“We know the auction is where the job will fall. These people out here in the country, they are not going to do this animal ID thing. They are just not equipped to do it. If it costs any great amount, they won’t do it.

“We know the markets are going to have to build another facility to handle these calves, because every animal that comes in there will have to go through a chute individually” to receive an ear tag for identification.

“Down here in this country, so many people don’t have but 20 cows. If you go to talk to these ranchers about buying a better bull, they are not even listening.” Fenn gives an example of one client who takes a low-input approach to ranching. This client runs up to 500 cows and is reluctant to spend more than $1,000 on a new herd bull. His calves leave his ranch to go straight to market.

“Let me give you a for instance. This man I helped Sunday. The only cattle that he ships, they never go down a chute. We load out of a gate. He sells what he can catch.

“Here’s another man up the road from where we live. He pens his cattle once a year. We ship the calves and they turn the cows back out. He hasn’t bought a bull in 19 years. The cattle are gathered by helicopter and from the rice fields. Now, how is he going to tag a calf? There are a lot of people who do just like these people. I’d say 40 percent are that way,” from the Coastal Plain up through the eastern part of the state.

“The premise identification will be their only way to identify their animals. Then the auction market will have to be equipped to put those numbers in the ears and read them. When they come out with an ID plan that we have to do, we’ll do it, but until then …,” he shrugs. “These are the thoughts everywhere,” Fenn says. “The LMA (Livestock Marketing Association) keeps a close watch on this issue” and recognizes that a national animal identification program will require the help of the auction markets to make it workable, Fenn says.

Fortunately, the folks in the Coastal Bend region have people like Joe Fenn around to help them gather up their cattle, to help pair up cows and calves before sale day, and to help them fit into the national identification program, when it is released.

A Gulf Coast cattle industry fixture for more than 50 years -- from a five-year-old on little Dime, to a graduating senior taking over while his dad recovered, to 20 years helping people get their cattle ready for market – Fenn is still ready to provide his cow sense to the people who want his help.

Sidebar

This is a True Story …

Lionel Chambers and I sat at Hinze’s BBQ for three hours with Joe and Mona Fenn and Sloan Williams. In addition to talking with Joe Fenn about the auction market business and his work in the industry, we had hoped to capture some stories about the people who make the cattle business interesting around Coastal Bend area. We were pretty sure these two gentlemen might be able to help us.

Some of the stories didn’t make it into print, but here are a few that came from our conversation.

Arky Rogers

Williams asked Lionel Chambers, “You remember Arky Rogers from Florida? We were looking at the cattle. We drove up there and this fella introduced himself and he said, ‘Mr. Rogers, what kind of business are you in?’

“Arky said, ‘I’m a community servant. I help people in and out of the cow business.’”

The Frugal Rancher

Williams remembers, “One time old man Pete Bryce and I went out and moved some cows for a client. We had to take the gate off the crowd pen to put a truck chute up there. I said, ‘Mr. (Hawes) Vineyard, you’re going to have to stand here and keep these cows out of the chute.’

“Instead of staying in the catwalk, he crawled over in the pen. An old cow ran at him and he grabbed at her. She spun him around and broke his ankle. We brought him back here to Wharton. I went back, unloaded my help, Lyle, and came back to the hospital at Wharton. He was still sitting in the waiting room. The nurse said ‘Mr. Vineyard you can take that shirt off, but I’m going to cut those pants off.’ He said, ‘Not my pants you’re not.’ And he sat there and took those pants off.

“My friend Pete says to him, ‘I used to work for your daddy and when he’d get his cows in the pen, he’d take his shirt and pants off and hang them on the sun visor in his truck. I asked him one day, ‘Mr. Bob, how come you do that?’ He said, ‘Son, those clothes cost money. That hide will grow back.’’”

High priced bull

Williams continues, “This is a true story. A fella in New Mexico had 400 registered Red Angus cows he wanted to sell. He was a wealthy man, but he wanted to go do mission work. So Arky went out and looked at them. This fella said, ‘Mr. Rogers would you be interested in these cows?’ and Arky said, ‘Yeah I will.’ So he bought the 400 cows.

“This fella says, ‘Mr. Rogers, I’ve got a bull, would you be interested in that bull?’ He went and got that bull and was leading him out and said, ‘What do you think of him Mr. Rogers?’ Arky said, ‘Well, I’ll give $1,000 for him, but he really won’t weigh out that much.’

“The fella was taken aback and called his son to go in the house and get a copy of that check -- he had it framed -- where he had bought this bull at Denver for $32,000. It was the International champion. He said, ‘Look what I gave for this bull.’ Mr. Rogers said, ‘Look my friend, I don’t want your problems, I just want to buy your bull.’”

J.W. Sartwelle

As a young man, Williams worked for J.W. Sartwelle, the founder of Port City Stockyards, which at that time was in Houston. “I was working down in the yards down in Houston. Unless you are bonded, you can’t do any trading,” he pauses. “So in the evenings when we’d shut down, we’d stay there and receive cattle and people would come in there and want to sell them and, you know, want to get their money. And, I had a little money, or I could borrow a little money, and so I’d buy them,” and sell them the next day in the cash sale.

“Mr. Sartwelle would call me. If they called you from the office, everybody could hear it. ‘Sloan come to the office. Mr. Sartwelle wants to talk to you.’ This fella said, ‘I told you he was going to get you again.’

“I went up there and he said, ‘Sloan you cannot buy and trade on this yard if you are an employee unless you are bonded.’ I said, ‘Mr. Sartwelle, they just wanted to sell ‘em. I bought ‘em. Your yard was closed down.’ He said, ‘You cannot do it. There’s been time you’d have 100 head of cattle here and you weren’t supposed to have one here unless they shipped it from Navsota where your place is. We just can’t be having it.’

“I said okay. I didn’t tell him I was going to quit, but I’d tell him okay. He’d call me up there and he’d ream me out. He was a good man.”

Louis Sklar

Joe Fenn had fond memories of a cow trader named Louis Sklar. “Mr. Louis was the most honest cow trader I ever met. He would not beat you in a trade. He was not going to do you wrong. There was no way. Everything was going to be just right. Dad and Mr. Louis pastured cattle together for a long time.

“He carried Daddy over to Louisiana one time. Over there in the woods he had his cattle on one side of the road and Daddy had his on the other side of the road. It was all land that had just been recently fenced. It had been free range before they fenced it. Abraham Land Company owned it. Mr. Louis leased it.

“I can remember going over there with Mr. Louis and Daddy. One morning we got on horses and rode. Half a mile down that fence, the wire was cut between each post. All five wires.

“At first we thought the locals didn’t like folks coming in there and fencing. But later on we found out that the guy they had watching the water wells and stuff over there for Mr. Louis and my dad, he was catching people’s hogs. That’s the reason they were mad at us, because we had him hired.”

International travel

Williams served as president of the American Brahman Breeders Association during the years Wendell Schronk served as executive vice president. The two men had ample opportunities to travel together, domestically and internationally. “It got to where he could sign my name better than I could,” Williams says.

Williams had a client who owed him a good bit of money, so Williams arranged for them to meet during a flight layover to make the payment.

“A fella owed me a lot of money. I was a judge in the show at Ecuador and was coming back through Florida and had to change planes. I called him and he said, ‘If you will meet me I’ll just pay you that money.’ I said ok, I’ll be there tomorrow.”

When the time came to meet at the airport, Williams and Schronk came upon the gentleman with the payment – the cash payment. “He had a big box, like a bank records box, and I said, ‘Man, what is this?” and he said, ‘The money I owe you.’

“Wendell looked at me and started walking off, but I needed that money so bad I just couldn’t leave it. I broke out in a cold sweat. I had my suitcase and I went to the restroom and got all that money and I was putting it in my pajamas, underwear and everything. I started walking through the airport and Wendell wouldn’t walk with me.

“We got home and Mollie said, ‘What are you doing with this money?’ She couldn’t sleep a wink. We hid money under the mattress, in the refrigerator, in the freezer.”

On anniversaries

Williams remembers, “One day we had some cattle out over here getting out on the road. Mollie and I were over there getting them back in. We were patching this fence and I had her stapling and I was pulling the wire. She said, ‘Sloan do you know what today is?’ and I said, ‘Yeah it’s a Thursday, why?’ She said, ‘This is our anniversary and here we are out here patching fence.’ I said, ‘We’d better stop at the Dairy Queen and get us a hamburger to celebrate, because I’m starving to death.’”