The Day That Everything Changed
It was as if the earth got knocked out of its orbit around the sun. The rightful order of things, what had been certain no longer was. That day, everything changed.
May 4, 2016, is the day everything changed for Wyoming cattle ranchers Jim, Catherine, and Kacy Atkinson. It’s the day Jim and Catherine’s son Coulter Day (C.D.), heir to the Atkinson Ranch and Kacy’s younger brother, died of an arrythmia. Until then, everything was going according to plan. C.D., as ranch kids do, had moved away to find himself but had just returned to take over the ranch.
“C.D. had left for town a few days before to shoe some horses,” Kacy remembers. “He was headed back home when his heart just stopped beating. The coroner figured it was instant. His pickup was still in gear, he traveled quite a ways. Eventually neighbors passed by and saw the truck. They stayed with him until the sheriff arrived, and he told my parents that night.”
C.D.’s unexpected death left the Atkinson family devastated, as if the earth got knocked out of its orbit around the sun. The rightful order of things, what had been certain no longer was. That day, everything changed.
Kacy and C.D. were raised on the family’s rugged, historic Sheep Creek Ranch near Laramie Peak. Eighty miles from Laramie, Wyoming, and 40 miles from the nearest paved road, their great grandfather, Felix Atkinson, homesteaded the high elevation ground there in 1895. He liked the way the wind blew the snow away at 7,500’ above sea level and sheep had access to open water. He and his wife, Lizzie, raised five sons. It wasn’t easy. In 1919, he lost his livestock in a blizzard and 10 years later during the Depression, Felix lost the ranch. He died soon after.
Kacy and C.D.’s grandfather Day, Felix’s middle son, had 3 sons. He homesteaded his own land and eventually bought back Felix’s homestead. His youngest son, Jim (Kacy’s father), inherited the ranch and began raising black Angus. In 1979, he and Catherine bought another ranch in the mountains 12 miles east on Antelope Creek. Jim went on to be a leader in Wyoming’s cattle industry and in 2017 was inducted into the Wyoming Cowboy Hall of Fame. He still ranches both places. Rather, Jim and Kacy do.
From the time they could walk, Jim taught both kids how to ride, run cows, and manage his day-to-day operations, although they all knew C.D. was his heir. He loved teaching them both about the ranch and the land he loved. They were sponges and eventually became competent hands. Jim helped them start their own herds.
“Dad taught me to love calving,” said Kacy. “There’s something about bringing new life into the world, seeing a calf get up and stand for the first time, figuring out how to nurse. While their ultimate purpose is feeding us, it’s my job to care for and give them the best life possible.”
Though she loved the ranch, long before that May fourth, Kacy, like her brother, had left the ranch too. There was no future for her there.
“I was determined to learn all I could. I thought I might be a rancher’s wife someday. That I’d take the skills and knowledge I had and apply them elsewhere.”
So she went to college, got a master’s degree in speech communication, and an MBA. She built her reputation, becoming a respected ag extension agent and public speaking teacher, and she worked in leadership development. She advocated for the Beef Checkoff Program and became a Beef Quality Assurance trainer. She traveled the country as a keynote speaker and hosted a national award-winning podcast called Ag-Vo-Kacy. She was on another trajectory when C.D. died.
“There was never a question that my brother would end up with the original ranch that has been passed down from generation to generation. He was the male heir. That’s the typical path in agriculture.”
One day after C.D. died, though; she wasn’t thinking about her future. She was on her way home when a friend called to tell her that C.D.had married less than a month before he died. Back home, unsure about how to tell her parents, she sat on the porch with C.D.’s dog Bam and cried. His new wife called them and broke the news; and because he didn’t have a will, C.D.’s assets became his wife’s. There was a new shareholder in the ranch, one who hung on for two-and-a-half years before settling. It traumatically impacted the family and the ranch.
“She got everything he owned,” Kacy said, “It took years to settle. It did so much damage not only to all of us, but the ranch too.”
The family’s plot line is worthy of a TV miniseries, and it’s the reason that when she leaves the ranch to speak to groups she (among other things) about the importance of succession planning. She doesn’t want anyone to have a story like hers.
On that May fifth there was no question where Kacy needed to be: with her parents on the ranch so she left her job for a month.. She’d just been promoted and while she knew she needed to return to work temporarily, she also knew then that she would return home permanently. A year after C.D. died, that’s exactly what she did.
“When C.D die, Dad was calving, irrigating, and feeding cows. I knew he wasn’t going to be equipped to do that so I went home to help keep the wheels on the bus for as long as it took. But the longer I stayed, the more apparent it was I’m needed, that there’s nowhere else I want to be, and once I did right by my job, I came home for good.”
“Kacy adds: “Now over seven years later, Dad’s turning 80 next year and I won’t let the blood, sweat, and tears of four generations go to waste. When I told my parents I was coming home, they expected it was short term, but I chose this. It was an easy choice. I don’t think they thought I would stay. I did.”
Kacy was 37 then. She’s 43 now. She willingly walked away from the career she’d built for herself. Her father didn’t send her away. ””Kacy helps make major decisions and if I have to be gone for any reason, I know things are in good hands,” says Jim. Many years of working under his tutelage, education, industry involvement, and work experience prepared her.
“I glean as much from him as I can, knowing he won’t always be here. I’ve been working these ranches since I was little I’m a good student. Just because he’s never seen me do it, he sometimes doesn’t mean I can’t, and I’m constantly showing I can. I was raised here. I watched him my entire life.” She knows what to do and brings her knowledge and skills to the table.
“I think Dad appreciates spending the last seven years with me. I’m committed. Through the good, the bad, the hard, and the ugly, I intend to stay.”
Kacy seldom thinks about what she’s given up. “We live in the mountains. We get snowed in during winter and I hate snow and cold. We’re isolated. I don’t go out for dinner with friends very often, and I don’t have a husband, which sometimes is sad because I could really use the help. But I understand what I signed up for. For better or worse, this is the path God put me on, so I walk it the best I can. There’s purpose in this.”
Kacy’s big on purpose. “It’s easy to find it in agriculture,” she said. “It’s a cliche, but we’re feeding the world. We’re environmental stewards of the land, we provide healthy habitat for wildlife and take care of innocent creatures. I go out and do something deeply meaningful every single day.”
And though her future is uncertain, Kacy has begun painting a vision of what life on the ranch will look like long term. “I see pastures full of beautiful Charolais/Angus cross cows, which Dad will hate. I’ve turned them into gentle cake monsters that come on the run I envision somebody beside me along for the ride and he’s just as passionate about the land, wildlife, and catle as I am. We have a quiet but meaningful life.”
“I see myself wintering somewhere lower with the livestock in a lot less snow. I see a big herd of mule deer here because I’ve managed things well. Mostly, I see myself growing old, carrying the legacy on.”
Kacy hopes to continue her speaking career too. “It brings me joy. I’m an active member of the agricultural community, secure in the knowledge that I do the right things for the right reasons. I want to be a part of a community I love. Life is balancing act. So is ranching. Thriving and holding on through good and bad times. I see myself doing all of that.”
“Above all,” Kacy adds, “I want my great grandfather proud of who I am and what I’ve done. I never knew him, but I see him looking down saying, ‘Man, , she did good.’ Grateful that I’m carrying on his legacy.”
But in the short term, Kacy’s got cows to preg check, fences to fix, bulls to get to the sale barn, and cows to ship for the winter. She, Jim, and Catherine will stay on the ranch with the bulls, horses, replacement calves, and coming 2 and 3-year-olds, while the heart of the herd will go this year to a lower elevation about 60 miles east, something they’ve done since the winter of 2002. Next spring she’ll focus on fixing fence again and on making repairs to the irrigation reservoir.
These days she’s never unaware that her family’s on the cusp of another generational change and that the future of the Atkinson Ranch is up in the air. While she wants to inherit both ranches and has worked hard to earn her shot, she acknowledges that she’s still a woman in a man’s world.
“Much of agriculture is still patriarchal,” she says. “While I can quote the USDA statistic that 36% of agricultural operations today are headed by a woman, there’s still a long way to go. It’s heartbreaking knowing women across agriculture are still disqualified from an inheritance that ought to be rightfully theirs simply because they’re the wrong gender. And yet it still happens too often, because that bias is so ingrained most don’t even realize they have it. It has to be acknowledged and changed. It’s time.”
Kacy’s great-grandfather had five boys, her grandfather had three boys. “Patriarchy is part of our heritage like so many others. Had I truly wanted to come home and ranch, I don’t know if there would have been room for me. We have the land my parents bought and the generational family ranch. My brother was going to inherit the generational land outright because he was the son and would always be an Atkinson. I would have inherited a piece of the ranch my parents bought, so I could have a small part of the land I was raised on.”
Kacy knows that she may not ultimately inherit both ranches. There’s been talk that the generational ranch may go to a non-ranching male cousin with sons, leaving her father’s direct line but remaining in the Atkinson name. C.D, like her, had no heirs when the ranch shares were left to him and no way to know what his future might have held. But if retaining her last name determines the right to inherit, she’s keeping hers.
“I’m 43 years-old, I’ve spent years building a reputation under my name. I’ve worked hard to bring value and honor to it, to make it mean something and wouldn’t give it up, even if I married. It’s more than the Atkinson family name. It’s my name.”
Regardless of the outcome, Kacy keeps working hard for the ranch’s future and her own because that’s the kind of rancher Jim and Cathy raised her to be.
Not a day goes by that she doesn’t think about how life has changed since losing C.D. She works to build a future she never imagined but is proud of nonetheless, and focuses on the legacy she’s building for herself. She hopes to be a mentor for young women, to make it easier for them to be in this world. And Kacy prays that the ranches that made her – both of them, because of and despite the day that changed everything – will become part of her legacy too, and that she will proudly carry on what Felix started so long ago.
© 2024, Teri Murrison, photos courtesy of Kacy Atkinson. Story originally published in the Spring 2024 issue of Range Magazine.