CALF_News_August_September_2021

25 CALF News • August | September 2021 • www.calfnews.net JOHNSON CONCRETE LIVESTOCK WATERERS THE BEST NAME IN CATTLE WATERERS www.JohnsonConcreteProducts.com Trusted by Livestock Owners Everywhere! JOHNSON CONCRETE LIVESTOCK WATERERS 109 East B Street Hastings, Neb. 68901 phone: (402) 463-1359 toll free: (800) 752-1670 Built with features to last, Johnson Waterers withstand punishing weather and prove to be dependable year after year. TOUGH, DEPENDABLE CONSTRUCTION  See us for all your water trough needs.  We are #1 in water trough parts and services. Designed for the most punishing environments, our livestock waterers stand the test of time and deliver performance unequaled in the ndustry. faculty, and numerous donors and other friends of his and the universities. He stressed that he owned a debt of gratitude to the many who, over the years, have supported him and A&M. From Skunks to Stallions Doc was raised on a cotton and corn farm in southeastern Texas. While still in grammar school, he got to know a friend’s brother who was a veterinarian in nearby Cameron. Young Charles figured out how to deodorize skunks and handle boar hogs. He became an aspiring assistant, although a stinky one. Doc’s mother was a school principal in Cameron. He smelled so bad that she made him ride in the back of a pickup on a cotton sack. He played basketball in high school and went to A&M on a scholarship. He got to College Station with $10 in his pocket and bunked in the college horse center. He “furnished” the place with prize money he won from a little rodeoing. He bought an old steel bed and initially used cardboard as a mattress. After eventually deducing that the basketball coach wasn’t completely honest with him, Graham informed him he was quitting and concentrating on getting an animal science degree. “I told him, ‘Feller, you lied to me,’ and gave him that ‘long finger,’” Doc declared.“I told him I never want to see you again.” After earning his DVM degree, he immediately started living up to his, and the dean’s, expectations. Throughout his still- vibrant career, Doc became one of the world’s most renowned equine veterinarians, a leader in Texas’ horse and cattle indus- tries and a tireless volunteer, advocate and youth mentor. Along with Dr.W. H. Cardwell, he built the Elgin Veterinary Hospital in the early 1960s, which grew into one of the nation’s largest equine veterinary facilities. Graham is now owner of a number of other businesses, including the 1,300-acre Southwest Stallion Station in Elgin, which has bred some of the top stal- lions and broodmares in the Quarter Horse industry. He is the only individual to serve as president for both the Texas Quarter Horse Association and the Texas Thor- oughbred Association and is the only person to be selected as Horseman of the Year by both associations. He has also been recognized by Texas A&M’s AgriLife, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences and CVMBS, as well as having been inducted into multiple halls of fame. South Texas beef producers know him as principal owner of Graham Land & Cattle Co., which operates a 30,000-head commercial feedyard in Gonzales, with backgrounding facili- ties for another 15,000 head. There are plenty of local custom- ers, as Gonzales County is typically one of the nation’s largest cow-calf producing counties. In 2014 he was honored by the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association as winner of the Texas A&M AgriLife Distinguished Texan in Agriculture Award. During his acceptance speech, he jokingly told the crowd he appreciated the award because “I helped make some of you ‘sumbitches’ rich.” Continued on page 28 