A Way of Life

Local rancher lives and breathes her childhood dream … and the western culture

By Hilary Dartt

She’s a mother, a wife, the owner of several businesses, and an athlete. Not only is Sarah Kieckhefer living her dream, but along with her husband Rick and their daughter Kodi, she’s proudly cultivating the western way of life and the agricultural industry.

The Kieckhefers, owners of the K4 Ranches outside of Prescott and the 3T Feed Yard in southern Arizona and the Diamond A Cattle Company in Seligman Arizona, raise cattle, breed and train horses, and sell beef through their company, Gourmet Beef (see Gourmet Beef, page xx). They also rodeo; Sarah is a barrel racer and breakaway roper, and Rick is a team roper.

This lifestyle is nonstop: Sarah’s working from the time she gets up in the morning until after sundown every day at the ranch.

She spends time with Kodi in the morning, getting her off to school (Rick or his dad, John, generally take her in since they go into town most days). The workday starts with email and computer work, and then Sarah heads outside.

“This time of year [during spring], the mares are just starting to have babies,” she said, “so I go check and make sure everything is okay from the night. Then I start riding horses. I’ll go help the crew gather cattle and brand, and all that stuff, or we’ll start training with the colts.”

Everyone who works at the ranch has his or her own group of horses to train, although they switch out sometimes, depending on how the horses work with each trainer.

Most days, Sarah skips lunch and spends the afternoon roping; not just with her own horses but also with the horses they plan on selling at their annual production sale in September. The crew stays out until dark.

Finally, Sarah heads inside to cook dinner. She enjoys cooking, and says the family often has guests (her most stressful set of guests: eight chefs from prominent restaurants, who planned to buy Gourmet Beef).

“By the time I get done with dinner and cleaning up, it’s bedtime,” she said. “My husband gives me a hard time because I’m outside all day, and then I come inside and cook dinner and clean up, and then I lay down and I don’t go to sleep.”

She spends the last part of the day catching up on the day’s events through her phone.

Sarah has dreamed of living and breathing ranch life since she was a child.

Her family was in rodeo, and she said, “All I knew when I was young is that I wanted to do something with horses.”

When she and Rick first met and started dating, his family had horses.

“After we were married, his grandpa and dad turned over the breeding side of things to us, and I got to do what I wanted to do.”

Marrying into a longtime ranching family—seven generations deep—it was almost a given that Sarah would become involved with the actual ranching (see K4 History, page xx).

“Everybody gives me a hard time out there,” she said. “They call me the ranch manager because I’m at the headquarters, taking care of projects and making sure things get done.”

Meanwhile, Rick takes care of day-to-day logistics and delegating.

Family dynamics definitely come into play with a couple who work together and live together.

Fortunately, she said, “He and I both love to work, which is probably not great for relaxation. But that’s what’s nice about he and I in our relationship.”

Although Kodi isn’t “horse crazy” like Sarah and Rick are, she’s learning the ropes. She rides and works cattle and is even cultivating her own herd.

Time management can be a challenge: “Between Rick’s, mine, and Kodi’s schedule, and everything else we have going on,” Sarah said, “I print out the calendars, we have our days, who’s doing what and going where.”

If there’s anything Sarah does for fun, it’s riding. “It’s mind-clearing,” she said, adding, “Actually, I like to clean stalls, too. I put music on and it’s a stress-free job and you don’t have to think.”

Often, though, even a “for-fun” ride turns into a bit of work. For example, she said, just a few days before, she’d taken one of her colts out. “It was her first time to go do something, go pick around, and I ended up finding three cows. An hour later, she’d gotten them rounded up and put away, the colt was tired, and the day was through.”

She also enjoys participating in rodeo events; although she and Rick team rope together sometimes, she most often barrel races.

This year, Prescott’s World’s Oldest Rodeo will celebrate women in rodeo, and Sarah said women’s events—barrel racing and breakaway roping—are really growing.

“It’s been a men’s sport for so long,” she said, adding that the crowd really embraces barrel racing and is getting into breakaway roping.

“Women bring feminism to it,” she said – a contrast to the sport’s “rough-and-tough” characteristics.

While participation in many men’s events has fallen off a bit in the recent past, the women’s events fill fast. During the spring rodeo season, she said, the women’s events filled fast, and the men’s had fewer competitors.

Even while the Kieckhefers strive to maintain the western way of life, she said, they strive for constant improvement, too.

Rick, she said, “is a progressive thinker on, what has been the normal is not good enough.’ Every year we strive to get better and be more efficient.”

It’s a busy life, to be sure, Sarah said, but she wouldn’t change it. In fact, she said she can’t choose a favorite part: “I like it all.”

After all, it’s the life she always wanted.