Cooper High School graduate Klayton Ritchie’s attitude is pretty amazing for someone whose father passed away just after the start of his senior year, pushing him into the role of caretaker for the family’s 300 acres of farmland in Throckmorton.
Despite the loss and adulthood being thrust upon him at 18 years old, Ritchie insists he’s never had a bad day. Whether it’s showing pigs, steers, rabbits, lambs, or goats, Ritchie makes sure he has a good day. He doesn’t get down when a tractor won’t start, or a plow won’t hitch to a tractor in a timely fashion. Or when a truck breaks down on the side of the road, leaving him stranded and needing help.
“Every morning I pray and ask God to let Dad have a front-row seat for that day,” said Ritchie, who graduated on May 29 with his Cooper classmates. “And each day since my dad passed away, I’ve seen a bluebird, and I believe that’s Dad. Everywhere I go I see one, and, to me, that’s God answering my prayer to give Dad that front-row seat.
“My mom told me one day that she’s so mad about the situation because it’s not fair,” Ritchie added. “It’s probably not, but there’s a reason. I don’t know what it is and I’m not going to ask because I’m not going to get an answer. But I will one day.”
It’s that attitude that has sustained Ritchie after his father, Kent Ritchie, passed away on Aug. 24, 2021, at the age of 49 after a month-long stay in the hospital.
“I remember going to the hospital and just sitting with him for three or four hours at a time, and I would just talk to him,” Klayton said. “We did everything together. When he passed away, I told my mom that my dad and I never had a bad day together. Even if we went through something hard, by the end of the day we were laughing and smiling about it.
“He always said the same thing when I was struggling with something and I would ask him for help,” Klayton recalled. “He said ‘You do it because I’m not always going to be here to help you.’ I didn’t like hearing that at the time because in my eyes he was Superman; he was invincible. He used to call me at 2:30 or 3 in the morning when he was driving his truck just to talk. Now I wish my phone would ring at 2:30 or 3 a.m. so we could talk again.”
Klayton, who played three years of varsity tennis for Cooper before giving up the sport before his senior year to help take care of his family, inherited his father’s love of a good story, working with his hands, race cars, farming, and trucks. He also inherited his father’s willingness to help those in need.
Take, for example, what Klayton did earlier this year after the Eastland Complex Fire in March destroyed more than 54,000 acres over 11 counties and destroyed 86 homes, including most of the town of Carbon, Texas.
Klayton said he was sitting in class one morning when he started thinking of different ways he could help the farmers and ranchers who lost millions of dollars in livestock and land. After talking to Cooper teacher and Student Council advisor Jimmy Pogue about his idea, Klayton set about putting his plan into action.
“I started calling around and finding out what people needed,” Klayton said. “I raised a bunch of money by coordinating with the Student Council, and I went and bought eight round bales of hay to carry over to Carbon. Then I showed up and the Student Council had gotten toiletries and other household items donated, enough to fill a trailer.”
Klayton and his family made a couple of trips to Carbon to deliver the hay, toiletries, household items, and other necessities such as wire, fencing and tools for farmers and ranchers. He spent a few hundred dollars of his own money to help purchase other equipment.
“We drove through where the fire had gone through and we set up in a burned-out field,” Klayton said. “As soon as we unloaded a bale of hay, someone was loading it into their trailer and hauling it off so they could feed their livestock. They were pretty grateful to get what we had brought. People were living in campers that had been donated, and some people living in tents because their houses had burned to the ground. But one thing that made an impact on me was when one of the guys who was working there told us to get some food. That hit me hard because they were going through their adversity, but they were still thinking about others.”
Then, in mid-May, when the Mesquite Heat fire destroyed another 11,000 acres in Taylor County, Klayton was back at it, helping out a friend whose family needed help gathering their livestock.
“I texted a friend of mine (Gabe Melchor) and asked if they needed help moving any of their livestock off their ranch, and he said he thought they were OK,” Klayton said. “I told him if he needed anything to let me know.”
Then the winds shifted and, suddenly, the Melchors – who lived on the edge of the fire – weren’t OK.
“Gabe texted me the next night at about 9:30 p.m. and said, ‘We need you now,’ ” Klayton said. “After I got my trailer, we hauled cows until about 2:30 or 3 a.m. and then went to school later in the day. After hauling all of those cows, we still had eight bulls in the field. I told him if we could get to them later that day, we should get to them because we didn’t want anything to happen to them.”
Melchor told Klayton that his father was near their property, but Taylor County Sheriff’s deputies weren’t letting anyone through a closed road. Klayton, however, figured the worst that could happen was he would get turned back, so he decided to head back out to the property – now fully in the path of the fire – and try to rescue the eight bulls.
Reaching the roadblock, he turned his truck into the ditch and bypassed the deputies, and headed toward the Melchors’ property. Klayton helped the Melchor family rescue all but one of the bulls.
“My only thought was that there were animals out there in danger and we needed to get them out of there,” Klayton said. “If it had been my animals, I would have wanted someone to do the same for me.”
Klayton’s heart and actions didn’t surprise Pogue in the least.
“Klayton has such a great heart,” Pogue said. “When he sees a need, he meets it. He does things like this against the backdrop of his dad’s death during the first semester. I wish I had met his dad. He would be proud to know that he has raised a son that has a genuine concern for others. Klayton is fun to be around, a light; one that makes the people around him feel better.”
Those words could also have been attributed to his father, Klayton said.
“My dad was always open to helping anyone who needed it,” Klayton said. “He didn’t know a stranger, and never would have. If you needed help, he was there to help. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen him pull over and help someone on the side of the road change a flat tire. I grew up around that and it rubbed off on me. If someone needs help, you do your best to help them.
“My dad mentored me to be who I am today,” he said. “I hear myself say the same things he would say and see myself act as he acted. I was mentored by him to become what I am today.”
And from his front-row seat, Kent Ritchie surely approves of what he sees.
