Jimmy Holub – Mouton, Texas
Jimmy Holub
Texas Beef Team member, Whitney Dutton, wrote the following email to pay tribute to her grandfather, Jimmy Holub. Please read on to learn about this dedicated rancher and retired dairy farmer from Moulton, TX.
“Good afternoon!
I wanted to reach out because my grandpa (the most amazing man and cowboy I know) turns 90 next month! I’ve been wanting to write to y’all for a while, but my step-grandma told me a story over Thanksgiving that made me smile, and I knew I finally needed to get this over to y’all!
My grandpa, Jimmy Holub, is a rancher and retired dairy farmer from Moulton, TX. When I tell people I run for the Texas Beef Team, he is 100% the actual person I am running for. My best childhood memories were those spent out on the pasture feeding cattle with him and just enjoying the slower-paced life (filled with scratch-off lottery tickets, Wheel of Fortune, orange floats, and kolaches). As a kid, I never really had an appreciation for how hard he worked. He was always just “Popo,” a big smile on his face, always joking around, and doing absolutely everything for his family.
He retired from the dairy years back, but he’s still a very active rancher. And he’s almost 90! This man does not know what it means to slow down or take time off, and it is all because of a deep passion he has for what he does. Nowadays, people might retire at 65 and then spend their time relaxing and traveling. Not Popo! He’s still waking up at the crack of dawn to feed the cattle, is out lassoing young calves to get them tagged, crawling up on the roof to put up Christmas lights (to my mother’s objections)… with no plans to ever stop. He LOVES his cattle.
Over Thanksgiving, his wife told me the story of how 20 years ago when they got married, they went on an Alaskan cruise for their honeymoon. Apparently, he was so torn up about being away from his cattle, he didn’t want to leave the room at all. This story gave me the biggest smile. In today’s culture, people hop around from job to job without a ton of emotional investment. To have that kind of love and dedication is much more rare, and I hope and pray it’s not something that ends with his generation.
Every time I put on my BEEF jersey, I know I am running for my grandpa and helping support him and all of the ranchers like him. Running a well-organized marathon using my “young” legs is nothing compared to the hard work they put in every single day. For them, there’s no sleeping in or just canceling due to less than desirable weather. It’s an honor to be able to help promote them because, Lord knows, they’re all way too humble to promote themselves.
Jimmy turns 90 on January 16th. That morning, he’ll be out feeding his cattle, just like every other morning. He’s the most incredible person I know, and I can’t think of anyone or anything more worth running for.
Big thank you to the BEEF TEAM for allowing us to represent such great people!!
Sincerely,
Whitney Dutton”
