Some farms begin with a carefully laid plan. T&S Farms began with a wagon stuck in the sand.

In the early 1900s, Ty Askew’s great-grandfather left Palo Pinto County and headed west by wagon, originally intending to look at a farm near Wells. Somewhere along the way, his wagon became stuck in the sand. After getting it pulled free, he turned back and spent the night in O’Donnell. The next day, he found his way to the land that would eventually become home.

More than a century later, the Askew family is still farming that same part of the South Plains. Today, Ty and his wife operate T&S Farms, where cotton remains the mainstay of their operation. They’ve also diversified into sunflowers and hay grazer, which helps support their cattle operation.

And just as the farm was passed from Ty’s great-grandfather to his grandfather, then to his father and eventually to him, another generation is now becoming part of the story. Ty’s son and son-in-law work alongside him in the family’s cattle operation.

For Ty, agriculture was never something he simply decided to pursue. It was part of how he grew up.

“I just grew up out here in this dirt,” he said.

Some of the most important lessons weren’t learned in a classroom. They came from working alongside his grandfather and learning to pay attention to the land — knowing when it was time to plant, recognizing when the moisture was right and understanding when a crop was ready to harvest.

Those lessons are difficult to capture in a manual. They’re learned over years of watching, working and listening. Ty began building an operation of his own while he was still in high school, borrowing money to purchase his first set of cows.

At the time, he had virtually nothing to his name. What he did have was a family history in agriculture, a willingness to work and relationships with people who understood the business. His father had already established a banking relationship there, so working with the same people felt natural. Over the years, those relationships became about more than financing.

“When you work with people, there’s a deeper connection when you go through those struggles and things,” Ty said.

Agriculture has a way of creating those connections. There are good years and difficult ones. New opportunities and unexpected challenges. Decisions made around kitchen tables, in pickups and standing at the edge of a field.

Having people beside you who understand those realities matters.

After generations of learning from the people who came before him, Ty has found himself in a new position. He’s now the one passing that knowledge forward and that realization has impacted him more than he expected.

The lessons his grandfather once taught him about planting, moisture and harvest are now part of a much larger inheritance — one that can be shared with his son, son-in-law and the generations that follow. “Now I realize, ‘Hey, I’m that guy now that’s passing on that knowledge.’”

Owning land that can be passed down, operations that grow and change, crops that look different from one generation to the next is one of agriculture’s most powerful legacies. But the knowledge, resilience and relationships built along the way are what allow a family operation to continue.

At AgTexas Farm Credit, we’re proud to work alongside farming families like the Askews as they build their operations today and prepare to pass them on tomorrow.