Eight Miles from the Front Gate

“It was the summer of 1977, and I was at the Texas Capitol researching voting patterns for the political campaign I was working for,” writes author Norma Schreiner as she describes her meeting with rancher Charles Schreiner III. “I decided to drop by the office of one of my favorite house members, Jim Nugent. . . . Before his staff could announce me, he was bellowing, ‘Norma, come in here. There’s someone I want you to meet.’”

So began the tempestuous, yet mostly good-natured relationship between the author and the man she often called “Charlie Three,” scion of the historic Schreiner ranching family of the Texas Hill Country. Charles Schreiner III was largely responsible for saving the Texas longhorn from extinction by founding the Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America in 1964. The first bull and cow registered belonged to Charlie, and he grew the association from its initial membership of thirty to having members throughout the world by the time of his death. Amazingly, he promoted the breed with not one, but two cattle drives of longhorns across modern day Texas.

Their subsequent marriage would last only two years, but that time would place her on the legendary Y.O. Ranch during the centennial of its founding in 1880. Since the 1950s, the ranch began to stock exotic animals for hunting and breeding purposes year-round, a practice that has since become vital to many Texas ranches’ economic survival. Schreiner would see Y.O. as one of the first Texas ranches to add a pair of giraffes that have descendants still on the ranch to this day. 

Told with candor and good humor, Schreiner’s memoir of her time on the ranch and how those experiences have continued to shape her life to the present makes for entertaining and enlightening reading. A broad audience of general readers interested in Texas ranching culture and Texana will enjoy Eight Miles from the Front Gate: My Life on the Y.O. Ranch with Charles Schreiner III.