Craig Bowen: Renaissance Ranch Man

Profile

Craig Bowen: Renaissance Ranch Man

STORY BY LORIE A. WOODWARD

Despite his credentials as a wildlife biologist, agricultural economist, hunting guide, entrepreneur, land broker and a singer-songwriter with a newly inked development deal at a major Nashville label, Craig Bowen seems surprised to be pegged as a Renaissance Man.

People say that all the time, but I don’t see myself that way,” said Bowen, Partner/Broker Associate at the Grand Land Company in Austin. “Gaining knowledge, expanding my abilities, latching onto something new and mastering it…all make me happy. I’ve never been able to say no to learning something new.”

Learning to Love Land—and Music

Born in Amarillo, Bowen was adopted when he was one-month old. His parents reared their only child on family land situated within 30 miles of Snyder. His father, who took over the family farm when Craig was only 12, farmed dryland cotton and worked as a foreman for Scurry County. Cattle were a side business.

“Something about the livestock, the land and the life, especially the cowboy life, spoke to me,” Bowen said. “Dad never wanted me to work as hard as he did, so he encouraged me to study and probably wanted me to be an engineer, doctor, lawyer or something. Obviously, he didn’t get that, but I’m not a farmer so I made it that far.”

The family’s holdings were noncontiguous, but Bowen grew up investigating every inch of the 180-acre Home Place. It was his backyard and natural classroom.

“In the morning, I’d leave the house without a shirt, carrying a .22 rifle and with instructions to be home for supper—sometimes I didn’t make it back,” Bowen said. “It just felt like I could explore forever.”

While livestock captured his imagination, nature is where he satisfied his curiosity. Bowen learned to identify and collect plants early, often chewing mesquite sap instead of gum, and crept up on wildlife just to see how close he could get without spooking them.

“I was a feral country nerd,” said Bowen, laughing.

Despite his penchant for being outside, he enjoyed (and excelled at) the piano lessons his mother, who was a kindergarten teacher, insisted he take about the time he started first grade. Bowen continued as a committed piano student until he discovered the acoustic guitar when he was 14. While the guitar quickly became his first musical love, his newfound passion was supported by the music theory derived from his piano training.

Thanks to his college job as a field technician and hunting guide for Wildlife Systems, an outfitting firm based in San Angelo, Bowen spent a lot of time on isolated ranches alone with his guitar. He refined his skills, while he was pursuing his bachelor’s in wildlife ecology and master’s in agricultural economics from Texas A&M University.

His childhood was also shaped by stories, those he devoured in books and those that he absorbed from family, friends and local historians. Snyder was an outgrowth of a trading post and hide town that was established in 1878 at the height of commercial buffalo hunting. It gained national attention when a buffalo hunter shot one of seven white buffalos ever harvested by Anglos and the only one in Texas. (A white buffalo graces the cover of Bowen’s latest album, “Good Place to Be From.”)

His grandmother remembered the night the Dalton Gang called on her family’s farm. They traded an 1873 Colt Single Action Army Revolver better known as a Peacemaker for coffee and bread. His great-grandmother and his grandmother lived in the original farmhouse until their deaths. Bowen now has the revolver in his safe.

“Words and stories have always been powerful,” said Bowen, who began writing songs in earnest about 18 months ago and keeps a running list of phrases and ideas that currently numbers more than a thousand. “Inspiration can come from anywhere—a conversation, a story or a half glass of tequila.”

I know what any piece of land can do by studying it a bit—and can communicate it.

An Unplanned Journey

Bowen graduated from Texas A&M in August 2008 at the “worst possible moment to have degrees in wildlife and economics.” A week later he had completed all the requirements for his real estate license, which he anticipated would be a sideline.

Jobs were hard to come by, so he started his own business providing concierge wildlife and land management services to absentee landowners and lease hunters. As time passed, the lease hunters began asking Bowen to help them purchase their own ranches.

“They knew me. They knew what I stand for,” Bowen said.

“Helping them find the ranches they wanted was just a natural outgrowth of our relationship.”

In 2010, he joined his first brokerage and along the way, Bowen hired John Melnar. When Melnar and his wife Tracey launched the Grand Land Company in Round Rock in 2020, they invited him to join their team as a partner and broker associate. Bowen has been there ever since.

“Selling ranches is the best job, I’ve ever had,” Bowen said. “I’m comfortable in the world of land and landowners. And because of the way I grew up and the things I’ve learned in school and in life, I know what any piece of land can do by studying it a bit—and can communicate it.”

Plus, it makes him feel good to help people’s dreams come true. One of his favorite deals occurred early in his career. A grandfather was looking for a piece of property where his grandson could grow up outside. The boy’s excitement was palpable and contagious the day they drew up the contract for the 45-acre tract in Caldwell while they were sitting on the tailgate of Bowen’s pickup.

“That was the first time I realized that selling land was more than a financial pursuit and was a way to directly impact people’s lives, which is the kind of career that I’ve always wanted,” Bowen said. “Let’s be honest, though, I never planned any of this.”

Of course, the unplanned opportunity to impact people with his music is one of the driving forces behind his newest career. He calls his style “introspective country” and includes everyone from Metallica and Garth Brooks to James McMurtry and a host of Texas singersongwriters as influences. A pivotal album for him was Elton John’s second album and his only foray into country music, “Tumbleweed Connection,” that Bowen discovered as a child.

Over the course of the next year, Bowen will be working with some of Nashville’s top songwriters, vocal coaches and studio musicians to take his artistry to the next level. He will emerge with four songs.

“I’m still learning who I am as a musician, so success for me is putting out music that I enjoy,” Bowen said. “You have to look at it like sharing. I’m going to share what I have with the world, but I can’t control what people do with it, so I create songs that mean something to me in the hope that they will mean something to other people as well.”