Member Profile

Steven and Jackie Harker

Some Things Just Go Together

Article by LORIE A. WOODWARD Photos courtesy of STEVEN AND JACKIE HARKER

Steven Harker grew up fishing and became a hunter in college. Jackie, however, didn’t start hunting until after the two were married. She was uncertain at first, but has become an avid hunter, including this fine oryx. Some things just go together like peanut butter, jelly and sliced bread or Steven and Jackie Harker, land and TWA.

“I’m not even sure how we found TWA, but I’m sure glad we did,” said Jackie, who along with husband Steven, joined the organization in 2003. “We’ve never been as involved in anything as we are in TWA, because it speaks to us on so many levels.”

The couple actively embraces all three legs of TWA’s metaphorical stool: Conservation Legacy, Hunting Heritage and advocacy.

“As native Texans, we know how big and diverse the state is,” Steven said. “We have embraced all three legs because we need them all to help keep Texas a great place to live.”

Both Harkers have served as directors since 2014, are trained as Huntmasters and volunteered on youth hunts introducing inner city youth to the outdoors, assisted with field days, and participated in numerous Boots on the Ground sessions at the Texas Legislature. They regularly donate auction items and purchase hunts during Convention as well as contribute to TWAF.

They’re both long-time members of the Membership Committee, where they also served as Region 6 co-chairs and as part of Team Houston’s launch committee. In addition, Jackie is part of the Conservation Legacy Committee as well as the Women of the Land Working Group. Steven has served on the Legislative Committee for several years.

They are, indeed, very committed and active TWA members. “Early on, we both became Life Members because we realized that we were in it [TWA] to stay,” Steven said.

LIFE

With the exception of one short stint in banking, Jackie spent her entire career in the energy business. Her time in banking proved to be pivotal because she and Steven, whose entire career was devoted to banking and financial services, worked on the same floor.

Over time, the former colleagues became a couple. In October 1992, they stood in front of family and friends amid the blossoms at the Antique Rose Emporium in Independence, exchanging vows.

Thirty years later, they move back and forth through a conversation—and life—with the confidence, ease and laughter of people who consider themselves better together.

“It doesn’t seem like 30 years,” Jackie said.

“Time has flown,” Steven agreed.

“He had to knock off some of my rough edges,” teased Jackie, laughing. “Time gets by when you have your hands full.”

At which, Steven good naturedly rolled his eyes, shook his head and grinned.

People who grow together generally have their feet planted on some common ground. In the case of the Harkers, they share a love of the outdoors that can be traced to their childhoods.

While Jackie was reared in Nederland, between Beaumont and Port Arthur, her mother’s family owned land in Polk County. On weekends, holidays and during the summer, the McNulty family would pack up and head into the pines to spend time with relatives. The cousins helped with cattle, rode horses and explored the woods.

“I’d leave the house like a normal child and come back covered in dirt with my socks off because I had filled them with rocks,” Jackie said. “As a kid, there wasn’t a time when those woods weren’t part of my life.”

Steven was born in Houston and lived there until he was 10 years old. Then, his parents moved their family to Simonton. Family lore holds they “followed the road grader out” to the property that they eventually bought.

From then on, Steven toted a pellet gun and fished the Brazos River. As a teenager, he and friends earned spending money by selling fresh caught catfish to a local meat market. It wasn’t until college, though, that hunting became a sister passion to angling.

“In college, I met people who had access to land and shared it with me,” said Steven, who enjoys wingshooting, waterfowl and whitetail hunting. “Hunting became a passion that I pursued.”

Jackie didn’t become a hunter until after they married, but first she became an avid sport shooter. She encountered shotgunning as part of a Becoming an Outdoorswoman weekend hosted by TPWD.

“It was before cell phones, so I had to wait until I got home to tell Steven he had to buy me a shotgun,” Jackie said.

Her enthusiasm was contagious and she introduced him to sporting clays. Today, they participate in couple’s shoots as well as competing as individuals and on other teams. They also volunteer and help host an assortment of fundraising shoots.

While Steven supported her interest in shooting, he didn’t pressure her to try hunting. Jackie, who admits to initially having

Jackie Harker has not only fully embraced TWA as a volunteer, but has become an avid hunter and shooter. She and her friends had a grand time at the 2021 TWA Houston Shoot.

qualms about hunting, eventually agreed to join a group of women on a hog hunt. They didn’t see a hog the entire weekend.

The women persisted and invited Jackie to a South Texas doe hunt. Jackie agreed to go but didn’t agree to hunt.

“I didn’t tell anyone that I was going because I didn’t really know how I felt about hunting and how I was going to react,” she said. “I didn’t want to have to defend my choices, regardless of what they were.”

As the weekend played out, Jackie not only hunted, but harvested and processed three does. And she ended up on a San Antonio news broadcast acting as an impromptu spokesperson for responsible hunting.

The hunt took place in the era of cell phones.

“When I called Steven and told him that I took three does…” Jackie said.

“I thought we had a bad connection—and that I’d misheard her,” Steven said, laughing and finishing the story. “These days, we literally have no beef in our freezer. We just eat venison and other game.”

While the Harkers hunt together, they also hunt individually with groups of friends. As Jackie was mastering the skills of hunting, she went on a number of women-only hunts sponsored by the National Rifle Association. Because of these and other opportunities, she’s now hunted in more states than Steven.

One of her cherished memories involves a comment made by the hostess on a farm in South Dakota, where Jackie and

Steven and Jackie Harker aren’t exactly sure how they found TWA, but they did and they’ve been involved in almost everything TWA does on behalf of wildlife and private landowners ever since.

girlfriends were hunting pheasants. The women whooped and hollered in support every time someone felled a bird.

The hostess, whose house was in proximity to the grain fields allowing her to hear the commotion, said, “I love it when the women come to hunt. It’s just so much fun! And it’s so uplifting how you all support each other.”

This story also illustrates something that the Harkers have found to be true. Men and women tend to approach hunting differently.

“One way is not necessarily better than the other, but the dynamic is definitely different,” Steven said. “While it’s great to hunt in a mixed camp, there are also a lot of benefits to hunting in a women or men only camp. There’s just no pressure and everybody seems more comfortable.”

Jackie concurred, “We really enjoy hunting together, but we also recognize that sometimes your spouse or significant other isn’t the best person to teach you something new.”

LAND

Although their careers tied them to downtown Houston, the Harkers shared a desire to stake a claim in the country.

“I lived longer in the city than anywhere else, but it wasn’t my dream,” Jackie said. “As a kid, I never said, ‘Oh man, I can’t wait to grow up and move to the city.’”

For two years, they searched for a piece of property that met a list of specific criteria. First, the land needed to be within 100 miles of their home, so they could enjoy it before they retired. It needed to be no more than 100 acres, so that it would be manageable. While the land didn’t have to be vastly improved, the couple was searching for something that wouldn’t immediately require a lot of infrastructure repairs or upgrades.

Using the Texas Listing Service (formerly trrn.com) as a search tool, they’d identify three or four potential properties in the same general area and set aside a weekend to go explore them. Nothing was a match, until the Harkers took a trip to southwestern Fayette County to examine some land near the community of Cistern.

“When we set foot on the property for the first time, we just knew it was the one,” Steven said. “We weren’t looking for a cattle ranch or a hunting property, we were looking for a place where we could improve the habitat and just enjoy the wildlife that was there.”

The 68-acre property, used for cattle, already had a stock tank, an agriculture valuation, good fences and road frontage on three sides. The landscape was a mix of pasture and post oak, mesquite and cedar thickets. It was 110 miles from their front door.

As they returned to Houston, the Harkers passed the Cistern Store. During childhood summers, Steven and his cousins often rode along with his uncle, who worked as a landman for Phillips Petroleum. Every time a trip took them through Fayette County, they would stop at the country store to pick up rat cheese, crackers, and soda water for an afternoon snack.

“The fact that the little store was still operating just seemed to be another sign that it was meant to be,” Steven said.

The Harkers’ place in Fayette County has been transformed into a wildlife haven. From songbirds to deer, and these wood duck drakes as well, it’s a place to call home.

Before purchasing their land in 2003, the Harkers had “read a lot about land management, but never taken care of anything larger than a yard.”

The first order of business was gathering more information by becoming part of the Texas landowner community. They joined Texas Farm Bureau for insurance and its rural network. As livestock owners, they joined Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, where Steven now serves on the Property Rights and Tax Committee. TWA likely popped onto their radar screen about this same time. Jackie attended several Women of the Land events soon after they became landowners.

As they amassed information, they began applying it.

“We want to create well-balanced wildlife habitat, not a manicured city park,” Jackie said.

On two different occasions, they’ve hired a contractor to mechanically thin mesquites and cedars. Steven follows up with ongoing IPT.

They’ve joined the local burn association and they’re both earning their Burn Boss certification. The Harkers hope to add prescribed fire to their land management tool box to further open the land and reinvigorate native grasses.

They’ve constructed another stock tank to reduce the pressure on the land surrounding the original stock tank. The original tank is in the woods and the cattle tend to loaf in the shade, degrading the bank.

Eventually, the Harkers plan to transition from ag valuation to wildlife valuation. Currently, they’re in the planning and paperwork stage.

“Everything we’re doing benefits the deer, the songbirds, and all of the rest,” Steven said. “On a property our size, we can’t run enough cattle to be economically or ecologically beneficial, so it just makes sense to transition and put the money that we’re spending on livestock upkeep into land management.”

LEGACY

After 18 years of commuting from Houston on the weekends, the Harkers moved to Cistern full-time on March 2, 2021.

“Texas Independence Day was our own independence day,” Jackie said.

Almost two decades of hands-on land management has taught them many lessons. Their observations hold some universal truths for landowners, regardless of their experience or the size of their holdings.

“Land management never ends,” Jackie said.

Steven agreed. “In land management, there’s never a period. There may be an occasional semi-colon, but it’s more likely just a comma in the never-ending process of manipulating, massaging and managing toward your goals.”

For anyone considering purchasing land for the first time, they offer a bit of first-hand advice.

“If you’re buying anything bigger than a city lot, be aware that it involves work,” Steven said. “Land isn’t something that you can leave and just hope for the best.”

He continued, “Be honest with yourself about how much time, money and energy you’re willing to put into your land.”

The bigger the property the bigger the demands.

“The great thing is, though, whatever you put into your land, it gives it back in productivity,” Steven said.

“And satisfaction,” Jackie added.

“When you leave it better than you found it, you leave it better for all Texans,” Steven concluded.

In the final assessment, making Texas better is why TWA exists and why the Harkers wholeheartedly recommend that all Texans join and take part.

“TWA’s only boundaries are the state lines,” Steven said. “It’s for everyone in Texas. You don’t have to own 10,000 acres or any land at all, you just have to be interested in the future of wildlife, invested in the power of conservation or engaged at the statehouse with the shared goal of making Texas better.”

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Yaupon

Ilex vomitoria

Article and photos by BRAD KUBECKA, Ph.D.

The female plant produces red fruits called drupes.

Yaupon on overgrazed pasture characterized by extreme hedged appearance.

Yaupon (Ilex vomitoria), also known as yaupon holly, is no stranger to Texans living east of I-35. The evergreen The male reproductive structures consist of four to five stamens and plant with dark green, waxy, serrate leaves is most four white corollas. commonly seen as a shrub less than 15 feet tall but can become tree-like and exceed 35 feet. Yaupon is extremely adaptable and grows anywhere from closed canopy pine stands in eastern Texas to the harsh saline conditions of the Gulf Coast prairies with a preference for sandier soils.

Yaupon blooms from March to May where the plant forms small white flowers. Yaupon’s red fruits, which resemble berries but contain four nutlets that encase the seeds, are botanically referred to as drupes. The nutlets can be thought of as miniature pits like in a peach.

Plants growing in full sun produce more fruit than those growing in shade. Fruit production mostly occurs during October and November but occasionally throughout the year. The fruits are eaten by a wide variety of birds and contribute substantially Grey bark of yaupon.

Yaupon can become problematic when left unmanaged.

to the diets of Cedar Waxwings, Hermit Thrushes, and Mockingbirds.

Many mammals including raccoons, ringtails, skunks, and other small mammals will also consume the drupes, stems, and foliage. Yaupon is a staple, second-choice browse for white-tailed deer and is also commonly browsed by cattle when grass is scarce.

While native, yaupon has invasive tendencies and can form impenetrable thickets if left unmanaged. In moderation, these thickets can provide useful cover for wildlife but excessive growth that manifests into monocultures reduces both plant and animal diversity.

Yaupon monocultures can create other threats to management including prescribed fire risks. For example, volatile oils contained within yaupon leaves coupled with the interception of needle cast within the midstory of commercial pine plantations can create hazardous ladder fuels favoring crown fires and tree scorching. Ironically, the frequent application of prescribed fire can manage yaupon while also increasing the forage quality of the browse that yaupon provides.

Research indicates crude protein increases from an average of approximately 8% in unburned areas to about 13% within burned areas. Midstory and overstory management using mechanical treatments such as thinning or mulching may be necessary to managing fuels before integration of fire as a management tool.

Yaupon notoriously resprouts following mechanical treatments and even fire. Follow-up treatments of fire, herbicide (e.g., Garlon®), and post-burn mechanical treatments are all effective at reducing yaupon, when applied properly.

Despite the scientific name I. vomitoria suggesting emetic properties from moderate consumption, the nomenclature was derived from early botanists’ misunderstanding of Native American purgatory rituals which included excessive imbibing of the “black drink” which led to vomiting. Yaupon foliage is actually safe to consume in modest quantities and is the only plant native to the United States that is a source of caffeine.

A quick search of YouTube yields multiple instructive videos of how to prepare the leaves and brew the yaupon beverage. The fruits, however, are considered toxic. Likely due to the unappealing scientific name, the commercial market has not seen a strong push for yaupon tea but the plant has become widely adopted as a landscape shrub.