Scott Pauly is Ranch Manager for Lamar Ranch, which helps maintain The Nature Conservancy’s Smiley Meadow Preserve in Lamar County, Texas. The prairie land was donated by Ørsted and sits adjacent to the Mockingbird Solar Center.

“
I’m originally from Kansas, where I grew up in a farming family. I’ve lived in Texas for over 15 years, and I’ve been here in Lamar County since 2019.

It’s quiet here, and the people are friendly. I love the land. Since I was little, I’ve loved being outdoors, working with my hands, tending to animals, raising crops—making something that you can see and hold. It’s what I know, and I’ve always loved this life. And working at Lamar Ranch, I get to do so many different things. One day I might be out with the cowboys working cows. The next, we’re harvesting crops, cutting hay, or spraying. Just depends on the time of year.

Over the last six or seven years, we’ve been helping maintain the prairie land that makes up The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) Smiley Meadow Preserve. Ørsted’s Mockingbird Solar Center is right next door, and they donated the land to TNC to create a preserve. The Nature Conservancy reached out to us, asking how to best hay the land and keep it healthy. We discussed with them how the land has been hayed for over a hundred years. Lamar Ranch’s employees have been cutting hay for 30, 40 years, so we have the know-how. It takes about six weeks in total because there’s a lot of hay out there. Then, local farmers and ranchers buy it, so it’s used by the local community.

I see a lot of benefits that Ørsted and TNC are bringing to Lamar County. The solar farm brings jobs, and that in turn puts people in the hotels, in the restaurants. The whole town is benefiting through Ørsted’s support of our schools, our fire departments and local charities. They’ve been great neighbors. If other rural communities are thinking about hosting renewable energy projects on their land, I’d say the most important thing is to get informed, listen to what a company like Ørsted can offer, and also talk to landowners and farmers who are already hosting wind or solar farms on their land. Here, with the solar farm and the prairie preserve, I see how it’s really brought so much to our community, and it’s brought us all closer together.