Family donates access to Flint Hills ranch to Wichita State researchers, students

A family from the Flint Hills has donated access to its 4,600-acre ranch to researchers and students at Wichita State University.

It’s a bonanza for researchers in biology, geology, grassland studies, anthropology and other fields, said Mike Lamb, a vice president with the university’s foundation.

The ranch is located five miles southeast of Beaumont, and an hour by car southeast of Wichita, Lamb said. The family foundation of the estate of Earl and Terri Youngmeyer will retain ownership, and the land won’t be open to the public, Lamb said.

But researchers will get access to a sprawling, working ranch in the Flint Hills, an area so big that the only way to navigate it is with four-wheelers or horses, Lamb said.

It’s seven square miles, Lamb said.

“There are many places where you can stand there and see no buildings or electrical poles or people for many miles.”

WSU researchers haven’t assessed all of what this will mean for students and scientific research. But the impact will be huge, Lamb said, for anyone wanting to study geology, insects, birds, vegetation, animals, ranch practices and prairie conservation.

“We have other (prairie) research sites, but not anywhere close to this size,” Lamb said. “The ranch ecosystem is very diverse, everything from grassland to water to extended wooded areas. There are geological formations, rock outcroppings that our faculty will want to study.”

The Youngmeyers began talking with WSU about 20 years ago about ways the university could help preserve and conserve the ranch land after their passing, Lamb said.

WSU researchers, in a statement, said WSU will also likely study ranch management, including controlled burning. Greg Houseman, associate professor of biology, said in the statement that WSU will likely study how ranching practices can contribute to long-term conservation goals.

“Having access to a ranch of this magnitude is a tremendous resource for WSU to make important contributions to understanding how ranching and agricultural practices may influence sustainability and even the economics of these ranches,” Houseman said in the statement.

WSU owns three other nature reserves, where biologists and other university scientists conduct research and experiments, the WSU statement said.

Those include the 330-acre Ninnescah Reserve about 35 miles southwest of Wichita near Viola. But all are much smaller than the Youngmeyer Ranch and ecologically different, WSU officials said.

WSU also will get a share of income produced from the Youngmeyer Trust, including from cattle leases and oil and gas leases, Lamb said in the statement. The university will use that income to help keep the property maintained, he said.

Earl Youngmeyer died in 2012 at the age of 88, the WSU statement said. He was a member of the WSU Foundation’s Society of 1895 and followed WSU basketball and baseball. Terri Youngmeyer died in 1999 at the age of 76, the university said.

This story was originally published September 25, 2014 at 12:34 PM with the headline "Family donates access to Flint Hills ranch to Wichita State researchers, students."