In the heart of South Texas, just outside Laredo, Memo Benavidez tends to more than just land. He tends to a legacy. On a ranch his grandfather named "Corazón" nearly a century ago, a tribute to the two daughters of the man who originally owned the land, Memo has spent a lifetime walking the fence lines of history, hardship, and hope.

“My family once managed five ranches totaling 23,000 acres,” Memo recalls, “and we did things the old-fashioned way, on horseback, in the heat, the dust, everything.” Though his degree was in accounting, Memo found his calling on the ranch, answering his father's invitation to join the family operation in the 1970s. “I lasted two months behind a desk. I was miserable. My dad saw that, and he welcomed me back.”

Together, they raised Hereford cattle, later crossbreeding with Charolais to improve size and temperament. He drove cattle trucks, fixed windmills, and broke his back, literally, in the process. “I ended up crawling into the hospital on my back,” he says. “But I wouldn’t trade those years, they taught me everything.”

Today, Memo no longer runs cattle because the landscape, and the industry, have changed. Corazón Ranch is now covered in a sea of solar panels, nearly 684,000 of them, generating 200 megawatts of electricity and representing the future Memo never imagined but ultimately accepted.

What makes Memo’s operation unique isn’t just the sheer scale of the solar farm, it’s the harmony he’s managed to strike between progress and preservation. While the panels generate energy for the grid, a flock of 2,000 sheep grazes among them, naturally managing vegetation. Memo sells water to the sheep raisers and is proud of the arrangement. “Sheep don’t chew wires like goats,” he jokes. “They’re perfect for this setup, gentle, efficient, and good for the land.”

Despite the industrial transformation of his acreage, Memo’s devotion to conservation hasn’t wavered. Over the years, he has served as a Director on the Webb Soil and Water Conservation District for over 46 years, as a former member of the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board, and President of the Association of Texas Soil and Water Conservation Districts.

“What I love about conservation in Texas is that it’s voluntary. We offer help, not mandates. That matters to landowners like me.” Beyond conservation, Memo has poured his energy into civic service, hospital boards, water boards, literacy programs, and local beautification committees. But his most enduring contribution may be the ethic he’s passed down to his sons.

One son is an attorney specializing in oil and gas law in San Antonio, who helps manage legal matters for the ranch. The other, is more hands-on with the ranch operations and rooted in Laredo, is poised to take over operations.

Memo knows the future of agriculture looks different than his past. But he believes the two can coexist, if approached with humility, adaptation, and a reverence for the land.

“The past has to adapt to the future,” he says. “You can’t stop change. But you can guide it with integrity.”

On the Corazón Ranch, where mules once dug stock tanks and grandfathers dipped cattle for ticks, photovoltaic panels now track the sun. But the heart remains the same; steadfast, rooted in family, and beating with the quiet rhythm of stewardship.