Hopkins County Ranch Receives Award

Lone Star Land Steward Ecoregion Award Winners Announced

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) is proud to reveal the 2022 Lone Star Land Steward Ecoregion Award winners. This year’s award winners represent a variety of conservation goals and accomplishments, all of which display excellence in natural resource management and stewardship.

The annual banquet that celebrates Lone Star Land Steward Award winners will be at 6:00 pm on May 25. You can find more information and a video playlist highlighting previous year’s winners on the Lone Star Land Steward page of the TPWD website.

Lone Star Land Steward Awards recognize private landowners in Texas for their excellent land, water, and wildlife stewardship contributions. With 95 percent of the land in Texas under private ownership, private landowners’ conservation and stewardship efforts are of vital importance to all Texans.

In Hopkins County, honored this year is the Ebel Grassland Ranch in the Blackland Prairie. The Ebel Grassland Ranch restoration project began in 2003 with an initial purchase of 645 acres. The family added 360 acres in 2012. The Ebels’ total acreage had been farmed and grazed for years, starting in 1834. The family worked closely with TPWD biologists to discover that at least 780 acres of the property were original remnant tallgrass, Silveus’ dropseed prairie, one of the rarest endemic native plant communities in Texas. Through land management practices focused on returning the land to the native prairie ecosystem, the family has increased native flora and fauna, improving soil health and wildlife diversity on the property while running a full-time livestock operation.