A bird feeder hand crafted as a replica of the new Reba’s Ranch House lovingly made by Rich Ward, son of Brad Ward. The House was made in memory of Rich’s father and beautiful wife, Julie. From left: THF Board Members Barbara Malone, Ginger Nye, Chairman Joe Fallon; Rich Ward, RRH Director, Marilyn Bice and Guest Relations Mitch Gray and Michelle Lemming THF CEO. June 18, 2022
by Richard Ward
The bird feeder story starts well over 30 years ago and includes the following: Richard’s parents, Brad and Betty Ward, were retired and living on Betty’s home place in North Texas. In 1992, a foundation backed by the country music singer, Reba McEntire, opened the original Reba’s Ranch House near the hospital in Denison, Texas.
The Ranch House serves a similar function to a Ronald McDonald House: People from out of town who have relatives in the hospital can stay there for free. Guests have kitchen privileges, and, on a rotating basis, local churches furnish buffet suppers. Brad was associated with a docent group at the nearby Hagerman Wildlife Refuge.
A leader in this group asked him to build a bird feeder for the docent group to donate to Reba’s Ranch House to garner some local press for both organizations. Being a crafty guy, Brad took a look at the Ranch House and built a model of the facility as a bird feeder. Some years later, Denison built a much-larger hospital near the freeway, and Reba’s followed suite by constructing a new Ranch House a block from this hospital. (The old hospital is now an in-patient, physical rehabilitation facility, and the old Ranch House is a dementia care home.)
In 2017, Brad was terminally ill in the new hospital; and Richard and his wife, Julie, were staying at the new Reba’s Ranch House. During a save-our-sanity drive around, they tried to search out the original Ranch House and the model. Unfortunately, 25 years of Texas sun had cooked the bird feeder to near disintegration.
In a subsequent discussion, Julie said, “Well, your dad built a model of the old Ranch House, maybe you should build a model of the new one.”
Thus began a major project. A contact on Reba’s staff obtained the original AutoCad® architectural design files, and skilled designer, Dennis Bacon, created a corresponding Solidworks® scale model and generated parts drawings. After joining the Hacker Lab in Rocklin, CA, Richard used their woodworking equipment to create the walls and dormers. Jim Krebs, an excellent all-arond crafter at the Lab helped him laser burn the door, window and rock wall patterns into the wood while a sheet metal shop, Roseville Precision Industries, fabricated the base and roof decks (as a favor to a former good customer).
Richard assembled the pieces and cut the “shingles” on a work table in my side yard. The actual project work did not consume all these years; there were many, many months of delay due to personal issues and work load at the sheet metal shop. Some touch up work remains, and a custom shipping crate remains to be built in order to ship the feeder to Texas, but completion is close enough to celebrate.