Ralph Lee of Lucky 7 Cattle Ranch has two personal mottos – “the harder I work, the luckier I get” and “if I can find something that I love more than what I am doing now, I will start it tomorrow.” Over his lifetime while living out these two mottos, Ralph has created many successful ventures within the real estate and ranching realms. 

After graduating college at Texas Tech University with a degree in agricultural science, Ralph began his career teaching ag in a small town in Texas. He wanted to be able to provide more financially for his family, so he quit teaching and pursued real estate while raising cattle. When Ralph discovered Wagyu, it was an easy decision for him to change his herd – he knew that Wagyu was what he wanted in his freezer and on his plate, so Wagyu was what he needed to raise.

As he started out in the Wagyu industry, Ralph could see the need for producers to share ideas to help each other to market their cattle and the need for the public to be better educated about Wagyu. He came up with the idea for the Texas Wagyu Association, and he was one of the founding members and first president. In the past twenty years that Ralph has been involved in the Wagyu industry, he has done almost everything you can do in Wagyu – raised fullbloods (both reds and blacks) and F-1’s, sold meat, produced seedstock and embryos, and showed Wagyu in all three of the major stock shows for Wagyu – Houston, Denver, and Louisville.

Ralph has served on the TWA’s board of directors for 10 years and the American Wagyu Association’s board of directors for 6 years. Because he deeply believes in the excellence of the Wagyu breed and in the importance of sharing what he has learned with others, Ralph continues to be very active in the TWA by manning educational booths at trade shows across the US.