Ranching Family Finds New Market: Lifestyle Dudes A Growing Part Of Business, And They’ll Even Do Chores, Learn

Life used to be simpler at the K-Diamond-K Ranch before the Konz family started rounding up dudes as well as dogies.

“It’s easier to market the cattle,” said family patriarch Steve Konz, 70. “You put ‘em on a truck and you’re all through.”

But Konz and his warm, outgoing family of seven took to dudes four years ago like cows to a salt lick.

Entertaining guests was a way for Konz and his wife, June, 63, and their five adult children to remain together.

Eldest daughter Kathy, 28, married earlier this summer and moved to her husband’s Almira-area ranch in Lincoln County, but siblings Dave, 32, Kristy, 26, Karen, 24, and Wayne, 22, remain single and live at the ranch four miles south of Republic.

The Konzes figured the 21,400-acre spread they’ve owned and leased since 1961 might support two households at most. So the close-knit family incorporated, found duties for everyone and set about learning the hospitality industry.

“I think the biggest thrill we have is just seeing the family all working at their own expertise,” Steve Konz said. “As a parent, you really enjoy seeing the family stay together.”

He learned to type and run a computer. Kristy studied baking and cooks each morning. Wayne learned to shoe horses. Kathy is the family horse trader and Karen is studying to be a veterinarian like her mother. Dave is well on his way to filling his father’s shoes as a soft-spoken diplomat who brings all the pieces together.

One of the first things the family learned is that city slickers will not only pay to visit a ranch and go horseback riding every morning, but will actually work for free.

“We got up at 5:30 yesterday morning and were out loading the hay truck,” said guest Ron Swaney of Puyallup, Wash. “I said we would have been jogging, so we might as well do that.”

Jogging would have been easier, Swaney and his wife Sylvia concluded, “but we would have missed seeing that flock of wild turkeys.”

The Konzes hope that kind of experience will help city dwellers understand and appreciate the rural lifestyle they love. They exercise a low-key diplomacy to show environmentally conscious urbanites that Ferry County’s ranchers, loggers and miners don’t have horns.

Along with golfing, fishing and fossil digging at Republic’s renowned Stonerose Interpretive Center, K-Diamond-K guests are offered tours of the nearby Vaagen Bros. sawmill and Echo Bay mine and mill.

“Next week we’ve got some vegetarians coming,” June Konz said. “We try to educate them kind of gently.”

The bumper sticker on the family truck isn’t kidding when it says, “Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner.” But June Konz said no vegetarian will starve at her table.

“The public is a real challenge and it’s invigorating,” Steve Konz said. “The best part of the guest ranch is meeting folks of a different lifestyle - all in a positive manner,” Konz said.

Guests in their log home are treated like part of the family.

They’re soon kicking back and scratching the heads of the canine Konzes. One of those is Liza Jane, a friendly blue heeler who wears a red bandanna around her neck and rides on a cushion on the fender of Dave Konz’s tractor.

Anyone who looks bored is likely to get a chore. Of course, guests who don’t look bored get chores, too.

“Most people want to participate,” Steve Konz said. “We enjoy getting them involved, but we have to be somewhat discreet.”

Guests are invited to help brand the cattle, fix the fences or peel the logs the family selectively harvests from its 1,000 acres of timberland. Family members handle anything risky, but the guest jobs are real and important to the success of what remains very much a working ranch.

An Olympia banker and his wife peeled many of the poles for a new barn that includes a tack room, a bunkhouse and a dance loft.

Konz remembers a delayed supper - ranchers have dinner at noon, supper in the evening - thanks to a retired Alaskan construction worker who insisted on finishing a fence-mending job.

“We stayed, and the other guests stayed, and we got it done and went in to supper at 7:30,” Konz said.

In recent weeks, guests have been heaving hay bales.

One of them was Olympia resident Daniel Swenson, who said he’s so close to being 10 that no one would know the difference.

It was hard work, but he enjoyed it and expects to be a better baseball player as a result: “It builds your muscles so you can have a better throwing arm and hit better.”

Avid recreation league softball players, the Konzes are always looking for guests who can hit the ball. Even guests who couldn’t hit a barn are encouraged to join the family and other Republic residents for a game.

Homey activities like that often seem to appeal to guests more than structured events. Steve Konz said a family of Germans turned down a trip to the laser light show at Grand Coulee Dam in favor of looking for cows.

“We were flabbergasted with their interest,” he said.

Guests from Western Washington, recruited at the Puyallup Fair and referred by word of mouth, have been a staple for the Konzes. But some have come from Hawaii, France and Mexico as well as Germany.

One recent guest was Robin Pollard, director of the Washington State Tourism Division - mixing business with pleasure.

“People want real-life experiences more and more, and they want to learn about an area’s history and culture, and it’s real rich here” in Ferry County, Pollard said.

She said many international visitors are drawn to dude ranches because they’ve already seen America’s big cities and theme parks.

“They want to come into people’s homes,” Pollard said. “They want a real American experience. The less gimmicky it is, the more authentic.”

She thinks the K-Diamond-K - one of only a handful of dude ranches in Washington - is “right on” with a promotional video that sells only a folksy view of the Konzes.

Steve Konz said he’s not comfortable with the need to “project” himself. However, he and his family have long been civic activists and prominent members of the community. They’ve opened their home over the years to everyone from new neighbors to foreign exchange students.

Until daughter Kathy took over, Steve Konz operated a Grange Insurance agency. He also has been a teacher, and was one of only a handful of nonlawyer District Court judges in the state. “Dr. June” is well known for the veterinary clinic she operates at the ranch.

“June is our biggest cash flow; she always has been,” Steve Konz said, noting her veterinary clinic pays rent to the now-separate ranch corporation.

Dudes are up and coming, though. They now account for about 25 percent of ranch income, and the percentage is rising. Timber sales also are up, but cattle income is down to 50 percent from a high of 89 percent.

“So far this year, we’ve had well over 100 guests,” Konz said.

That has caused the family to start thinking about building a lodge.

“We have a lot of timber to build it, and the boys have the experience,” Konz said. “We’ll see what next year brings us.”

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