Our Team
Rhona Lemke
Master Verifier
EOV Hub Verifier
325-347-7096
Full time mother of four daughters, full time homesteader, part time ranch hand, and part time nutrition associate, Rhona grew up in a farming and ranching family in the south Texas town of Floresville. From an early age she assisted with day to day care of the cattle and horses on the farm. Rhona left the farm after high school and moved to San Antonio to pursue a career in residential property management. At that time everyone told her “you can't make a living in agriculture” and like many farm children of that era, she believed them. After a few years living the city life, she still yearned for a more agrarian lifestyle for herself and her family. In 2004 she moved with her husband Chad to the family ranch in Mason, Texas.
Rhona built a large garden and a small orchard of fruit trees that are managed using only biological and organic amendments. Each season after harvest she preserves and dehydrates. She works with other growers in the area exchanging ideas, processes, seeds, and techniques to better enhance the foods produced in the area. She has a small scale pasture chicken operation and recently introduced pigs to the homestead. She makes cheese using milk from a local Grassfed dairy. Rhona loves to cook locally raised and sourced foods for family and friends. Along with taking care of the sheep and goats for the operation, she also handles marketing, sales and customer service for the retail sales of McCollum-Lemke Ranches. As with most members of a ranching family she wears many hats.
While building the homestead and revitalizing the worn out farming ground to grow better food, she began to explore and study natural health and nutrition. She continues to expand her knowledge and understanding by attending training seminars, working with local producers and naturopathic professionals in the area and experimenting with homeopathic approaches to the problems encountered with plants and animals on the farm.
In 2013, a growing and expanding nutritionist and naturopathic doctor in Mason asked Rhona to come on board and work with customers on improving their understanding of supplementation, minerals and health. She assists these clients with their nutritional consultations and plans including diet, vitamins and mineral supplementation. She also handles purchasing and marketing for the local store and website business.
Chad Lemke
Hub Co-Director
325-347-5183
Fifth generation farmer and rancher in Central Texas, Chad is also the Production Manager for the Grassfed Livestock Alliance, LLC, helping to manage the day-to-day operations of the group and assisting its members in producing top quality American Grassfed beef. He is Treasurer of the American Grassfed Association.
Chad spent 20 years in the commercial nursery and landscape industry in San Antonio. He has significant experience in greenhouse management and growing, landscape design and construction, turf management, irrigation, and arboriculture. He spent these years experimenting with biological, organic and other soil amendments to enhance and improve the landscapes of shopping centers, office/retail centers, industrial complexes and sports fields that were under his care. In 2004, he realized that the city had grown too large for the quality of life he and his family desired, so the family left San Antonio and moved to the family ranch near Mason, TX. After the move, he spent several years rebuilding crumbling infrastructures, clearing brush, renovating fields and upgrading animal genetics on the lands. When asked about the transition, Chad says simply that he used to grow grass to cut with machines and now he grows grass to harvest with animals.
McCollum-Lemke Ranches is now a multispecies operation humanely raising Grassfed cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and chickens. In 2012, the operation was awarded the Outstanding Conservation Rancher Award by NRCS. They are constantly experimenting and looking for better ways to raise animals and improve the land without the use of traditional chemicals and fertilizers through the use of mob grazing, biologicals, compost teas, cover crops, no-tilling and many other alternative methods of agriculture. His goal is to continually improve his land, his livestock and his family's way of life. He strives to be more than sustainable in his operation; he strives to be regenerative.
In his spare time, Chad is also President of the Mason Independent School District Scholarship Foundation, President of Hext Volunteer Fire Department, Vice President of Texas Hill Country Heritage Association and a member of various other community and civic organizations in and around Mason County.
PO Box 819, Mason, TX 76856
325-347-7096