2103 Zeandale Road | Manhattan, Kansas 66502 | (785) 539-7899
The Lazy T Brand: 
Open Year Round by Reservation
Open for Fall Festival Weekends
in October
10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday
1 p.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday
About Us
The Lazy T Ranch is owned by Ron and Chris Wilson, who are fifth generation Kansas ranchers. We love sharing farm and ranch life, so we offer barbecue beef suppers, tours, and cowboy poetry entertainment.
Ron Wilson grew up on the Lazy T Ranch near Manhattan, Kansas, where the family raised cattle, horses, hogs, wheat, corn, milo, and kids. He was active in 4-H and FFA, and was Kansas FFA president and national vice-president of FFA. He graduated from Kansas State University with a degree in Agriculture Education with an animal science specialty, and then earned a master's degree in Mass Communications.
After graduation, Ron became a legislative assistant to Senator Nancy Kassebaum in Washington D.C. He next served as a staff member for the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry and then as vice president of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives. In 1985, he returned to Kansas to become a vice president of the Farm Credit Bank of Wichita. Since 1990, he has served as Director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.
Chris Wilson is president of the American Agri-Women, and among other jobs was director of public liaison at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She is currently the Kansas Deputy Secretary of Agriculture.
Ron produces "Kansas Profiles" a weekly newspaper column and radio broadcast, produced by the Huck Boyd Institute and distributed statewide on online. The program focuses on positive recognition to the state's rural leaders, and sharing ideas which may help rural people help themselves.
Ron is well known as the Poet Lariat of Kansas, and has performed at the American Royal, the National Agricultural Hall of Fame, Old Cowtown in Wichita, the Prairie Rose Chuckwagon Supper, the Kansas Museum of History, the Peace Treaty Pageant in Medicine Lodge, the Prairie Days Festival at the Little House on the Prairie, the Red Rock Guest Ranch, Governor Sebelius' Inaugural Family Festival, the Echoes of the Trail in Fort Scott, the Academy of Western Artists national gathering in Fort Worth, TX, the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum, the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, and more.
His column, "Cowboy Up" appears regularly in the Grass & Grain newspaper and his poetry is featured week
ly by the Country Parson on WIBW Radio, 94.5 FM. He has performed on national television on RFD-TV.
Ron is also a life member of the Kaw Valley Rodeo Association and a founding member of the Bibles and Boots Chapter of Cowboys for Christ. In 2010, he was named Ambassador for the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum.
Ron likes to say he's been " a 4-H member, FFA officer, farm radio broadcaster, college lecturer, Congressional staffer, association executive, rural development director, corporate vice-president, small business co-founder, rodeo ticket-taker, Sunday School teacher, diaper changer, bottle washer, tractor driver, posthole digger, thistle chopper, haybale stacker, fence fixer, calf holder, manure scooper, and tail twister."
Ron and his wife Chris have 4 children, who are the third generation of their family to live on their historic ranch.
Weekends in October are exciting because it is time for our annual Fall Festival and pumpkin patch on Saturdays and Sundays. The Wilsons' original family home is now the Lazy T Ranch Guest House for overnight lodging for visitors.