Endorsing lifelong lessons

The lessons John David Fields Jr. learned in life started early and haven’t stopped. Growing up on a ranch in Sonora, Fields learned to raise sheep, goats and cattle, but Fields said his father also taught him lifelong lessons. “My father was of the old school,” he said. “He’d tell me, ‘Your word is your bond. Your handshake is as good as a contract. You treat everyone the way you want to be treated.’” But Fields, 62, said the best advice he ever received came from a Sutton County rancher named Bryan Hunt. “He told me, ‘When you shake somebody’s hand, look them straight in the eye.’” Hunt had a way of teaching what he preached, Fields said. The old rancher could make a coin seemingly disappear, and when Hunt shook hands with youngsters, he’d have a quarter tucked in his palm. “If you looked him straight in the eye while you shook, he’d turn loose of that coin,” Fields remembered. “If you didn’t look him in the eye, you didn’t get the quarter.”...read more