When one woman in the ranch management program graduates in May, she will return to her family in New Mexico to save them and their business.In 1996, Caitlin Holmes’ grandfather Steve Trigg gathered his family in Dallas to discuss the future of what his children now call on their Web site “the last family ranch left standing,” which Caitlin Holmes will help manage this summer.

Trigg, who managed the 50,000-acre Trigg Ranch for 60 years, wanted to keep the ranchland, which was pioneered by his father in 1918, family-owned and operated, said Kristin Holmes, Trigg’s daughter and mother of Caitlin Holmes. Before Trigg’s death in 2002, the family decided to leave the ranch and its cattle operation in a trust fund for future generations.

“Nobody owns the land now,” said Richard Holmes, Caitlin Holmes’ father. “All the money the ranch makes is reinvested in the ranch.”

This arrangement is meant to preserve the familial bond felt at the ranch while ousting the ownership issue that often breaks families apart, Richard Holmes said.

Kristin Holmes said family is an important aspect of the ranch life.

“You want to take good care of the country and have the best cattle,” Kristin Holmes said. “But you also want your family and children around.”

Richard and Kristin Holmes, who began managing the ranch in 2002, said they will certainly have the best of both worlds when Caitlin returns to Trigg Ranch this spring.

“Even though we’ve been running the place, we’re basically doing it the same way we’ve observed,” Richard Holmes said. “When Caitlin comes home, she will bring the whole family up to date with all her knowledge. She’ll be a fountain of knowledge.”

Caitlin Holmes said she plans to teach her parents all she’s learned in the ranch management program, which is “absolutely stuff they don’t know.”

She always knew she’d go back to the ranch but never quite like this, she said.

“After I got my undergraduate degree in English at Southwestern University, I saw that nobody else in my generation was interested in taking that path,” Caitlin Holmes said. “And, if nobody else was going to step up to it in my family, I would hate to see the ranch not managed by someone in the family if I had the opportunity and the interest to.”

She said she didn’t realize how special the ranch was until she left it.

“This is about the best thing that could happen to us,” Richard Holmes said. “We do feel kind of guilty, though.”

Richard and Kristin Holmes worry that Caitlin will be isolated on the Trigg Ranch, but Caitlin does not.

“I’ve met some awesome people here and networked with people in the industry,” she said. “When you get out on the ranch, you kind of feel isolated if you don’t know people who are dealing with the same things as you.”

Caitlin Holmes is one of two women in the ranch management program. She calls everyone else her “27 brothers.”

“It’s true. I’m going to be spoiled,” she said. “It’s just too much fun going two-stepping with them on the weekends.