By Laura Lindblom for the Down Country Roads Magazine
The blacktop ends, and wave upon rolling wave of rural country and ranch land stretch out in all directions. Distinct in the west is the dark line of the Black Hills. Mile after unbroken mile of fence divides pasture from pasture, and small farmsteads and ranch yards dot the swells, surrounded by clusters of twisted and wizened trees that have weathered the years on the plains. A northern harrier swings gracefully overhead. “Lonetree Road.” A graveled driveway meanders across the rolling prairie, grazed by a healthy bunch of Herefords, under the watchful gaze of Bear Butte to the west and Castello Point, known locally as “The Peak,” situated in the center of Lonetree Ranch.
“There was only one tree on the ranch when they homesteaded here, which was down by a spring.” Larry Reinhold knows the ranch and its history like the back of his hand. “Which is really quite intriguing,” he continued, “because there is no water between Alkali or the Belle Fourche River or Elk Creek. So, this spring was a pretty major place.”
But there is more than one tree now. A tree-rich oasis—mere twigs and saplings and young trees and old, evidence of years, generations, actually, of hopeful action and industry—shelters an age-old weathered barn and a stucco house, recently extensively remodeled after the summer rains last year softened the gumbo and collapsed part of the basement.
“My grandpa, Emanuel Reinhold, who was a Swede from the old country of Minnesota, as they say, came out here in the early 1900s, probably 1910….He was working on the railroad when he met my grandma, Hazel Jensen.” She and her parents owned a horse ranch on Rapid Creek, called the Circle Star. “His wedding present to her was a black colt. But then they homesteaded out here, right on this spring.”
And right on this spring the Reinhold family has stayed.
Homesteading turned to ranching, as Emanuel and Hazel built their family and built up what became Lonetree Ranch, and now their grandson, Larry, his wife, Robin, and five great-grandkids are continuing in their footsteps. The Reinhold family lives on and operates the Lonetree Ranch and Rainbow Bible Ranch, a well-known and well-loved summer ranch camp for kids and teenagers.
“Lonetree is what we call the ag side of things,” Larry said, “though sometimes they are both nonprofit,” he added with a rueful laugh.
Springtime on the ranch is the normal chaos of ranching in South Dakota, with calving being all-consuming, followed by branding, and then the usual array of summer work. But for the Reinholds, ranching happens around and among the goings-on of Rainbow Bible Ranch, as each summer 450 young people, in camps lasting several days to two weeks, descend on Lonetree. For days or weeks at a time, the Reinhold family and hired staff minister to these kids, studying the Bible with them and sharing with them a taste of ranch life. In the fall, after camps abruptly end, comes the wave of fall cow work, the ranch yard and surroundings a blaze of life and color, with extensive vegetable gardens stewarded by various members of the family, flowers lining the walkways around the Rainbow Bible Ranch main hall, and all the familiar sights of a working ranch: stacked hay, machinery, horses, chickens, the array of friendly barn cats, and the collection of mild-mannered English shepherds.
Like any family in the agricultural industry, they have withstood bad years and bad seasons, tragedies and near misses, the whims of weather and a volatile market. In now four generations of a ranching operation, the struggles and setbacks in many ways have served as catalysts for whatever the next thing was God had in store.
As a young man, Larry felt God’s calling to attend Montana Institute of the Bible, uncertain why at the time, but it was Larry’s brother, Lyle, who first conceived of the idea of a Bible camp. Lyle had his sights set on ranching and auctioneering (“And he could auction,” Larry interjected, “He was actually pretty good.”), but a farming accident radically changed his vision for the future. Lyle ended up following Larry to Montana Institute of the Bible, and it was while there that he first began pondering starting a camp somewhere in western South Dakota, not even thinking of it being on Lonetree Ranch. “He asked us in ’79,” Larry said, “whether we would back him if he started a camp in the Hills area. We thought about it a lot, prayed about it, and said we would back him.”
Larry recalled sitting with Lyle by Reinhold Lake in late May of 1979 as Lyle told him about raising support for ministry with the American Missionary Fellowship. Larry staunchly opposed support-raising, laughing as he remembered the conversation. “Turns out [Lyle] was preparing me for pie auctions and other things in the future,” Larry said. “This is an opportunity for other people….to be a part of that ministry,” Lyle had told him. This gentle and firm explanation satisfied Larry.
“Little did I know that God was setting me up,” Larry said seriously. “That was the same week that they died.”
A few days later, Larry, his two brothers, and a neighbor were fishing on Reinhold Lake. A freak storm blew up, catching the four young men off guard, capsizing their boats with the large waves. Three of the four young men died. Larry was the one survivor.
“Just minutes after the boys died there was a double rainbow, right over the dam,” Larry recalled. This spectacular sight was photographed by a neighbor, unbeknownst to the Reinhold family, who later showed them the photo. The imagery kept coming, in the wake of this tragic and unexpected event.
“The day of the funeral, my mom and dad were coming down over the brakes, and there was a double rainbow. And then one week later, Mom was in the house and looked out, and there was a double rainbow, with not a cloud in the sky. God does some things that are a little wild,” Larry said, with quiet understatement. The Biblical imagery, reflecting God’s promise to Noah after the flood, and both Ezekiel and John’s visions of the throne of God, was profound and stuck with them.
Even while reeling from the deaths of Lyle and Lee, Larry’s dad, Tige, was determined that the family consider their promise made earlier in the year, to back Lyle in his plans for starting a camp. Thus was born Rainbow Bible Ranch.
“That was May 28th, and we were digging the basement in July for the camp building,” Larry recalled. “We had our first activity January 1, 1980….and the dedication was Memorial Day of 1980. And here we are going into our 45th year.”
“My dad once said he used to feel a calling to go into some sort of ministry,’” Larry said, adding that Tige spent some time leading youth groups at Big Bend by Johnson Siding. “I’d get asked what I was doing at Bible school,” Larry said of his time at MIB, “since they were turning out missionaries and pastors, and I planned to go back to the ranch. I’d say, ‘Well, God said to go here!’ Little did I know that He was setting me up.”
God was setting someone else up, too, as it turns out. Robin, a ranch girl from the Custer area, found herself regularly out at Rainbow Bible Ranch for Friday night activities her church attended. The family acquaintance went back to the ‘70s, when Robin’s dad, Jack Paulton, would purchase bulls from Tige. But it was Rainbow that caused their paths to cross. “I came for the very first retreat they had here in 1980,” Robin said. “There’s nine and a half years between us—I was 13 and he was 22—so there obviously wasn’t a romance at that point,” she said with a laugh, “but I do remember looking at him and just thinking it was really cool that there was this rancher, this cowboy who just loves Jesus with all his heart.”
College studies took Robin to California, where she studied women’s ministries at Christian Heritage College. “My junior year in college, I was an RA and had my own room. I was having my quiet time one day, just praying, asking the LORD to show me, lead me for my future after college,” Robin spoke thoughtfully and eagerly. “I can still see it today: I was sitting on my bed staring at my closet door—I’m not into a lot of visions or that sort of thing, but this was real,” she said earnestly, “and I could see a map of South Dakota, and it took me to Rapid City…and then just north of Rapid City…and that was it, and…it was gone.” Robin gave a small shrug and a smile. “It didn’t even have significance to me at that point, until two or three years later, and I realized it was the LORD showing me, leading me….In 1991, the LORD brought me back to South Dakota and our paths just started crossing, coincidentally,” she said with a twinkle, and a little laugh, “or not.”
“Everyone thought I was going to be the most eligible bachelor forever, and then I found Robin!” Larry laughed. “I think people were worried spitless that I was never getting married, that nobody’s out there. And here’s Robin, raised on a ranch, loved her horses, loved the LORD.” Larry continued: “We started doing themes each year [for camp] in 1991. And I thought we needed a theme song, so I ‘quote unquote’ wrote the theme song, but I didn’t know how to play the piano or guitar or anything, so we sang it a cappella all summer long.” Larry grimaced at the unimpressive recollection. “And God said, ‘You need help.’ So, here’s Robin, and she can play the piano!”
They got married in December of 1991, and just celebrated their 32nd anniversary.
Rainbow Bible Ranch has come a long way since the first summer in 1980, that saw a total of 27 kids and two different camps. Now, each summer, 400 or more kids filter through Rainbow, in groups of about 50 per camp.
“There aren’t many outfits like ours out there, with the ranch and the camp,” Larry said. “We love sharing ranch life, and we love sharing real life with kids. We say we are real life in action….The kids get to hear what the wrangler says when the horse stomps on his foot, or when a cow kicks you. Because this is real life. Birth and death and grasses and flowers. I think it is really fun that we are able to minister and share Biblical principles, but do it in agriculture.”
Camp days are packed with Bible study, Bible memory, devotions lead by team leaders and hard-hitting messages by Larry, plenty of fresh air and sunshine and a taste of life on a working ranch. Even a single camp generates a significant workload for the staff, who provide supervision and discipleship, cook and clean up three meals a day, lead the youth on daily trail rides, and coordinate other activities, including games of capture the flag, softball, and a final rodeo for the campers to demonstrate skills they learned.
But even after the camp season comes to an end, Rainbow remains a presence, with weekly Bible studies for young adults, and monthly community events, such as the famous pie auction in November, the Steaks ‘n’ Cakes breakfast in January, and the Wild Game Feed in March, well-attended events providing fellowship, food, and an opportunity to support the ministry at Rainbow.
“A friend of mine asked me what the biggest challenge is for Rainbow,” Larry said, “and I think staff will be. Right now, half our staff is family. If we wear them out or burn them out, it’s going to take who knows how many to replace Rachel, for instance? She’s been a part of Rainbow for 30 years. The last thing I want to do is wear out or burn out our family.”
And this family operation is truly a family operation, more than a business, but not less than one, with family at the center. Things have changed over the years, as Larry’s parents, Tige and Vicky, both integrally involved in the ministry, have gone to be with the LORD; as their daughter, Molly, got married and moved out of state several years ago; and as Rachel, their eldest, got married in October and now lives on the ranch with her husband, Seth. Their youngest daughter, Kiersten, is still in school, homeschooled as the rest of the Reinhold kids have been. Their oldest son, Danny, recently finished welding school. The dynamics change, the roles change, the responsibilities shift, but “Everything is falling into place,” Larry said.
“I go down there, and everyone might be doing chores, and there’s Danny in the shop, welding on some bottomless bunks, and Julia and Kiersten are out graining the heifers and bulls down below. Caleb is in the tractor. [Everyone] has their area of expertise, where they are the ones in charge.”
Robin added, “With six kids, they have the same genetics but they are so different. Sometimes it takes a while to figure out what their strong points are, what their capabilities are.”
“They are our employees, but they are family,” Larry said. “Families have to plan for succession, and part of that involves letting the kids invest in the ranch, handing over some of the reins, as it were….I can take you down to the herd bulls, and I bet you those two belong to Caleb, and that one’s Rachel’s, and we’ll never sell that one because someone fell in love with that one a long time ago. There’s one or two out there that will probably die on the place. A management outfit would say it is bad business, but we aren’t just running a business. We are running a family.”
But it doesn’t just happen automatically, handing down of a life and a legacy, and too many generational ranches fall apart as generations pass away and the next generations move up. “You have to fight for that unity,” Robin said.
“We use the term ‘legacy’—we might even overuse it—but it fits family agriculture better than anything else that I can think of, except what the church maybe could be. I think sometimes the local congregations could learn from the families out in the country that have made it work for 100 years,” Larry said. “What a lot of it comes down to is that there are a ton of people watching us….But we have made a conscious decision that we have to work together….It isn’t just the ranch, it is also a ministry, it is also the family. And I’m not willing to sacrifice any of them.”
Robin added, with her characteristic gentleness, “Not everybody would get this, but the presence of the Holy Spirit is huge. So, a family that is trying to work together and they don’t have that…” She trailed off, thoughtfully. “Respect is a word that is in the forefront of my mind. You have to be intentional about that respect, that mutual respect, in order to work together as a family.”
Here in the west, the past is never too far behind. Some, like the Reinhold family, carry on in not-so-figurative footsteps, doing the same work, on the same ground, living in the same houses, carrying on a legacy of more than just vocation. They live a legacy of faith and intention and passion, something that will leave an impression on and a blessing for the next generation, as the previous generations did in their life and work.
“I was talking to Caleb about it the other night,” Larry said. “My grandparents built the house, they built the barn, they added land, this and that. My dad, his footprint was building this dam, building a lot of the dams, a lot of the conservation [work.] The next generation, you could say our footprint was Rainbow….But I was talking to Caleb and said, ‘Now, what are you, the next generation, what are you going to contribute?’”
How much can change in a few generations, or in one, for that matter. It is hard to picture the Lonetree Ranch as Larry described, with a single tree by its spring. How many trees have Larry, and his dad, and his granddad and their families planted, and replanted? And now look how many have flourished. But it takes a vision, a desire to leave something for the next generations.
Larry was asked once by his aunt about all the work he was putting into planting trees, improvements to the ranch that he would likely never see come to maturity, suggesting that it was a waste of his time because he wouldn’t get to enjoy the benefits. “I responded, ‘Aren't you glad your dad planted trees and that my dad planted trees when they did?’ The best time to plant a tree is a hundred years ago. The next best time is today. What a wonderful philosophy in life as well.”
