Originally from Jalisco, Mexico, Jose “Pepe” Briseño is one of the many Tarleton State Alumni who make a large agricultural impact in Erath county and beyond. Pepe is now 28-years-old and graduated from Tarleton State University in 2016 with a degree in Business Administration. 

“Ever since I was a little kid I’ve always been around horses and cattle,” Pepe said. “My family has always had ranches raising cattle and horses. The traditional charro roots run deep in my family.”

Briseño began roping at age 11. Growing up, Briseño spent summers here in Texas learning to rope with his uncles. It wasn’t until he was a junior in high school that his family moved to Texas. Briseño graduated from Comanche High School in 2012. 

“Once I started consuming roping, I couldn’t stop,” Briseño said. “I got to grow with the sport and my dream was always to come and compete in Texas. Then the opportunity to buy a ranch in Texas came and we moved to “give it a try” and are still here.” 

Briseño attended Tarleton as an international student on a rodeo scholarship. Throughout his senior year of high school up until today’s date, Briseño has leased roping cattle. Currently he leases steers out to Tarleton’s rodeo team. 

Briseño stated that attending Tarleton and being on the rodeo team was a great opportunity to meet other people from different parts of the United States and the world. He expressed that he loved the opportunity to share his love for horses, roping, and travel with the friends he made at Tarleton. 

“I took advantage of an invite from a fellow rodeo student and great friend, Miguel from Puerto Rico, his family owns a resort there and they host a big roping in August,” he shared. “While roping there, I met Hector who was having a roping in the Dominican Republic and got invited there… I kept taking invites and ended up roping soon after in Italy, Panamá, [and] France. Every place, meeting great people.”

Briseño even stated the cultural differences from country to country when it came to roping. He shared that traveling from roping to roping allowed him to meet many people from different backgrounds and industries. 

“The roping culture is different in every country, in Mexico roping is very social and people gather to hang out. In Texas it is very professional, they come to train, they will pay for quality practice,” Briseño said. “A roper is not necessarily a cowboy by trade, some are doctors, lawyers, business owners, and yes many with ag backgrounds.”

Upon graduating from Tarleton in 2016, Briseño’s next project became turning an old dairy into a chicken farm. The chicken farm houses roughly 200,000 cage free laying hens in Erath county for Hy-Line North America. Hy-Line is a large production and distribution company for birds. They have a large team of poultry industry experts to assist customers in every market.

“When I was most involved my job description was Chicken Tender,” Briseño joked. “Chicken tender is the jokingly but serious way we call the guy that tends to chickens. The company used to call it chicken walker because someone walks throughout the day to make sure the chickens have everything they need.”

Essentially, Briseño’s job consisted of reporting the temperatures of the chicken rooms, checking water lines, feed chains, as well as lighting. He shared that all of the little details affect production on a large scale. Briseño stated that at peak production nearly a million eggs get packaged. In 2020, Briseño and family received the Agriculture Producer of the Year award from the Stephenville Chamber of Commerce.

Not only does Briseño assist in agriculture productions in Erath county, but Comanche county as well as Guadalajara, Jalisco. He assists in his family’s operation “Subasta Caballos.” According to Briseño, it is one of the largest equine operations in Mexico. This year, close to 100 weanlings will be sold on their online platform www.subastacaballos.com. 

“After nearly 20 years of having a one day, in person auction, covid pushed us to go online with great success last year, and now hope to have sales every month on our platform in 2022,” Briseño said. “Our horses in Mexico are all American Quarter Horses (AQHA) or paints. They go to every corner in Mexico and have [been found] in almost every discipline I can think of.”

Now located in Dublin, Briseño continues his busy lifestyle by taking part in a small hay bale operation. Apart from this, he hosts ropings and practices often. He shares that winter is the arena’s busiest time of year. As well as this, he primarily works as a farm and ranch realtor with Ridge Tex

Realty here in Stephenville.

“I’ve had a very blessed life and Tarleton was a great part of it, not only for what I learned here but the fellow students that I met and the Stephenville community as a whole has been nothing short of a blessing,” Briseño said.