Robert and Melinda live in Floresville, Texas on 88 acres Robert inherited from his grandmother in 2006.
Robert was a pastor for 22 years in Clear Lake, Texas, and has been a professor of Professor of Christian Ministries and Director of Pastoral Ministries at Truett Seminary at Baylor University for the past 12 years. He also directs the mentoring program for Truett students. He retired from full-time teaching in the Spring of 2022.
Melinda was a stay-at-home mom for most of her life, but in 2008 she returned to school, earning a Master’s in Humanities, a PhD in English Literature, and a Master’s in Museum Studies. She identifies as an independent scholar, speaking and publishing about local history and Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Jesuit priest, professor, and poet in the nineteenth century.
They have three grown children and five grandchildren and are enjoying their journey together.
They have both been on a steep learning curve for the last few years getting acquainted with Tallgrass Prairies. The farm had been leased for conventional agriculture for about 10 years, but the Creeches began to be concerned about the health of the land and wanted to be involved in its restoration. They got a Pastures for Upland Birds grant from Texas Parks and Wildlife in 2018. The grant provided native grass and wildflower seeds for 88 acres, the use of a no-till seed to plant the seeds, and the consultation of a wildlife biologist. After an extremely wet fall, they were able to plant in January 2019. The first year the seeds went deep, the second year they began to creep, and the third year they began to leap. In the summer of 2021 they were thrilled to see mature stands of the “big four” (switchgrass, big bluestem, little bluestem, and yellow Indiangrass), along with a variety of other grasses and wildflowers.
Read more about Robert and Melinda’s prairie journey on texasprairie.org, where they were celebrated in 2022 as one of “Our Prairie People”: https://texasprairie.org/our-prairie-people-june-22nd/.
