The following article appeared in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette High Profile Section on Sunday, October 18, 2026. Click here to read it via their website.
Serving Youth Ranch Perfect ‘Job’ for Retiree Ray Dillon
By Helaine Williams
Before retirement, Ray Dillon served as president and CEO of Deltic Timber Corp., where he oversaw management of the company’s 500,000-plus acres of timberland, its two sawmills, fiberboard plant and real estate development efforts.
And post-retirement? Dillon prefers to stay busy, especially when it comes to charitable efforts.
“I wake up every day looking for somebody to help,” he says. “I don’t know who that is, but everybody needs help.”
One blessed recipient of Dillon’s help: Arkansas Sheriffs’ Youth Ranches. He’s president of the board of the Ranches (also referred to as just “the Ranch”) which is celebrating 50 years of providing a place not just of shelter but safety, stability, love and care — a chance to just be a child — for children who’d previously been deprived of these.
“I work with a lot of organizations, but I work with them because I learn from working with those organizations,” Dillon says. “In all the organizations that I work with, there’s a purpose for being there, and I try to take that purpose and teach others what that means by example. Not just telling them — by doing.”
Founded by county sheriffs in Arkansas in 1976, and starting with two boys housed in a mobile home, Arkansas Sheriffs’ Youth Ranches’ main headquarters sits on 600 acres near Batesville and, under the leadership of CEO Nancy Fulton, gives new life to children and young people who have been abused, neglected, abandoned.
Up to eight ranchers, as occupants are called, live for free in five foster houses run by houseparents and help to raise cows, pigs, goats chickens and ponies. So far, 2,300 ranchers have thus benefited since the youth ranches’ founding.
“At the ranch, children no longer wonder where their next meals will come from, whether they will attend school the next day, or if they are safe from abusive family members,” its website says.
And that’s what matters most to Dillon … not his position with the organization. “I’m just an instrument to help the ranch,” he says.
“Think about this. We’ve got 40 children that we are responsible for housing, raising, educating and mentoring, and we fund all of that privately. Now the most recent number is it takes about $350,000 to raise a child. So if you take those 40 children, and you just say times-$300,000, that’s the expectation of this organization. And the way I characterized it to someone — I was on an airplane telling him about the ranch — I said, ‘I’ve got a lot of people depending on me,’ and that’s the way I feel about it.”
All 75 Arkansas county sheriffs signed the incorporation papers for the organization. Nowadays, nine sheriffs sit on the board and some help with fundraising. Via the Arkansas Sheriffs Association, every sheriff in this state has a chance to be part of the Ranch,” Dillon says.
BECOMING A ‘HAND’
Dillon’s own “ranch hand” instrumentation began with an invitation to attend the annual Arkansas Children’s Award Dinner, a benefit for Arkansas Sheriff’s Youth Ranches. Dillon attended the dinner and learned about the organization’s programs. “And I understood it was Gov. (Mike) Beebe’s, I’ll call it ‘favorite’ charity, because he chaired that dinner for 29 years.”
Dillon went on to attend more functions and become a member of the ranch’s board of directors. He, too, chaired the dinner and in 2016, became a Children’s Award recipient himself. The list of past recipients read like a Who’s Who in Arkansas philanthropy: Rush Harding, Dorothy Morris, Sissy Jones, Marge Schueck, former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Pat Walker, the Tyson family.
The next Children’s Award dinner is coming up Oct. 26 at the Little Rock Marriott. This year’s dinner honors Laura R. Landreaux, president and CEO of Entergy Arkansas.
Children’s Award recipients generally have a history of involvement with charitable organizations that focus on at-risk youth, or youth activities meant to “teach and train — whether it’s sports or whether it’s some type of after-school program where they’re learning about some technology or something like that,” Dillon says. “It’s someone that has … been involved in supporting youth development throughout this state. Entergy has invested funds in youth across the state; Landreaux in particular serves on the Easterseals Arkansas board, among others.
“We raise about 10% of our operating funds from that dinner, so that dinner is very important to us, and it’s important that that we hit our targets.”
INSPIRED BY SCRIPTURE
Dillon’s primary motivation for becoming involved with the Arkansas Sheriffs’ Youth Ranches — whose residents come from referrals from the state Department of Human Services; through other referrals; and private placements — can be found in Scripture.
“So what did the good Lord tell us to do?” he asks, before answering his own question. “Take care of widows and orphans.
“I’ve been churched all my life, and here’s an opportunity to serve, doing what He expects. And it’s hard in this life if you’ve got two good parents, it’s harder if you don’t have any parents. So these are children that have no one to help them except the Youth Ranch. We become their parents — the houseparents do, but none of that happens without the funding and the resources. Literally, we raise them, we school them, we clothe them and we take care of them. That’s what the Ranch does.”
Dillon’s farming background also makes him a natural for involvement with the youth ranches.
“I was a farm boy, and I (told) people my entire career, I’ve never worked with anyone that grew up in a farming environment … that was not successful. And here’s why: You’re taught to work, and there’s a lot of it. You get to do a lot of it, so you learn how to be accountable and you learn how to be responsible. So the Ranch is called the Ranch for a reason … We’ve got a farming element to it, and these children are exposed to animals, and they are exposed to taking care of animals.
“Here’s the secret … . The first thing they really love is the animal that they’re caring for. It’s not necessarily a pet, but it really kind of becomes a pet. But that animal loves them first, and then they learn what love’s all about.” The young ranchers even show the animals at fairs.
This puts them on the path to “healing and learning,” Dillon continues.
“Every dinner, we have a rancher … tell their story,” he says. “And all you have to do is hear one story, and you’ve just about heard them all because it’s parents that weren’t responsible; it’s parents that were involved with alcohol or drugs or something else, but they were doing everything but raising their children. They were not providing for their children, and most of the time they’re abusing their children in some way, or the boyfriends or the girlfriends that’s running through the house is abusing them, so that’s the environment they’ve grown up in.”
Dillon echoes the famed motto of Boys Town founder Father Edward J. Flanagan — “There are no bad boys” — when he emphasizes that “children that show up to the ranch are not bad children; they just come from bad circumstances.”
“Now, there are children that have, I’ll call it, ‘issues,’ but they need treatment. (And) most of our ranchers are not those type children. They just need a home and somebody to help them.”
As of this summer, ranch capacity grew. Phillip and Verna Raney of Ozark made a generous donation that led to the construction of of Raney Hall, which opened June 13.
SUCCESS STORY
Ranchers typically range from age 6 to 17; if they’re part of a sibling group, they’ll take younger ranchers in order to keep siblings together. Nowadays they are encouraged to stay until the age of 21 and learn a trade. Some go to college (with scholarship location help from ranch officials); some to the military.
“We try to help them figure out, ‘How am I going to make a living?’” Dillon says.
They might well make a living akin to the one made by one of the original ranchers, who spoke at the 50th anniversary celebration April 18. He works for Price Waterhouse as a consultant, traveling the world and helping set up business solutions for the poultry industry.
“And his story was, ‘I wouldn’t be successful today without the Ranch,’” Dillon says.
“That’s how important the Sheriffs’ Youth Ranch is. That’s why I do what I do, and my main job as chairman of the board is to make sure the Ranch is still taking care of children 50 years from the day. That was part of my comments at the 50th anniversary (celebration). Our job is to make sure we’re still serving children 50 years from today, and that takes responsible management, OK? It takes finding the right houseparents, and it takes — I’ll call it the oversight — to make sure that we protect the resources we have.”
Thirty-first annual Arkansas Children’s Award Dinner honoring Laura Landreaux, 6 p.m. reception and silent auction; 7 p.m. dinner, live auction and program, Oct. 26, Grand Ballroom, Little Rock Marriott Hotel, 3 Statehouse Plaza, Little Rock. Tickets: $250. Visit youthranches.com.