Clint Sparks spent the two decades after high school doing farm work around the clock. Now a business owner in Granbury, he is enjoying some hard earned relaxation.
Sparks graduated from Dublin High School in 1993. He tried college for a year, first at Texas State Technical College and then at Tarleton, but he soon decided school was not for him. “All I ever wanted to be was a farmer,” Sparks said.
So he started taking jobs helping with the harvests of different crops. “I went on harvests through my 20s and 30s,” he said. “I spent time on the road doing custom harvesting, peanuts, silage grain. Nearly did it all.”
The people he worked with were always happy to show him the ropes when he started working with a new crop. “If you kind of have the interest, somebody is willing to show you,” he said. “There weren’t a whole lot of people that wanted to do that kind of work.”
He often worked long hours, sometimes seven days a week, but Sparks enjoyed spending time on the road for his job. “At the time it was amazing traveling around the country and harvesting crops,” he said.
After more than two decades, though, the grueling schedule of the work began to wear on Sparks. He started looking around for a career change, and spent time as a mechanic.
In his free time, he started headingouttoLakeGranbury on the weekends to relax. He loved the lake, and decided he wanted to move there. On one trip in 2014, he noticed a small liquor store for sale in the gated community Pecan Plantation and decided to buy it.
“It was pretty cheap,” said Sparks. “I thought it might have been a bad idea [at first], but I got lucky. About two months later, a building boom started over here, so it turned out to be a good deal.”
Sparks has two employees at the liquor store (one is his mother, who also lives in Granbury). Recently, he and his girlfriend Laine bought another business, a car wash.
On an average day, Sparks splits his time between the businesses making sure everything is running smoothly. He hopes to strengthen the businesses to a point where he can spend more time relaxing.
“I spent my 20s and 30s working [all the time],” he said. “That’s where my whole focus is headed, is where I’m not having to work seven days a week for 12 hours a day.”
When he’s not working, Sparks is usually out on the lake — the whole reason he moved to Granbury in the first place.
Another of his hobbies also keeps him pretty busy: several years ago, he and a group of friends started the Texas Truck and Tractor Pullers Association. “As a farm kid growing up close to DeLeon, [tractor pulling] was in my blood,” he said. “It had died out at that time, and me and a group of friends figured out a way to get it going again.”
The association puts on about 10 events each year. “I’ve been on the board of directors for 15 years,” he said. “And we’ve been putting on tractor pulls all over the state for the last 15 years.”
Sparks advice to Dublin graduates is to cultivate a sense of perspective. “Kids get so caught up in the stuff that happens when you’re young,” he said. “You won’t even remember half that [stuff]. In five years, it’s over.”
After high school, the world is full of possibilities, he added. “The greatest challenge is all mental,” he said. “You probably do nearly anything, once you get it out of your head that you can’t.”
Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other grads, email publisher@dublincitizen. com.