52 TOOMBS COUNTY MAGAZINE
While at GSC, Kirk became friends
with a guy whose father had just bought
20 yearlings. “They needed to be broke, so I
volunteered to help,” said Kirk, which is how
he got his start in training horses. Around
the same time, Timmy Williford and I got
to be buddies, and we started riding cutting
horses and competing at cutting shows. I
really learned a lot from him and his stepdad
about training horses.”
In 1985, Kirk graduated from GSC
with a degree in Behavior Disorders. The
following year he went to work with the
Toombs County School system as a Behavior
Disorders Counselor. But working with
horses and raising cattle were never far from
his mind. In 1988, he quit his job to train
horses fulltime. “I wanted to see if I could
make a living raising and training horses,”
said Kirk. That same year, he and his father
bought a small herd of Angus cattle.
Even though Ace Little understood his
son’s desire to do something he enjoyed,
he was concerned for his son’s
financial security, as any good
father would be. “Every time
I'd go eat with Mom and Dad,
the conversation would go,
‘How are things going?’ I’d say,
‘I’m making a decent living.’
‘You got any insurance?’ ‘No,
sir.’ ‘You got any benefits?’ ‘No
sir.’” Kirk smiled.
Kirk’s father had retired
from public school by then and
taken a job at the Reidsville
State Prison teaching inmates.
“When a job opened up there,”
said Kirk, “he told me, ‘If you
will go and get that job, I'll
give you the Gay Property,’
which was about a hundred acres of land
with a little house on it. I went right down
there the next morning and got the job,” he
laughed.
The land was a gracious gift, and he
honored his father’s wisdom. Kirk had his
father’s life for an example, after all. If
anyone understood how to allow dreams
the opportunity to evolve while seizing the
opportunity at hand with whole-hearted
TOP LEFT No working farm would be
complete without cattle dogs. The Littles have
Australian Shepherds and Blue Heelers to work
the dogs. Kirk's wife Lisa has also started her
own shepherd breeding business called Solid
Ground Aussies.