Texas Tech University Athletics
All In The Family
September 10, 2014 | Football
Sept. 10, 2014
BY MATT DOWDY
Special to TexasTech.com
In West Texas, cotton is not just king but a way of life to many.
Each fall, tractors are scattered throughout West Texas farms, picking and sending thousands of bales of cotton each year to the local gin. It's an annual process that is tradition to many, passed down from fathers to sons and so forth.
That tradition began at an early age for Barry Street, a 1979 Texas Tech graduate who for the past 20-plus years has owned and operated the Street Community Gin in nearby Kress that annually produces more than 40,000 bales of cotton.
"The family business means everything," Street said. "My business started as a producer, raising cotton. I learned hard work from my dad. He taught me how to raise cotton, so I owe my dad and mom everything for that."
As much as raising and ginning cotton is a tradition to the Street Family so is the love for Texas Tech University.
Street is a fourth-generation Red Raider as he, his two sisters and a brother all earned degrees from Texas Tech. His wife, SuDe, is a third-generation Red Raider as well while each of their three children have also gone on to receive degrees from Texas Tech.
The Streets will be one of a handful of other West Texas families that will get to honor both traditions when Texas Tech hosts Arkansas in its third-annual "Celebrate Cotton Game" at Jones AT&T Stadium.
"I love Texas Tech and bleed Texas Tech," Street said. "I thought about going a lot of other places. I wanted to play football but I wasn't fast enough or big enough to play at Tech. Thank goodness I went ahead and went to Tech because that's where I met my wife. We love Texas Tech."
Street began farming at an early age, learning under his father and working alongside his brother throughout college on the family farm.
He earned his bachelor's degree in agricultural economics in 1979, beginning a career path Street originally thought would lead to banking. That route would change several years later when the opportunity was presented to purchase what is now known as the Street Community Gin.
Since its purchase in 1988, the Street Community Gin, which originally opened in the 1960s, has transformed into one of the top facilities throughout West Texas. It runs pretty much non-stop during the months of October to January, drying, cleaning and pressing thousands of bales of cotton from local farmers.
As time has passed and technology has continued to improve, the Street Community Gin is no longer just for cotton, though. In addition to the hundreds of bales it produces per day, the facility also distributes cotton seed, compost and moats among other products consumers are likely to purchase.
"Nothing is wasted that comes through this gin," said Street, a past president of the Texas Cotton Ginners' Association. "There's a use for everything that comes through here."
Street has continued to improve and build upon the gin since taking ownership, updating the gin's infrastructure to where the entire process is computerized.
He has purchased a pair of cotton presses during his time as owner, most recently making around a $1.5 million upgrade to the facility. That figure does not include updates to the gin building itself, either.
Each time Street has made a purchase, more times than none, it has been manufactured and produced in the Lubbock area.
"The press we had before this one, I bought a used press out of California," Street said. "The first thing I saw when I went out there, everything was (labeled) `Lubbock, Texas.' The controls were built in Lubbock and we brought it back here. The work that comes out of Lubbock is worldwide."
The Lubbock area accounts for around two-thirds of the six million acres of cotton planted yearly in the state of Texas, Street said.
While Lubbock may be home to the vast majority of cotton producers in the country, other areas and even continents are planting and harvesting the crop as well, meaning more business for the Lubbock area.
"One of the salesmen who sold me some of my equipment, I called him the other day and he was in Australia," Street said. "That money has to be coming back from Australia to Lubbock. The technicians that are in Lubbock travel all around the world, anywhere they raise cotton."
Owning and operating a cotton gin and being a Red Raider football fan are rarely easy. The bulk of the ginning season coincides with the majority of Texas Tech games during the months of October and November.
An avid season ticket holder, Street aims to be at every football game when he can but when malfunctions or delays occur, that's when the family makes the 60 mile trip to Lubbock while he stays behind.
There's little doubt he'd much rather be in Jones AT&T Stadium on a Saturday afternoon or evening, but his commitment to his local producers is always a family priority.
"My schedule, when it gets close to gameday, we start planning a couple days ahead to make sure we're going to have the right people here and that everything is going to take place," Street said. "Of course if we're not in the full ginning season where we're running 24-hours-a-day, we'll just shut down.
"There has been times where we've had a serious breakdown where I've had to stay here because my producers are important to me. I feel like to get their cotton processed I do have to miss every now and then but not very often."
In addition to his support on gameday, Street has been an active member of the Red Raider Club, the principal fundraising arm of Texas Tech Athletics that provides financial support for more than 400 student-athletes.
He also a current member of the National Board of Directors for the Texas Tech Alumni Association where he serves on the Academic Recruiting and Chapter Development committee and chairs the Membership committee.
Street may be known best for his work in the cotton industry but his service to both organizations has been vital to funding for both athletics and the university, said Amy Heard, Tech Associate Athletic Director in charge of the Red Raider Club.
"Barry Street and his family along with other ginners throughout West Texas are literally part of the fabric of success for the Red Raider Club, top to bottom," Heard said. "The South Plains is built on hard-working farmers and the success of the Red Raider Club is no different."
Following today's game against the Razorbacks, Street will return to Kress with his family and finish preparations for the longest four months of the year.
Module trucks will begin rolling into the Street Community Gin in just a few weeks and from then on the facility will pretty much run 24-hours-a-day, marking the start of ginning season.
By the time Texas Tech returns to Jones AT&T Stadium on Oct. 11, the gin will have likely produced several thousand bales of cotton. Street will likely escape for most of that day and watch Texas Tech host West Virginia alongside his family and 60,000 of his fellow Red Raiders.
That is if it everything running well beforehand, though.
"I want everything to be clicking just right so I can watch the Red Raiders," Street said. "Since we gin on Saturdays, I like for things to be running real good on those days."
