A special song is more than its rhythm, lyrics and bridge. It can be a memory, a map and a treasured bond. When Valeri Crenshaw was a little girl, she remembered a song her dad, Roy, loved – The Duprees’ You Belong to Me from 1952. Over time, the song became a timeless memory, a sentimental map to places they would explore together and a father-daughter bond to last more than a lifetime.

The song’s lyrics describe faraway lands and how no matter the distance, the two belong together. “See the pyramids along the Nile” opens the song, followed by “See the marketplace in old Algiers.” Even as a kid, Roy made it his mission to explore these areas of the world away from Shamrock Farms in Wabaunsee County where he resides. Not only did he travel to these areas, but he also brought his daughter along with him.

“When I was 17, my dad wanted me to know the world was a little bit bigger than Kansas, and to know there were different cultures, different religions,” Valeri says. “So, he took me to Egypt for a month. He chose Egypt because of the song he loves; You Belong to Me. He wanted to go to the places that are mentioned in the song.”

From Kansas to camels

One of the days they were in Egypt, they rented a car and drove through the Sahara, almost to the Libyan border, and that day has set the rhythm of Valeri’s life ever since.

“We were way out in the middle of nowhere,” Valeri remembers. “We were seeing nothing, just sand dunes. Then at one point, I said, ‘Dad, are those camels over there?’ Since he was driving, he was focused on the road and glanced over. He told me they were oil derricks. About that time, the oil derricks put their heads up and looked at us. It really was a big herd of camels. I don’t know what happened in that moment, but I fell hard and fast in love.”

Even without interacting with the herd of camels, she was mesmerized by them. She was 17 when she fell for camels, and she knew she wanted to own her own but had societal pressure telling her that dream would be as far away as her travels had taken her.

“I had all those landmarks in my head like I have to go to college, get my degrees, get married, buy a house,” Valeri says. “You know, all of those little flashpoints we think we have to do in life. In my mind, getting camels was way down the road.”

But owning camels wasn’t as far away as she initially thought because her dad, 20 years ago, gave Valeri her first camels. Her love for her dad and of her camels hasn’t wavered the slightest since, even with life’s milestones.

With a plan in place to surprise her, Roy tried to find camels for his daughter, but since this was pre-Facebook, finding like-minded camel people in Kansas was difficult. He eventually had to tell Valeri his plans so she could help him find her camels. It didn’t take Valeri very long.

“Dad finally said, ‘I had this dream to surprise you. I can’t make it work, but here’s our budget’,” Valeri says. “So you know what I did immediately? I found a camel.”

A surprise delivery launches a unique legacy

Instead of surprising Valeri, the pair decided to surprise the rest of their family with the camels. They’d already gone to a farm in Nickerson that had one camel they were willing to sell. But since camels are herd animals, it’s encouraged to own more than one, so much to Valeri’s chagrin, they also bought one that had just been born and had a birth defect in its back leg.

“He was nine months old,” Valeri says. “He was adorable.”

When the Crenshaws bought the camels, they didn’t have a trailer to haul them home. Fortunately, the sellers agreed to deliver them to Shamrock Farms the next day. The trailer rolled in from Nickerson late that afternoon, and 20 years later, the surprise on local cattle ranchers’ faces as camels stepped off the trailer remains a story worth telling.

“I ran to the house when the trailer got here,” Valeri says. “My grandparents and my aunt were here, and I was like, ‘Dad needs you guys at the barn. You need to come to the barn.’ They were busy making dinner, so I had to really push them out the door. Then I ran out, they see the trailer and they're like, ‘What in the world?’ That’s when these two camels step off the trailer.”

The song Valeri and her dad made their own adventure together was used to name her first camel — Siwa — after Siwa Oasis in Egypt. The nine-month-old camel was named Sarid, which is a village in the Middle East where Valeri’s dad lived for several months.

Valeri’s first two camels, like most pets, were incredibly special to her. She describes Siwa as very intuitive, protective of her and they were always in sync. Siwa would help calm the other camels if they got wound up. Sarid holds a special place in Valeri’s heart after further complications with his legs made her make the difficult decision no pet owner is prepared to make.

“I still have his ashes in my house,” she says. “He was my guy. Losing my first two camels was heartbreaking and it still makes me sad.”

A crusade of advocacy for camels

Today, Valeri has a herd of five male dromedary (one hump) camels — Algiers, Raika, Sadri, Damascus and Suez — further showcasing her love for travel in their names. Algiers was the last bucket list item from Roy and Valeri’s song to visit, so they have completed their journey through the song, but their love for travel and new opportunities is ever-lasting.

Valeri is the secretary general for the North American Camel Ranch Owners Association. The young association was started in 2020 and works to represent the camel industry in international relations, education and through congressional advocacy.

“I've gone to Washington, D.C. to talk to politicians and the USDA about classifying camels as livestock, because they are,” she says. “They have them listed in the category of wild or exotic animals. Camels have been domesticated for thousands of years so this categorization isn’t based on science.”

The classification the association prefers is “farm animals,” which would allow camel owners in the U.S. to use them for educational programs, in Christmas nativities, for recreational purposes and for production efforts like camel milk dairies without egregious government restrictions.

Valeri and the association build relationships with camel experts and owners internationally to help support their efforts to advocate for camels and camel owners.

Natural prairie protectors

On their Flint Hills ranch, the camels serve not only as Valeri’s beloved pets, they’re also useful land managers, serving a purpose as the livestock they are. Land management in the Flint Hills is imperative to keep the tallgrass prairie thriving. Typically, landowners will utilize prescribed burning as a method to keep invasive species at bay, which Shamrock Farms does, but using the camels is an additional method of protecting the prairie.

William Koester, who was a Hudson Ranch manager, was featured in Grass & Grain in 1989 about utilizing 18 imported camels from Australia to feed on brush. Even before that, A. B. Hudson, owner of the ranch, had used camels on land in Missouri and they proved useful in removing “mesquite, buckbrush, sumac, trees and other woody plants,” according to the article.

"Camels have been here in the Flint Hills, right near Manhattan, for nearly five decades,” Valeri says. “Some large herds, like Hudson Ranch, had about 200 camels they were running for land management. They brought them in to clean out the invasives, to keep the prairie looking like a prairie.”

Additionally, the camels provide another market for the Crenshaws as the camels shed their excess hair in the spring. Valeri says she can take their hair to a mill to be processed into fiber for products like dryer balls, blankets and yarn.

Her camels have been useful in educational avenues, too. With proximity to Kansas State University and its College of Veterinary Medicine students, Valeri’s camels serve as a great teaching tool. She hosts training sessions for vet students to learn how to properly care for and handle these animals that weigh between 800 and 1,300 pounds.

Valeri’s initial call to K-State to host a day for vet students to work with the camels was so successful they had to create parameters for the students to meet.

“I can’t teach veterinary medicine, but I can teach them how to handle camels,” Valeri says. “They told me they opened it for students, but the waiting list became so long so fast that they had to fit certain criteria like being a third-year student or above. I was shocked. It’s encouraging these students are so eager to learn and are curious.”

While camels aren’t the typical specimen Kansas veterinarians would often work on, having the skills to handle large animals isn’t as unique with Kansas’ large cattle inventory.

“That is one group I have out here and is a passion for me,” Valeri says. “Anything I can do to help camels is worthwhile.”

Collecting camels to build dreams

Valeri would love to see the Flint Hills full of camels, but she’s happy where she is.

“I think I might be living my dream a little bit,” she says. “My dream was to have a camel. Now I have five. I didn’t know all the doors they would open for me. At the end of the day, my dream is to keep my boys healthy, continue to go overseas to learn everything I can to be a liaison to help the camel industry.”

Valeri doesn’t sell her camels, doesn’t breed them, doesn’t sell their milk but they do a lot of work for her and she’s passionate about working with the whole camel industry to make it stronger.

She says she does have one “frivolous” dream: to have the world’s largest collection of camel-themed items, which she catalogs using Instagram.

Having a camel museum isn’t necessarily in the song, You Belong to Me, but perhaps Valeri and her dad could add a verse.

See the dusty dunes in a desert land,
Stand by my side with a guidebook in your hand.
I’ll show you treasures where the camels roam,
In a little museum we’ll call our own.

Some bonds – like Valeri’s to her camels and her dad – play on forever.

Learn more about Shamrock Farms here.

Shamrock Cafe (not serving coffee)

Shamrock Farms also features a fun tourist spot, Shamrock Café, where motorists can stop and enjoy the views of the Flint Hills before continuing their journey. While no food or drinks are served at this café, the views will feed your soul. 

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