Family-owned.
Community-focused.

a storied past

Since 1940, the Flying W Diamond Ranch has been more than a business — it's been a way of life. As a third-generation, family-owned and operated operation, we've watched this ranch grow from our grandparents' original herd into one of the region's most respected sources of registered Black Angus genetics.

Located just north of Capitan, New Mexico, near Ruidoso, our ranch sits cradled between the Capitan Mountains and the Sierra Blanca range — land shaped by generations of stewardship.

This land carries more than our family's history. Capitan is famously the hometown of Smokey Bear, and our own ranch was once home to the legendary bear himself. The property also holds a piece of Old West lore — Billy the Kid is said to have hidden out here, and several artifacts left behind from that era remain on the ranch to this day. Every calf we raise, every bull we condition, and every decision we make reflects the values passed down through our family: patience, integrity, and an unwavering standard of quality.

Meet the Team

  • Operations Administrator

    Laura Rice is the Operations Administrator for the Flying W Diamond Ranch, K-Bobs Restaurant Ruidoso and Ranchos De Caballos.

    Laura was born and raised in Central Texas and descends from a long line of both farmers and ranchers in Lockhart and Goldthwaite, Texas.

    Laura brings an extensive broad-based professional and technical background to the Tinsley Family of businesses. From supply chain management, logistics and contracts execution to commercial cattle operations and accounting, Laura has spent her entire career intensely focused on becoming a subject matter expert in the discipline with which she works.

    Laura started her professional career as an Accounting Specialist with, at the time, the Nation’s largest International Truck and Engine Dealer Longhorn International and its parent International Trucks of Houston. Laura was instrumental in improving business operating systems, parts inventory accountability and management.

    In 2008, her employer created a new government and defense contract company under the Kyrish Government Group brand name. Laura was hand-picked by executive leadership to join the new team and be a key player as the Finance Manager for the new start-up. Laura’s single largest professional achievement was her instrumental role in helping start and grow the company from the ground floor. Her keen aptitude for understanding and interpreting detailed government contracts led to her assuming the Contracts Manager and Capture and Acquisition role and being the single most important interface with one of the largest agencies in DOD the Defense Logistics Agency. Laura’s positive contributions helped the company’s sales grow no less than 25% year over year with 2016 sales being 24 million all while maintaining no less than a 95% quality and contract compliance rating by the government.

    In 2016, Laura left Kyrish and joined Hooks Industrial, a Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Government Contractor, located in Houston. Assuming much the same role she had previously, Laura was tasked with contract management and capturing Defense Logistics Agency sales targeted for Service-Disabled Veterans. She helped grow the business by 1 million in sales in year one alone.

    Laura is married to Andy Rice and has two sons Chase and Evan. She has been instrumental in establishing her own families commercial cow calf operation located in Wichita Falls and Rule, Texas and is a proud Texas Tech Mother…..”Wreck’Em”

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live life unbridled

Long before boardrooms and business ventures, Ed Tinsley was a ranch kid, raised in the shadow of the Capitan Mountains on the same land the Flying W Diamond calls home today. That upbringing — the early mornings, the herds, the deep pull of the New Mexico high country — never left him, and it shaped every path he took afterward, even when that path first led him elsewhere. Ed began his career as an attorney in 1978 with a large law firm in Austin, Texas, but it wasn't long before his ranching roots pulled him back toward the land and the cattle business he'd known since childhood.

A legacy rooted in the land

Ed's career carried him through the restaurant industry, from Austin, Texas, to New Mexico and Colorado, but at every turn, ranching was the thread that pulled him home. He built his businesses around a simple idea he'd known since childhood: that great food starts with great ranching. That philosophy became the foundation of his "Pasture to Plate" commitment, one he carried into every venture he built — most notably K-BOB'S Steakhouse, which he brought to New Mexico in 1991 and grew for more than two decades before passing the reins to the next generation of family.

But it was always the ranch that called him back. Even while running a growing steakhouse, Ed remained a fixture on the Flying W Diamond Ranch, hands-on in the operation and deeply committed to the Capitan Mountains community that raised him. He continued to own and operate the K-BOB’S Steakhouse of Ruidoso, staying close to home and close to the “Pasture to Plate” values he’d built his life around.

That commitment to community shows in what he built beyond the ranch and the restaurant, too-including founding the Caballos Against Cancer event, the 44 Farms partnership, and the Flying W Diamond Angus Field Day, all lasting achievements that reflect his belief in genetics, in giving back, and the land and people around him.

Today, that same legacy continues through the third generation-a family still working the same ground, raising the same standard of cattle, and carrying forward the values Ed learned as boy in the Capitan Mountains.