Jacqualyn Benlehr was born to Charles and Margaret Benlehr in Fullerton, California in 1951. Her father moved the family to the North Shore of O‘ahu in 1955 when Jackie was four years old. Her father was a dairyman for Meadow Gold and she loved helping him. She grew up at the Dairy in Kawailoa, O‘ahu. In Jackie’s own words, “I really enjoyed being out in the pasture, on a horse.”

 In 1966, Jackie's father purchased one of three sections of the W. H. Shipman Puu’O’o Ranch, on the slopes of Mauna Kea and named it Puuohu Ranch. She spent her last two summers of high school working there. Jackie says, “that first summer, all five of us girls came over. The second summer, I was the only one that came.” And so, while her family remained on Oʻahu, Jackie would stay on the ranch with Don Winters who was managing the ranch in her father’s absence. If you ask what she did for fun, her response is typical paniolo, “There was no fun. It was all work, but that was fun.” It comes as no surprise then, that upon graduation in 1969, she immediately packed her things and moved to PuuOhu Ranch alone and began what would be a 23-year career on the mountain. She also started working cattle on and off for W.H. Shipman at their Saddle Road and PuaAkala sections which neighbored PuuOhu Ranch on either side. 

She met and dated her would-be husband Herman Pacheco during this time and assisted him for 9 years (1969-1979) while he was contracted by Shipman to rope and harvest wild cattle on Mauna Kea. After marrying, they had two sons, Kit and Toby, and started a small ranch of their own on subleased DHHL land in Waimea. When Kit was 1 week old, Jackie’s father fell ill and she returned to PuuOhu and ran the ranch for him for two years. PuuOhu was, by this time, owned by a Japanese investment firm. When her father retired from the ranch. they officially hired Jackie (roughly 1983-1991) to manage it. Shortly after hiring Jackie, the ranch owners decided to adopt the Savory system of grazing management. “The Savory Grazing Method” by Allan Savory and Stanley 0. Parsons was first published in the journal Rangelands in December 1980. Jackie was among the first on the Big Island to pioneer this method at PuuOhu Ranch, going to 5 herds in 5 cells with several paddocks in the rotation. 

When Herman passed away following a three-year illness, she left the managing job at PuuOhu Ranch and went with her sons’ to help tend their own ranch in Waimea for 8 years. She later moved her herd of 130 cows to Kaʻū, where she ranched for 5 years while working part‑time for SC Ranch in Pa‘auilo Mauka. When she was hired on full‑time as manager of SC Ranch, she sold her small herd in Kaʻū to Freddy Rice. The first thing she did at SC Ranch was submit a plan to divide the ranch into grazing cells and paddocks and to get water to each paddock so she could develop a rotational grazing regime at SC, just as she had done everywhere she went. It would take 14 years, but her patience and commitment to low stress stock handling, rotational grazing, and careful observation and documentation, led to a conception rate into the 90’s at SC Ranch by the time she retired from the industry in 2016. 

Jackie qualifies under all three Paniolo Hall of Fame categories: Founder, Ranch Manager, and Ranch Hand.   She is a cooperator with Soil and Water Conservation District and the Natural Resources Conservation Service.  She is an exceptional and pioneering ranch owner, manager, and hand, whose life’s work has done much to preserve and evolve the Hawaiian cattle industry and paniolo culture, she is also one of the few women to succeed and thrive in these historically male-dominated roles.

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