High Country News is put together every two weeks in much the way a Jackson Pollock-type painting is put together. And that is the approach we have taken to the ceremony marking the paper’s 25 years in the West: impromptu, short on formal presentations and long on directness.
We’re thinking of Saturday, Sept. 9, as if it were just another issue of the paper. The “lead” story is Patricia Nelson Limerick, who will give the keynote address on Saturday evening. Dr. Limerick has positions and honors to burn – Professor of History at the University of Colorado, Boulder, a MacArthur “genius’ grant, several books, several years as a USA Today columnist. But we asked her to speak for only two reasons: As much as anyone, she has changed the way Westerners look at history. And she is a great speaker.
The rest of the Sept. 9 anniversary “issue” – its Hotlines and Barbs and Roundups and Essays – will come in the form of a conversation starting at 10:30 a.m., breaking for lunch and then running through the afternoon. The goal is to make the formal conversation at least as interesting as the conversations that occur spontaneously in corridors during meetings.
The dozen or so core conversationalists have been given three requests:
* that they speak as individuals rather than as representatives of an organization or cause or economic group;
* that they express themselves in anecdotes and stories rather than in policy pronouncements; and
* that participants also think of themselves as facilitators responsible for involving everyone in the talk.
The morning will belong to the core group. The afternoon conversation will broaden to include the audience, whose members will also adhere to the above ground rules.
The stories will focus on the past 25 years in the West and the next 25 years. If a story makes some larger point about the West, that’s OK, so long as it is also a pretty good story.
The core group of participants as of deadline are:
Robert Amon, or Ramùn – a retired life insurance executive who now whiles away his hours running an Earth First! campaign to stop the logging of Cove-Mallard in central Idaho.
Tom Bell – the founder of High Country News and the Wyoming Outdoor Council who is now acting director of the Pioneer Museum in Lander.
Doc Hatfield – a cattle rancher and beef marketer from central Oregon.
Ed Quillen – a columnist for the Denver Post who also publishes a monthly paper with his wife, Martha.
Andrea Lawrence – a four-term county supervisor from Mono County, California.
Linda Hasselstrom – a South Dakota rancher and writer.
Lynn Dickey – a businesswoman and former Wyoming state legislator.
Murray Steinman – a staff member of the Church Universal and Triumphant in Montana.
Mark Trahant – The executive news editor of the Salt Lake Tribune and the former publisher-owner of Navajo Nation Today.
Jon Margolis – former Chicago Tribune columnist whose “Waaahhh” essay on grazing (HCN, 2/20/95) provoked a large reaction.
Mary Chapman – a former utility executive who now runs a public-lands consensus group in western Colorado.
Maggie Fox – Land and water specialist for the Sierra Club.
The conversation will take place at the Lander, Wyoming, Community Center starting at 10:30 a.m. It will be preceded by a 5K foot race at the Lander City Park beginning at 8:30 a.m.
We would love to see you there.
* Ed Marston
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Dear readers.
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