Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Colorado’s prison slayer. Lettie Hellman is a native of Colorado’s Western Slope. Since the mid-1980s she has promoted prisons for Delta County. Her husband, Bill, also a proponent of prisons, runs an auto dealership in the town of Delta, population 4,000. “I’m not crazy […]
Communities
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Colorado’s prison slayer
One man’s quest to unshackle a rural economy
Posted inJune 12, 1995: The Southwest's last real river: Will it flow on?
Deconstructing the rural West
Patrick Jobes has written a profoundly pessimistic analysis of the fate of the West’s attractive, or amenity, towns in the April/May 1995 issue of Western Planner. Fortunately, the article by the Montana State University sociologist is so densely written that its full, depressing impact may hit only those who reread it several times. Based on […]
Posted inJune 12, 1995: The Southwest's last real river: Will it flow on?
A 77-year-old cow watcher from Arizona
Reader Pauline Sandholdt wrote to let us know that a photo caption in our May 1 issue had blown a “considerable hole” in her confidence in High Country News. The picture in question appeared on page 19 of our special issue on land grant universities headlined, “Reform comes to “Ag” Schools.” It depicted cattle in […]
Posted inJune 12, 1995: The Southwest's last real river: Will it flow on?
How an ex-clown brought order to a boom town
PARK CITY, Utah – In 1884, the editor of the town newspaper scolded that “there is too much promiscuous shooting on streets at night.” More than a century later, the common complaint is there is too much promiscuous construction each day. This is the land of perpetual nail pounding, where subdivisions materialize overnight. They march […]
Posted inJune 12, 1995: The Southwest's last real river: Will it flow on?
A Montana county unearths a major welfare queen: itself
CHOTEAU, Mont. – Adam F. Dahlman never doubted the old saying that for every dollar American taxpayers fork over to Uncle Sam, the government gives back 50 cents and instructions on how to spend it. But that was before Dahlman, a commissioner in Teton County, north of Great Falls, took a long look at how […]
Posted inMay 29, 1995: Politics 101
Californians talk too much trash
As co-chairs of the Kanab (Utah) Beautification Committee, California retirees Ken and Pat Nute discovered it takes more than good intentions and a little elbow grease to clean up a town. Tact would have helped, say city council members, who voted to disband the committee in March after Ken Nute flashed photos of houses he […]
Posted inMay 29, 1995: Politics 101
Booming county looks for trust
Fremont County, Idaho, is booming, and Grant Chandler doesn’t like what he sees on the horizon. “To tell you the truth, I’m not interested in seeing another 50,000 people move in – or even another 10,000,” says Chandler, current chairman of the county commission. But he acknowledges that he can’t stop a development boom in […]
Posted inMay 29, 1995: Politics 101
Forest forestalls squatters
The housing crunch in Jackson, Wyo., is expected to get even tighter this summer. Bridger-Teton National Forest officials announced in April that camping on forest land in the Jackson district this summer will be limited to five days, cut from 16. This worries the Jackson Hole chamber of commerce, since 1,200 seasonal workers usually move […]
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
Overstaying their welcome?
Overstaying their welcome? A hot springs near a town of 200 in southwestern New Mexico was a popular picnicking and swimming area for locals before a horde of unwelcome guests arrived. Now, campers, vans and tents colonize the area near Glenwood for weeks at a time and many of the town’s residents call it an […]
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
Critics attack a snow job in Utah
Even though Salt Lake City is nearing the end of a four-year, privately financed, $7 million quest to host the Winter Olympic Games for 2002, the subject has barely surfaced in Utah. Yet a decision is imminent: On June 16 the International Olympic Committee will select from four cities, and Salt Lake and Quebec appear […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
A last laugh
A Last Laugh Although environmentalists don’t have much to laugh about these days, Orlo, a Portland, Ore.-based environmental education group, wants to help lighten the mood. Its free exhibition of environmental cartoons called “The Last Laugh” is now showing at The Art Gym on Marylhurst College campus until May 20, featuring more than 150 editorial […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
A place of one’s own
A PLACE OF ONE’S OWN Are you thinking of buying a few acres of land to satisfy that pastoral desire? It may be more complicated than you think and not as much fun. That’s why Montana has published a brief booklet for small-acreage landowners called Tips on Land & Water Management for Small Farms and […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Trying to save two of the parts
Utah State University’s Lyle McNeal has spent 20 years reviving Churro sheep and Navajo agriculture
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
The gospel according to Wes Jackson
He believes we can grow food without chemicals, plows or erosion
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Starting a war at Ohio State
An untenured academic challenged his colleagues, farmers and students to think deeply about the land-grant mission
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
The Memo War: 1989-1993
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Starting a war at Ohio State. It is difficult to understand this article in this text rendition of the print original. Scanned copies of the original can be obtained from HCN. THE MEMO WAR 1989-1993 The Memo War started when Kamyar Enshayan wrote […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
An in-your-face range scientist
Note: this feature article is one of several in this special issue on the West’s land grant universities. LAS CRUCES, N.M. – In the wake of a drought that left the Southwestern range parched and degraded, scientists at New Mexico State University are busy: They’re figuring out which cattle breeds do the best in the […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Montana State University to local environmentalists: Get lost!
In an editorial in their monthly newsletter, which I’ll call the Big Sky Cow Pie, the Montana Stockgrowers Association branded me the “Ralph Nader of the West.” It was not meant as a compliment. I’m not exactly sure what set them off. Perhaps it was something I’d said while president of the National Wolf Growers […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Midnight subdividing creates unsanitary messes
DOäA ANA COUNTY, N.M. – Felix Ledesma stares out at the border shantytown where his family now lives and he shakes his head: “We moved here because New Mexico is the land of opportunity.” But Ledesma’s children play nearby in muddy pools, and around them rise an odd assortment of homes – cinder block shacks, […]