You are here: home Departments Uncommon Westerners

Uncommon Westerners

'Si, se puede'

Latino activist Dolores Huerta continues to inspire and organize after 50 lively years.

by Rebecca Clarren, Jul 18, 2008
Survival and the fittest

Ultra-marathon runner Nikki Kimball races to keep her spirit strong and her personal demons at bay.

by Ray Sikorski, Jun 23, 2008
Stretching the notion of neighbor

Rev. Peter Sawtell crusades for eco-justice throughout the West from his church in Denver.

by Christine Hoekenga, Nov 26, 2007
Throwing raptors into flight

Rob Domenech bands eagles, studies hawks and also works with at-risk kids

by Becky Lomax, Jul 23, 2007
'Miss Fish Hatchery'

Wildlife conservation biologist Jenn Logan has a soft spot for the less-glamorous endangered species like razorback suckers and boreal toads

by Scott Gates, Jun 12, 2006
Craig’s excellent adaptive adventures

Craig Kennedy, who hasn’t let a wheelchair keep him from skiing, doesn’t believe physical disabilities should keep anybody out of the backcountry

by Jennie Lay, May 29, 2006
Pete McCloskey rides again

Former California Rep. Pete McCloskey says the need to defend the environment is behind his decision to run against Richard Pombo in the Republican primary

by Patrick Farrell, Apr 17, 2006
Dr. Sharon and the lion hunters

Small-animal veterinarian Sharon Senezcko has become a fierce advocate for South Dakota’s mountain lions

by Tom Domek, Feb 20, 2006
Public-lands freedom fighter

Stephen Maurer came to the West from Hungary, where he was a freedom fighter, and has devoted the past 50 years to fighting on behalf of Western public lands

by Laura Paskus, Feb 06, 2006
Gray water, green living

Brian Moore has retrofitted his house in Phoenix, Ariz., to enable him to re-use water and live more sustainably

by Hilary Watts, Jan 23, 2006
The ranch wife, reinvented

Andrea Malmberg of Wyoming’s Twin Creek Ranch uses her gourmet cooking to put her ranch guests in touch with the land and with the food they eat

by Kerry Brophy, Dec 26, 2005
Healing the border with words

Award-winning author Denise Chavez created the Border Book Festival, and founded a Cultural Center in Mesilla, N.M., to help heal the cultural wounds of the U.S.-Mexico border

by Susan J. Tweit, Dec 12, 2005
'Sticking around' for an alpine valley

Attilio Genasci has devoted himself to preserving land in Sierra Valley, Calif., where he has lived and farmed for 96 years

by Jane Braxton Little, Nov 28, 2005
She wins friends for lions, wolves and bears

Janelle Holden, the daughter of two Republican legislators, works with the Predator Conservation Alliance in Montana to help ranchers learn how to co-exist with wolves and other predators

by Melynda Coble, Nov 14, 2005
For this English chef, home is the Colorado Plateau

Chef John Sharpe has created a gourmet restaurant in the desert town of Winslow, Ariz., far from his birthplace in the misty green landscape of England

by Peter Friederici, Oct 31, 2005
A glimpse of the past in a grain of pollen

Montana paleoecologist Cathy Whitlock studies the recent geological past and looks for clues to the future of the West

by Melynda Coble, May 30, 2005
Protecting the treaty, saving the fish

Kat Brigham of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla has devoted her life to fighting for tribal fishing rights and the survival of salmon on the Columbia River

by Tim Sullivan, May 16, 2005
For this logger, twisted trees are the future

Woodworker Gordon West turns small and irregular pine logs into useful building materials in his shop near Silver City, N.M.

by Peter Friederici, May 02, 2005
A mountain of books becomes a library of the land

Jeff Lee and Ann Martin of Denver are working to turn their huge personal library into a "land-study" center and residential library, the Rocky Mountain Land Library

by Susan J. Tweit, Apr 18, 2005
Saving Maidu culture, one seedling at a time

Lorena Gorbet, a Mountain Maidu Indian, has dedicated her life to saving her tribal culture through forest management in the Feather River area of Northern California

by Jane Braxton Little, Apr 04, 2005