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Colorado Ranchers Fight a Land Grab

By Steve Wooten

There is a hint of frost in the South East Colorado air this early spring morning so I tighten the cinch of my saddle gently. This mare is pretty cold backed and I want her to relax to the cinch and saddle before we start out to move some of the cows with their new babies from calving pastures to breeding pastures.

Since the rumors about a huge expansion of the existing 238,000 acre Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site began in 2006 and became real life in 2007, there has not been a day that the process of fighting for our ranches has not been on our minds. Under less auspicious conditions this would be the kind of ride and work where I would ask myself if I should really draw a check. This is what we love to do, ride our horses while moving and working our cattle. We love every aspect of ranching but each of us has a part of it we enjoy best. The serenity of rural lifestyle, the communion with nature, the fellowship of sharing work with neighbors and so often the multi generational aspect of these family businesses.

My wife, Joy, and I can see a portion of the military site from the Purgatoire River Canyon where the cows are easily picking up their babies and starting to trail out. The cows know we will be moving them to fresh pasture and after all the years of this pattern being repeated they do not resist our efforts to gather the herd.

In 1982, by the largest act of condemnation ever undertaken against American citizens, the Army Corps of Engineers did the Department of Defenses bidding and forceably took the ranches, some with the US marshals, by eviction. There were so many lies told in the years before the actual evictions, but they are eerily similar to what the residents of Southeast Colorado have been hearing since 2006. Originally the Army promised that the acreage was enough, there would be no live fire of munitions on this facility and most blatant was the promise of economic input to offset the multi million dollar losses to the regional economy by the removal of the ranches and the families from the communities.

None of the promises have been kept.

Those of us who fought to prevent the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site in the early 1980s remember the frustration of always trying to catch up with the Army public relations machine. Our phones back then were two-wire, eight-party lines. There was no public Internet, so the acquisition of information and evidence was exhausting.

By Gary Cutrer

If getting involved could be called a lifestyle, that’s what Hayden and Doris Haby have lived. From teaching school to mentoring and helping 4-H kids to being active members and participants in associations and organizations, they certainly have gotten, and stayed, involved.

The Habys have influenced many people since beginning their marriage partnership in 1951, including two children of their own—Hayden Haby, Jr. and Dennette Haby Coates— and many students and 4-H members who would go on to become ranchers, lawyers, doctors and just great Texas citizens.

Among the many 4-H kids influenced by the Habys is Jimmie Ruth Wittenburg Evans. As a vice president and past president of the San Antonio Livestock Exposition, she has promoted sheep and goat breeding animal classes in the annual stock show, giving those kids who show small ruminants just as good a chance at earning a substantial scholarship as those kids showing steers or barrows.

“She’s worked hard,” Doris said of Jimmie Ruth. “She’s a person who wants to see the kids get scholarships. She spends her full month of February working at that livestock show. They see her out there working in the pens in the morning. She’s pretty well instrumental in seeing that kids get scholarships.”

Helping kids just comes naturally for the Habys. Doris taught school for 22 years. Hayden started out as a vocational agriculture teacher in Dripping Springs and then Fort Davis. Later he was county agent for Edwards County for 20 years.

Another Haby 4-H “alumnus” is Dr. Fred L. Speck, Jr., of Kerrville. Dr. Speck is both a dermatologist and an Angora goat breeder. A lot of what he knows about goats he learned  from Hayden Haby. “Hayden is  just a good role model. He is not only a good leader, but a great friend,” Dr. Speck was quoted as saying in another article about the Habys.

Friends and family were upset to hear that Hayden had suffered a severe stroke awhile back. Doris has helped him recover every step of the way, and it hasn’t been easy. When I visited with them at the Texas Sheep and Goat Raisers Association convention in July 2008, Hayden had recovered to the point that he was talking about rebuilding his herd of Angora goats and adding more cattle to the ranch. They’ve lived in Uvalde during his convalescence but he was ready to get back to the ranch. It just didn’t suit him to sit around all day, he said.