Ranching in the West An Eco-Evolution

IN1926, Palm Beach businessman and polo enthusiast Jack Bradley bought the Lazy B Ranch near Fountain, Colorado. With its 1,600 acres and ample water rights, Bradley thought the Lazy B would be a perfect setting to raise polo ponies and construct a polo field. But Bradley never realized his vision. Instead, he sold the land to a woman with an altogether different vision.

In November 1929, Elizabeth Sage Hare bought the Lazy B Ranch. With its pristine prairie and magnificent views of Pikes Peak and the Front Range, Hare believed the Lazy B was the perfect setting for the Western boarding school she wanted to create. The Lazy B Ranch became the Fountain Valley School campus, but it didn’t lose its identity as a working ranch. And along the way, the Fountain Valley land became a beacon of progressive ranching just as much as the school it houses became a beacon for progressive education.

But Fountain Valley School’s ranch is not the only example of state-of-the-art environmental land stewardship in the neighborhood. In fact, as Faith Young ’19 discovered, it’s part of a hub of ranches in the Colorado Springs area that practice sustainable animal husbandry, agriculture and soil management. And the influence of these ranches has helped spur holistic land and resource practices throughout Colorado and beyond.

Young has had a connection to the Fountain Valley School ranchland for years. As a child, shewould often look out the front door of her home and see horses grazing on the FVS Prairie. She started riding in middle school, and soon met Ann Hanna, FVS riding program director and English riding head coach. “Ms. Hanna took me on as a pseudo ‘faculty kid,’ and she let me ride there as much as I could until I came to the school,” Young remembers. Young excelled in riding all four of her years at FVS. As a member of the English riding team, she participated in the Colorado Hunter Jumper Association medal finals her freshman, sophomore and senior years. She also deepened her relationship with Ann Hanna. “She became like a second mom to me,” Young says. So when it was time to work on a project for her interdisciplinary (English and history) American studies class, Young naturally gravitated to an investigation of the nearby ranch Hanna’s family owns. Along with her teacher, Jake Emery ’71, Young was assisted by Leah Davis Witherow,curator of history for the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum. After Young graduated from FVS, she decided to major in museum studies and gallery practice at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. Witherow was one of Young’s professors, and in the spring of 2022, she asked Young to help complete the research for the Hanna Ranch Project as part of “TheStory of Us: The Pikes Peak Region fromA–Z” exhibit at the Pioneers Museum. While conducting her Hanna Ranch research, Young learned about the area’s sustainable ranching history and the role of Fountain Valley School in that history. Her article for the project is available on the museum website at cspm.org.

“ThegeneralthemeoftheHanna RanchProjectisbringing awarenesstoprolificranchesinthe Fountainregionthathelpedother ranchesinColoradoadvancetheir agriculturalpractices,”Youngsays.

Like Young, the Hanna family has a longstanding connection to Fountain Valley School. Ann Hanna’s late husband, Kirk Hanna, was a member of the FVS class of 1973. Kirk’s stepfather, JonFrost, served on the FVS Board of Trustees from 1978-87. Jon’s son, Jay ’78, and grandchildren, Carmen ’05 and Sam ’12, all attended FVS. And Ann and Kirk’s children, Maggie ’07 and Emy ’09, are FVS alumni. The Hanna Ranch and Frost Ranch (now known as Frost Livestock) are adjoining and located roughly 10 miles southeast of Fountain Valley School. According to Young, both ranches practice the holistic ranch management (HRM) technique that Kirk Hanna pioneered in the Colorado Springs area. Kirk learned about HRM in the 1980s from a professor at Texas Christian University, Young says. HRM relies on sustainable practices that are designed to build and maintain healthy soil and grasslands, including rotational grazing for cattle and using their manure as a fertilizer. The goal is a holistic approach to land management, in which ranching can actually improve the prairie rather than deplete it. Not surprisingly, Kirk’s vision was initially met with skepticism—not only by nearby old-school ranchers, but also by some environmentalists who wanted the state’s prairies to remain untouched by grazing cattle. He was dubbed the “Eco-Cowboy”—and not always in a positive way. But Kirk’s ranching techniques slowly caught on. In the early 1990s, he was named president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and was able to educate ranchers throughout the state about HRM and their duty to help preserve Colorado’s prairie lands. “Kirk had an amazing ability to change people’s minds,” Young said. He was so influential, in fact, that he was the subject of a 2013 documentary, “Hanna Ranch,” produced by “Fast Food Nation” author Eric Schlosser.

From left to right, Faith Young ’19, Leah Davis Witherow and Ann Hanna discuss Young’s research project for the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum.

Jay Frost ’78 (left)

While Hanna Ranch was evolving, so was the Fountain Valley ranchland. For much of its first 50 years, the School raised cattle and other livestock on some of the Prairie land. But in the early ’80s, Board of Trustees members became concerned about the financial impact of cattle management. They decided to sell the School’s cows and lease grazing rights to other ranchers. Although cattle still roamed the prairie, FVS was no longer in the ranching business. Eventually, FVS stopped leasing cattle grazing rights and concentrated on grazing the horses used for the School riding program. Today, parts of the 1,000 acres of prairie that surround the 100-acre campus are home to around 65 to 75 horses. Beginning in 2007, Kirk Hanna’s HRM concepts took root at FVS, spurred by Headmaster Craig Larimer, long-time School supporter Bob Parker and FVS Land and Ranch Manager Dave Overlin. When Will Webb became head of school in 2013, HRM practices blossomed, encompassing both animal and agricultural sustainability techniques. For instance, FVS has a specific plan to move horses around the land not only to promote eco-friendly grazing, but also soil carbon sequestration. The School grows its own hay to feed the horses during the winter, embracing sustainable agriculture practices such as composting, rotating the fields where the hay is planted and using cover crops to restore the soil on fallow fields. FVS has also called in land-management experts for consultations, including Paul Chapman, author of “Greening America’s Schools: The Environmental Sustainability Movement in K-12 Education,” and Annie Overlin, Dave Overlin’s daughter, a 1992 FVS graduate, a sixth-generation Colorado rancher and a range management specialist for the Colorado State University Extension program. Overlin recently spent a day walking the FVS prairie, evaluating the soil nutrients, hay cultivation practices, and other factors involved in keeping the land healthy and sustainable into the future. Her findings were presented at the September Board of Trustees meeting. “Movingforward,FountainValley Schooliscompletelycommittedto lifeontheranch,andwillcontinue toincorporatethelandintoour curriculum,ouractivitiesandour futuregoals,”saysHeadofSchool MeganHarlan.

FVS’ current land and ranch manager, Tyson Phillips, says as climate change creates drought and stress on the FVS Prairie, sustainable, holistic land management will become even more important. He’s heartened that the spokes of the HRM hub created by FVS, the Hanna Ranch and other local ranches have spread far beyond the Colorado Springs area. “It’s quite remarkable how so many ranches and farms have shifted to incredibly scientific and artistic land management that mimics the way the land was used for thousands of years,” he says. Like their predecessors, many current Fountain Valley students are keen to be involved in environmental sustainability practices—both on the FVS Prairie and beyond, says science teacher Danielle Llewelyn. “They’re learning how to have a critical eye and an ability to understand sustainability with scientific literacy, making them capable of understanding the bigger picture,” she says. “No matter where they find themselves in the future, they’ll have a sense of their impact and how their career or industry can make a difference in sustainability.” During the 2022-23 school year, Llewelyn’s sustainable science and Colorado natural history classes are working on signage for a new Interpretive Nature Trail on the campus back prairie. The three-mile nature walk is the brainchild of FVS Mathematics Department Chair Blake Pelton and former faculty member Lee Derr. The goal is to encourage the entire FVS community to explore the prairie ecosystem. Pelton and Derr identified about a dozen locations of interest on an existing trail on the prairie just east of the campus, including milkweed fields for monarch butterfly migration, edible wild plants like asparagus and currants, migratory bird fields, a raptor’s nest that often houses bald eagles, and habitats for wild animals such as turkeys, porcupines, raccoons, pronghorns, deer and coyotes. The trail also winds through wetlands, irrigated pasture and native prairie, and the campus water intake area from the reservoir. Llewelyn’s students will do the research for signs at each location of interest, explaining everything from the importance of Western U.S. water rights to the impact of invasive species on native plants. “I’m so excited to get my students out there, both as a way for them to interact with the prairie themselves and also as a way for them to learn about their home (and their home away from home) and then share their knowledge in a very relevant and longlasting way,” Llewelyn says. “Beyond a simple presentation in a class, this project will have a timeless impact on our community.”