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CapitalPress.com
July 22, 2016
People & Places
Rancher engages through storytelling
Diane Josephy
Peavey shares the
story or rural life
through her writing
Western
Innovator
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
CAREY, Idaho — There’s
a lot of emphasis today on the
need for agriculture to share
with the broader public how
it grows food, but Diane Jose-
phy Peavey was doing it long
before “tell your story” was a
catch phrase.
Her own story — an evo-
lution from city girl to ranch-
er, writer and sheep industry
advocate — is an interesting
narrative that took her from
a Washington, D.C. and New
York City childhood to the
open landscapes of Idaho
ranching country.
Peavey left the East Coast
to attend college in Califor-
nia, spending summers at a
farm her father bought in the
Wallowa Mountains of north-
eastern Oregon as a base for
his research on the Nez Perce
Tribe.
After college, she worked
two years at the U.S. Pavilion
at the World’s Fair in New
York and spent a year in Spain
before returning to the U.S. to
work for Time magazine as
assistant news editor.
The years following took
her to San Francisco, where
she worked with inner city
youth, and to Capitol Hill,
where she worked as a con-
gressional staffer, in President
Richard Nixon’s media pro-
gram — under Donald Rums-
feld and Dick Cheney — and
at the Interior Department
under then-Secretary Cecil
Andrus, a former Idaho gov-
ernor.
But it was her four years
in Alaska that set the stage for
her rural storytelling and ad-
vocacy of those who steward
natural resources.
For the irst time, she en-
countered people whose en-
tire lives were connected to
the land, who depended on the
environment.
“What I really came to un-
derstand was the passion peo-
ple had for the land, their care
for the land … so tied to place
and community and family,”
she said.
She went to Alaska in the
early 1970s after her irst
marriage broke up, wanting
to learn everything she could
about the state.
“It was an interesting time
to be there. The pipeline was
being built, it was a huge tran-
sition period for the Alaskan
people,” she said.
Her irst job was doing
demographic surveys with
research funding from the
federal government. She then
went to work for the governor,
Diane Josephy
Peavey
Home: Carey, Idaho
Husband and partner: John
Peavey, third-generation
rancher and former Idaho
senator
Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press
Sheep rancher and writer Diane Josephy Peavey relects on life on the ranch while sitting on the porch
of the 100-year-old cabin she and her husband, John, call home north of Carey, Idaho, on July 11.
engaging with Native Alas-
kans to develop public policy
regarding Native land claims.
That work took her back
to Washington, D.C., initially
as a Senate staffer and then
with the Interior Department
to work on Alaskan lands is-
sues with the Bureau of Land
Management.
It was a great job, explain-
ing the issues on Capitol Hill,
but her tenure at Interior end-
ed with the administration
change when Ronald Reagan
came into ofice, she said.
Fork in the road
Her intention was to return
to Alaska and pursue personal
interests, including writing.
On the way, she visited her
brother, who lived in Hailey,
Idaho. While there, she met
John Peavey, a local rancher
and state senator, and the two
hit it off from the start.
She decided to work on a
short-term National Science
Foundation project in Mon-
tana, and the two stayed in
contact. When the project was
inished and she was unsure of
her next move, John invited
her to spend the summer at his
ranch, where she could write
in solitude.
“I didn’t know what I
wanted to do, but I inally
took him up on it,” she said.
Upon her arrival at Flat
Top Ranch in the foothills of
the Pioneer Mountains, she
was struck by the incredible
silence.
“It was like a welcoming
hug. I didn’t want to make a
noise or move,” she said.
The following summer,
the two were married on the
ranch, and a new chapter be-
gan in her life.
“I spent the irst ive years
trying to igure out what I was
doing here, why I was here …
how to be helpful. You’re try-
ing to igure out, Can you be
something you’ve never been
before?” she said.
She came to realize she
wasn’t going to be “cowgirl
of the year,” roping, riding
and castrating. But she could
write about the people who
did work the land and live-
stock, she said.
She started writing and
compiled a collection of sto-
ries. In the early 1990s, she
took those stories to National
Public Radio in Boise and was
told to take them home and re-
cord them. The effort earned
her a weekly radio spot narrat-
ing her writings on ranch life.
“I was writing for a more
urban audience, but who bet-
ter — I didn’t know anything
10 years ago,” she said.
Her earliest writings were
about the devastation of the
farm crisis in the 1980s. Trav-
eling the West on ranching
business with John, she vis-
ited with ranchers and drove
through small towns that had
been boarded up and ag land
that had gone to weeds.
People in rural America
were frightened. Everything
was changing. Third and
fourth generations were losing
the ranch. There was despair
and a longing to retain that
connection to land, place and
family history. Overcoming is
the story of ranching, but this
time there was no “next year”
for many people, she said.
“I wanted to tell the stories
because it became clear to me
the people who are not living
these stories know nothing
about us,” she said.
They don’t understand that
people who know themselves
best on the land are lost when
that’s taken away, she said.
Claiming the life
The writing and storytell-
ing was also a way of mak-
ing this place — the ranch,
Idaho — her own. The farm
depression hit Flat Top Ranch
as well, and she wanted to be
able to remember what she and
John had on the ranch — and
the fear of what they could lose,
she said.
The radio spot wasn’t just
about her or raising awareness,
it was also about giving a voice
to ranchers and others in the
rural community who were too
busy to do it themselves, she
said.
She wrote about many top-
ics for the public radio spot,
which was well received by
urban and rural folks alike.
The gig lasted 18 years, until
Peavey started to feel as though
she was repeating herself.
Storytelling was also the
genesis of the Trailing of the
Sheep, a now international-
ly recognized annual festival,
which she and John co-found-
ed.
Blaine County, home to
many transplants, had wanted
to build a bike path along a cor-
ridor that had been used for de-
cades as a stock trail. Ranchers
had no problem with the idea
until the irst year they trailed
sheep along the new paved bike
path.
The Peaveys’ phone rang off
the hook with complaints from
residents wanting the sheep off
“their” bike path.
“John said, ‘Let’s invite
them to help us walk them and
keep the sheep off the path,’”
and the festival was born, she
said.
It started small with efforts
by local chambers of com-
merce. Along the way, Peavey
wanted to add stories — a col-
lection of narratives by ranch-
ers and herders telling the his-
tory of the area and ranching
— and make it a folklife fair
that showcases the area’s cul-
tural heritage.
Last year’s festival drew
26,000 people from 36 states
and eight countries, and this fall
will mark the 20th year of the
festival.
“What it is to me is how you
share your life with people who
don’t know anything about it,”
she said.
There’s been such growth in
the Wood River Valley in Cen-
tral Idaho. The festival helps
Business: Flat Top Sheep
Co.; sheep and cattle;
25,000 private acres plus
public grazing land
Writer: Former longtime
weekly contributor to Idaho
Public Radio; published in
numerous magazines and
western anthologies; author
of “Bitterbrush Country:
Living on the Edge of the
Land,” a collection of her
radio essays.
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July 22-July 24
California State Fair, 1600 Ex-
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Friday, July 22
the sprout, without which his
canola plants can’t grow.
Swinger said the sprout,
called a cotyledon, only ex-
ists for a few days and once it
grew slightly the birds didn’t
want to eat it anymore.
“We are looking at a two-
or three-day window. Once
the plant starts photosynthe-
sizing, the birds aren’t inter-
ested in it anymore,” Swinger
said. “They must really like
Idaho Water Resource Board
meeting, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Best West-
ern Edgewater Resort, 56 Bridge
St., Sandpoint, Idaho. Website:
idwr.idaho.gov/IWRB/
Columbia County Fair, 10 a.m.-
11 p.m. Columbia County Fair-
grounds, 58892 Saulser Road, St.
Helens, Ore.
Saturday, July 23
Columbia County Fair, 10 a.m.-
11 p.m. Columbia County Fair-
grounds, 58892 Saulser Road, St.
Helens, Ore.
Sunday, July 24
Columbia County Fair, 10 a.m.-
5:30 p.m. Columbia County Fair-
grounds, 58892 Saulser Road, St.
Helens, Ore.
Tuesday, July 26
FSPCA Preventive Controls
for Human Food Course, 8 a.m.-5
p.m. Yanke Family Research Cen-
that tiny tip. I don’t know
what else is driving them.”
Washington State Uni-
versity professor Bill Schil-
linger said he too has faced
the lark issue and can’t ind
a solution. While tending to
canola research plots over the
past 10 years, Shillinger said
he’s tried a variety of things
to deter the determined birds
including plastic owls, pro-
pane-powered cannons, garlic
oil and netting but nothing
worked.
Shillinger has called cano-
la farmers and experts in other
parts of the country and they
don’t see the birds, leading
him to believe it’s a sites-spe-
ciic problem. Swinger said
he also thinks it’s a local
problem, that the birds have
learned to feed on the canola
and that they bring their off-
spring back to the ield.
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Industry advocate: Co-found-
er of the Trailing of the
Sheep Festival; American
Lamb Board vice chairman;
irst director of the Idaho
Rural Council
To Reach Us
Education: Bachelor’s
degree in English, Scripps
College; graduate work in
journalism
News Staff
Interesting note: Her
father, Alvin Josephy Jr.,
was a World War II combat
correspondent; a writer and
editor for Time Magazine; a
noted historian, author and
government consultant on
the Nez Perce Tribe and
Native Americans; and the
irst chairman of the Smith-
sonian’s National Museum of
the American Indian
residents understand it’s so
beautiful because of the people
who came before them, who
protected and cared for open
spaces. Without ranchers and
a working landscape, it would
be developed, she said.
“The people who live
on the land have an intima-
cy with the landscape and a
knowledge that newcomers
don’t. Without knowing those
stories, we will miss out about
why we love this place,” she
said.
The festival is also an op-
portunity to promote lamb,
which is her mission as vice
chair of the American Lamb
Board. Lamb is served at fes-
tival venues and local restau-
rants and is the focus of cook-
ing classes during the ive-day
event.
The festival is another
part of Peavey’s evolution to
rancher, storyteller and rural
advocate.
“I had a terriic life before
I came here. But living on the
ranch, I am a part of this. This
is my story now,” she said.
Canola ield in Eastern Washington plagued by larks
LIND, Wash. (AP) —
A canola farmer in Adams
County has been left with-
out his whole crop thanks to
hundreds of birds that have
decided to use his ield for a
buffet.
J.R. Swinger told the
Spokesman-Review that he
irst thought the horned larks
were eating the seeds, but on
second inspection they were
snapping up the very tip of
Capital Press
Even though Shillinger
hadn’t found a solution to the
lark problem, he decided to
submit a scientiic paper that
was published in Industrial
Crops and Products earlier
this year.
“Most of the time, I sub-
mit scientiic papers based on
years and years of research,”
Schillinger said. “I wrote this
paper simply because it’s an
interesting problem.”
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ter, 220 E. Parkcenter Blvd., Boise,
Idaho. The new FSMA regulation
requires every processing facility
to have a trained resource person
or “Preventive Controls Qualiied
Individual“ who has completed a
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www.techhelp.org/events/279/fsp-
caboisejuly2016/
Wednesday, July 27
Fresno Food Expo, 8 a.m.-8
p.m., Fresno, Calif., Convention &
Entertainment Center. http://www.
fresnofoodexpo.com
Hood River County Fair, noon-
11 p.m. Hood River County Fair-
grounds, 3020 Wy’east Road, Hood
River, Ore. Gates open at noon each
day, carnival rides begin at 1 p.m. Gen-
eral admission is $8 per adult Wednes-
day and Thursday, and $10 per adult
on Friday and Saturday. Children ages
6-12 (inclusive) are admitted for $3
every day; children younger than 6 are
admitted free. Season tickets are avail-
able ($30 for adults, $10 ages 6-12
inclusive). Fair parking is free.
FSPCA Preventive Controls for
Human Food Course, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.
Yanke Family Research Center, 220
E. Parkcenter Blvd., Boise, Idaho. This
is a continuation of Tuesday’s course.
www.techhelp.org/events/279/fsp-
caboisejuly2016/
Thursday, July 28
Fresno Food Expo, 8 a.m.-8
p.m., Fresno, Calif., Convention &
Entertainment Center. http://www.
fresnofoodexpo.com
Hood River County Fair, noon-
11 p.m. Hood River County Fair-
grounds, 3020 Wy’east Road,
Hood River, Ore. Gates open at
noon each day, carnival rides be-
gin at 1 p.m. General admission
is $8 per adult Wednesday and
Thursday, and $10 per adult on Fri-
day and Saturday. Children ages
6-12 (inclusive) are admitted for $3
every day; children younger than 6
are admitted free. Season tickets
are available ($30 for adults, $10
ages 6-12 inclusive). Fair parking
is free.
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Opinion .................................. 6
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