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Dewell accepts leadership position with land trustWyoming The Wyoming Stock Growers Agricultural Land Trust recently named Pamela Dewell of Dubois as executive director. In order to take the helm at WSGALT, Dewell left her position as Wind River Program Director for the Jackson Hole Land Trust. She follows in the footsteps of founding Executive Director Glenn Pauley and Interim Executive Director Ed Prosser. Dewell has worked with non-profit groups as far away as Rhode Island, but has always been drawn to a western way of life. She moved to a Fremont County ranch in 2002, and worked for The Nature Conservancy prior to opening a Dubois office for the Jackson Hole Land Trust. "Living and working on Fremont County ranches has given me a crash course in Wyoming," says Dewell. "I value tremendously the time I have spent on the ground in this country, and the folks who have shared their families, stories, and places with me. Getting to know folks who have lived and ranched here for generations and learning to work livestock, change water, and drag pastures have all provided me with some important lessons--lessons that seem critical to the effort to conserve land in a state where more than 90 percent of the private ground is in agriculture." Having grown up in a small farming community in Connecticut, Dewell remembers watching the countryside she loved disappear. The dairy farm at the end of the road and the trails where she rode her horse became laced with asphalt roads dividing grassy pastures surrounded by moss-covered stone walls and breaking up hillsides covered in hardwoods and mountain laurel. "The place I grew up is unrecognizable today--because it is no longer there. Now it looks just like a lot of other places." This experience, and a life-long interest in American history and culture, has steered Dewell's career course toward protecting unique components of American heritage. For many years she worked with traditional sailing vessels, once the primary means of moving freight, catching fish and transporting immigrants; many are now engaged in providing adventure, education, and a unique way to travel the world. "Not unlike a dude operation, really," Dewell smiles. She says that working waterfronts have always seemed the most interesting to her and that, "the places where people make their living on the land on a daily basis have always seemed so much more vibrant than the static places where people visit on occasion to escape their urban life." "The Wyoming Stock Growers Agricultural Land Trust is truly at the heart of preserving Wyoming's working landscape and I am very excited to work for an outfit with that as its purpose. Ranchlands, and the important people who steward them, provide so much of what we all love about living in Wyoming. Open space. Rural lifestyles. Wildlife. And they also provide the things we need in life. Food. Fiber. Clean air and water. And a connection to America's agrarian roots." The Wyoming Stock Growers Agricultural Land Trust was founded by ranchers and focuses specifically on conserving the Cowboy State's working ranchlands. Its board of directors is composed primarily of agricultural producers who have a first-hand understanding of ranching operations and community issues. For more information please visit www.wsgalt.org, send an e-mail to info@wsgalt.org or call 307-772-8751. 9/22/08 Date: 9/17/08
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