What Westerners cared about in 2024

GUEST OPINION

Writers on the Range, an independent opinion service based in western Colorado, sent out close to 50 weekly opinion columns this year. They were provided free of charge to about 150 subscribing publications large and small, each of which republished dozens of the columns.

Writers on the Range has a simple two-part mission. One is to engage Westerners in talking to each other about issues important to the region.

The other aim is to entice readers to look forward to these fact-based opinions, with the hope they’ll then want to keep their local journalism outlet alive and flourishing.

Our opinions this year covered a wide range: avalanche deaths that might have been prevented, by Molly Absolon; Ben Long’s profile of Diane K. Boyd, whose innovative career studying wolves in the wild covered four decades; Zak Podmore’s description of how dead pool is a strong possibility for Lake Powell.

We’re happy to report that Megan Schrader of the Denver Post said that Long’s and Podmore’s opinions were among the paper’s most-viewed columns.

But it was what happened to wildlife in the state of Wyoming that garnered the most response from readers, who wrote letters of outrage or made our opinion go viral on social media. Wendy Keefover of the Humane Society of the USA was involved in both. Her first opinion column, published in April, revealed that in Wyoming coyotes can be legally killed—though in this case the animal run over by a snowmobiler was a wolf.

We know a wolf suffered this assault because the snowmobiler showed off the dazed and muzzled animal at a bar, where it was photographed splayed out on the floor. Many readers were appalled, especially as the penalty for what amounted to torture was a minor fine.

The second column by Keefover was written with Kristin Combs of Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, and it covered the sudden death of grizzly bear 399, Wyoming’s most famous bruin.

Starting in 2004, this prolific mother bear raised 18 cubs amidst the millions of visitors and residents of Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park.

Her death, after colliding with a car, resulted in an outpouring of grief. The writers’ opinion calling for greater protection for grizzlies was shared on social media by more than 20,000 readers who visited our website on the first day it appeared.

We’re also pleased to report that a Writers on the Range column helped quash the state of Utah’s plan to allow a 460-foot telecommunications tower in the heart of Bears Ears National Monument. In his opinion, Mark Maryboy, former delegate to the Navajo Nation Council, blasted the state’s proposed tower as “a spear in the heart of the monument.” The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance told us that Maryboy’s column, which ran widely in the state, was a “major component” in the tower’s defeat.

A more recent column, by Jennifer Rokala, head of the Center for Western Priorities, was shared by many readers. Rokala insisted that no matter what exploitation the Trump administration planned for public lands, conservationists would fight back. As a reader put it in a letter to the editor of the Aspen Daily News: “You’re providing factual and great journalism that inspires and gives hope.”

We were inspired by several columns about Westerners trying to change the world, including Katie Klingsporn’s profile of a Wyoming principal, Katie Law, who never gives up on students at Arapaho Charter High School. Law was rewarded by seeing 14 students graduate this year, the largest class in the school’s history. Why did she work so hard? “I want to see these students succeed, and I’m going to do what it takes.” There were other columns about extraordinary people or the novel ways writers understand the West, including Dave Marston’s piece about Amory Lovins, who insists that the energy gap can be closed, and others by Rebecca Clarren, Shaun Ketchum Jr., Rick Knight, Jacob Richards and Laura Pritchett. Marston, the publisher of Writers on the Range, also revealed his struggle with bipolar mental illness.

Each of our writers—who are paid—is eager to start a conversation because they care about the West, and in particular, the public land that makes this region unique. And we suggest never skipping a column by Grand Canyon educator Marjorie “Slim” Woodruff, who can’t help noting the many foibles of tourists.

For example, whenever a hiker asks her on the trail: “Was the hike worth it?” Woodruff confesses she’d love to answer: “No, turn around now!”

BETSY MARSTON IS THE EDITOR OF WRITERS ON THE RANGE, WRITERSONTHERANGE.ORG, THE INDEPENDENT NONPROFIT OPINION SERVICE THAT SEEKS TO SPUR LIVELY CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE WEST. SHE LIVES IN PAONIA, COLORADO.