Alan Day and his sister, Sandra, grew up on the Lazy B ranch in the remote outback of southern Arizona. They both worked side by side with the ranch-hands running cattle and managing the range. Alan and Sandra were driving a jeep before they could reach the peddles—Alan operated the clutch and brake while Sandra did the steering. When they grew up their lives took divergent paths—Alan took the reigns of running the family ranch while Sandra, better known today as Sandra Day O’Connor, went on to become a Supreme Court Justice, serving from 1981 to 2005.
Back in the 1990s when I accompanied the governor of South Dakota to visit and interview Dayton Hyde at his wild mustang refuge, I had no idea that it was Hyde who had talked Alan Day in to starting the first Federally funded Wild Mustang Refuge on his own South Dakota Ranch.
Fast forward to 2014 when I was blessed to have the opportunity to meet and visit with Alan Day as he talked about his life with horses, and cattle. Today Alan is regarded by many as the country’s foremost expert in training and managing wild mustangs.
I invited my good friend, Georgia Hesse, the founding travel Editor of both the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, to join me, along with Lowell-thomas award winning journalist and author Laurie King, and Silicon Valley based journalist, Sandy Sims for a most remarkable conversation with Alan Day. He shares touching memories of his life on the range and his newly released book, The Horse Lover a Cowboy’s Quest to Save the Wild Mustang. Come along and join us
Listen to Alan’s tales on the NPR.ORG podcast, Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer, a production of California Central Coast affiliate station KCBX. Check out this episode!
