Mark E. Miller

Grammy Peg, my grandmother, was an excellent cook who often performed her magic out on the ranch. She loved making desserts for her family and the hired hands, and we all loved watching her in the kitchen—and tasting the results...

Grammy Peg, my grandmother, was an excellent cook who often performed her magic out on the ranch. She loved making desserts for her family and the hired hands, and we all loved watching her in the kitchen—and tasting the results...

Grammy Peg, my grandmother, was an excellent cook who often performed her magic out on the ranch. She loved making desserts for her family and the hired hands, and we all loved watching her in the kitchen—and tasting the results...

The last time I drove Dad from his apartment in Cheyenne to the ranch was in the late 1990s, about a year before he passed away. For several years before that trip, prolonged drought had plagued the country of my youth. Pastures that were once green stretched brown to the horizon, resembling a moonscape devoid of life, and relentless winds swept across the dry land...

George C. Frison lived in two different professions and excelled in both. He grew up on a family ranch where he learned responsibility and the enduring strength of human kindness. A couple decades after fighting in the Pacific during World War II, he entered university and eventually earned his PhD in Anthropology at the University of Michigan. When he returned to Wyoming he accepted a tenure-track professorship at the University and became Wyoming’s first State Archaeologist

My father used to tell me stories about his dad, Kirk, and one thing came up again and again: Kirk hated building fences. But our ranch depended on them. By the time my father was running the I Lazy D, fencing was constant work. We had more than a dozen...

Before Wyoming had fences or towns, a young Danish immigrant named Ike Miller stood on a windswept ridge in Carbon County and made a decision that would define generations. My great-grandfather Ike was a deliberate man, conscious of the weight of history and driven to create a lasting legacy. Born in 1844 on Møn, an 84–square-mile island off Denmark’s southeastern coast, he grew up knowing his future was uncertain.

The HO pasture was our winter range in the early 1980s, a broad sweep of Wyoming land where cattle roamed far and wide. Getting to the eastern reaches to check the herd meant crossing Dirtyman Draw, and that was never easy. The two-track road dropped down into a cut that sometimes ran twenty feet deep and then crossed the drainage channel where Dirtyman spilled into Seminoe Reservoir. When the reservoir was full, the shoreline turned into a soggy mess, too wet to cross.

My dad typically hired young boys to help on the ranch, and our relatives were no exception. My stepson, Shawn, and his cousin worked for him one summer, but they mostly played. They also got into things they shouldn’t have, as young boys do.

My dad typically hired young boys to help on the ranch, and our relatives were no exception. My stepson, Shawn, and his cousin worked for him one summer, but they mostly played. They also got into things they shouldn’t have, as young boys do.