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Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Wild Horses Die to Clear the West for Industry Each morning, dawn touches fewer wild horses on America's Western range lands. Roundups by the Bureau of Land Management clear the way for a tsunami of industrialization. Senate confirmation of Interior Secretary-designate, Rep. Ryan Zinke, advocates looser environmental regulations for extractive industries. He proposed legislation to open horse slaughter plants in the West.
Nevadans Velma "Wild Horse Annie" Johnston and Carrol Able spend their lives fighting for America's wild horses. It seemed like a good time to give them their say, again.
I sat down with Wild Horse Annie
today. We had quite the conversation. I complained of how convoluted her law
had become, how it was now a life sentence for the very animals it was intended
to protect. She listened quietly, never uttering a word. “We really need your
help.” I told her. She offered no reply.
The grass surrounding us was cool damp; refreshing, the day warm and clear. I closed my eyes and imagined a
band of wild horses grazing peacefully nearby. How fitting it would have been.
But alas! Imaginings are nothing more than imaginings. There were no wild
horses and Wild Horse Annie was not going to answer.
Beside me was a small and unassuming
grave marker. In that, it was much like the woman buried there. Beneath the
name Velma B. Johnston, Wild Horse Annie and the dates March 5, 1912 - June 27,
1977 are three mustangs, running wild and free. As I ran my fingers across the
relief and looked closer at the image, I realized there was something
unexpectedly ominous portrayed there.
The running mustang trio has reached
the edge of a dangerous precipice with no choice left but to jump. The last of
the three is rearing and looking over his shoulder as if deciding whether to
fight or flee. Tears started flowing when I put the scene in the context of the
battle we’re waging today.
I started sobbing like a crazy fool and blurted out,
“Help me! I don’t know what else to do.”
It was then that a voice came to me,
a gentle but strong whisper in my ear.
“FIGHT”
it said, “Fight like a wild stallion.”
Labels: BLM, Bureau of Land Management, Congress, Department of Interior, Interior Secretary, Velma Johnston, West, wild horse advocate, wild horse Annie, wild horses, Zinke Permalink to this blog post Posted by Terri Farley @ 8:15 AM 0 comments  
Sunday, June 26, 2016 A Message from Wild Horse Annie Tomorrow is the anniversary of Velma "Wild Horse Annie" Johnston's death and this year she has a partner in Heaven.
Our friend Carrol Able, long-time fighter for the lives of wildlife, especially wild horses, passed away in April.
In 2014, Carrol gave me permission to share this message and I think it's time to do it again.
I would tell these two gritty wild horse angels to rest in peace, but as long as our mustangs are in danger, they won't.
Adios
I sat down with Wild Horse Annie
today. We had quite the conversation. I complained of how convoluted her law
had become, how it was now a life sentence for the very animals it was intended
to protect. She listened quietly, never uttering a word. “We really need your
help.” I told her. She offered no reply.
The grass surrounding us was cool damp; refreshing, the day warm and clear. I closed my eyes and imagined a
band of wild horses grazing peacefully nearby. How fitting it would have been.
But alas! Imaginings are nothing more than imaginings. There were no wild
horses and Wild Horse Annie was not going to answer.
Beside me was a small and unassuming
grave marker. In that, it was much like the woman buried there. Beneath the
name Velma B. Johnston, Wild Horse Annie and the dates March 5, 1912 - June 27,
1977 are three mustangs, running wild and free. As I ran my fingers across the
relief and looked closer at the image, I realized there was something
unexpectedly ominous portrayed there.
The running mustang trio has reached
the edge of a dangerous precipice with no choice left but to jump. The last of
the three is rearing and looking over his shoulder as if deciding whether to
fight or flee. Tears started flowing when I put the scene in the context of the
battle we’re waging today.
I started sobbing like a crazy fool and blurted out,
“Help me! I don’t know what else to do.”
It was then that a voice came to me,
a gentle but strong whisper in my ear.
“FIGHT”
it said, “Fight like a wild stallion.”
*Wild Horse Annie
drew attention to the bloody deaths of mustangs, all sacrificed for
greed and fought for them. She organized a children's campaign that created bipartisan
support for a protective law in 1971.
Labels: Carrol Able, Melissa Farlow, mustangs, Velma Johnston, wild horse Annie, wild horses Permalink to this blog post Posted by Terri Farley @ 4:00 AM 2 comments
Monday, March 14, 2016 Wild Horse Annie : She Fought for Wild Horse & Children
In ranching jeans or white gloves and home sewn suits, Velma Johnston fought to save the West's wild horses and inspired American kids to do the same
“Crest Donner Pass, pass foothill towns and swoop downhill toward the neon-edged casinos of Reno. Just before the Virginia Street exit a white cross rises skyward on your right. It marks Hilltop Cemetery, but you can't just turn right and get there. You won't happen upon the grave of Velma Johnston, the woman who preferred the at-first derogatory nickname Wild Horse Annie, either. Call for directions, pick up a map at the office and you'll still spend time walking head down into the wind before you kick aside leaves and find her. There's nothing peaceful about the horses sculpted on Annie's gravestone, nothing to hint she held off wild horses' extinction for decades because she knew where to turn for help. "I can almost see the star and stripes waving in their eyeballs when I tell them that these horses belong to all the people of America..." Wild Horse Annie knew in the 1960's and '70's that America's young people's hearts beat in time with those of wild horses. They still do.”
by Terri Farley 2015
Labels: Melissa Farlow, mustangs, Nevada, terri farley, Velma Johnston, Wild at Heart, wild horse Annie, wild horses Permalink to this blog post Posted by Terri Farley @ 9:39 AM 0 comments
Thursday, December 13, 2012 FOR THE LOVE OF WILD HORSES For the love of wild horses...
By Susan Skorupa, Reno Gazette JournalIt seems like poetic justice -- or at least good karma -- that novelist and wild-horse advocate Terri Farley ended up living in Nevada.As a girl in Southern California, the future author of the 24-book Phantom Stallion young-adult book series learned to ride despite a severe allergy to horses. By the time she was 8 years old, she was writing about horses, pecking out her first story -- about a wild pinto named Pagan -- on her grandmother's Selectric typewriter.As an adult, she moved to Reno with her husband, journalist Cory Farley, where one of the first people she met was Wildhorse Annie -- real name Velma Johnston -- a fellow horse advocate who died in 1977.
Today, Farley continues to write and to champion wild horses. Her efforts include being a party in a lawsuit filed last year, but later dismissed, aimed at stopping a U.S. Bureau of Land Management practice of rounding up wild horses and moving them to long-term holding facilities. Where did your love of horses come from? Part of it was, I lived in suburban Los Angeles. I did not get around horses often. I was practically terminally allergic to things with hair. Once a month, my parents took me to a stable. Between the hay, dust and the horses, I would end up in the emergency room. They (my parents) would suffer with me. I outgrew that, and began to hang around horses more. What came first, the advocacy for wild horses or the book series? I'd always cared for wild horses "» so one grew out of the other. When we moved here, I realized this was the wild horse capital of the world. They were not that far away; I could actually go out and see them. When writing romance stories, there were threads of the horse subplots. My agent said, "That's what you should write about. You can go see them, then you can write about them as something symbolic."
I understand the your fans keep in contact with you on wild horse issues through mail, email and other electronic media. I love it. I guess if I had a legacy in books and horses, it would not be a bad one. They (young readers) are ready to take action. I have a blog, a newsletter, 3,000 are on it. "» Kids can see they don't have to just stand and complain. They can do something. If that becomes a habit (for them), that will make me very happy. PhantomStallion.com Select, Sample, Purchase books: PHANTOM STALLION : http://amzn.to/Z3GJQt Labels: BLM, love of horses, Melissa Farlow, mustang, phantom stallion, round-ups, terri farley, Velma Johnston, wild horse Annie, wild horses Permalink to this blog post Posted by Terri Farley @ 2:29 PM 0 comments
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