Range editor speaker for Lake library dinner

C.J. Hadley, editor/publisher of Range Magazine, will discuss “Cuddling the Soul of the West” at the Lake County Library’s annual Library Endowment Dinner Saturday, Oct. 18. at the Lakeview Elks Lodge. The 6:30 dinner program will be preceded by a no-host reception fundraiser at the new main library in Lakeview from 5 to 6 p.m. Hadley has been called an “unsung heroine of the West” and “Clint Eastwood with both guns drawn” because of stances advocating ranches and ranchers. Her advocacy seemed unlikely, given her background. Known as Caroline Joy, she was 17 when her parents gave her a one-way ticket from England to Canada. Hadley never looked back. Instead, she hitchhiked and worked her way around the world as a typist, freelance writer, rodeo photographer, snowmobile racer and tuna fisherman. In 1991, after spending 10 years as editor of Nevada Magazine, a group of ranchers asked her to produce a brochure to send to members of Congress to tell the “true side of ranching” and counteract calls for “Cattle Free by “93” advocated by some environmental group. That brochure turned into Range, a magazine that features stories and photographs about ranchers, ranching and the often controversial issues surrounding ranching. Range has grown into a national magazine with a fervent following with more than 170,000 readers in every state and 23 foreign countries. Commentator Paul Harvey said of Range: “No other source I know has dispassionately and yet thoroughly projected the future of America the Beautiful — if we keep paving it. We’re making some unerasable mistakes. If the sagebrush rebellion comes too late, there is nothing to eat, and there’s no place to run to anymore.”...more