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When will black history become a part of American History?

By Wayne Hare

Photo Credit: Unknown author, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

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I’m lucky because I can take the bus

By Rebecca Johnson

Call me crazy, but I enjoy public transportation, especially since I’ve moved West where I work at various ski town…

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Guess who has outsized clout on public lands?

By Jonathan Thompson

This may be a surprising story. It begins with a working group trying to save the last native bighorn sheep…

Image by Pete Nuij, courtesy of Unsplash

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Oh, Utah! When will you learn?

By Mike Kaplan

A new video released by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox argues the big, semi-annual trade show called Outdoor Retailer should come…

Delicate Arch Utah, image credit Solo Travel Goals, via Unsplash

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A new predator stalks the West

By Pepper Trail

The grizzly bear. The wolf. The cougar. These magnificent creatures, apex predators, how can we not admire them? People cross…

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Wind-driven fire ran until gusts died

By Dave Marston

The Marshall Fire that demolished more than 1,000 homes along the front range of Colorado two weeks ago was not…

Nasa recorded image of MM117 fire via Wildfire Today

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Alternatives to bigger jails aren’t a partisan issue

By Matt Witt

If you know someone is a Republican or Democrat, then you might assume you know exactly where they stand on…

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Responsible gun owners need to be heard

By Ben Long

I own a closet full of guns. But nowhere in that closet is ammunition. That is locked up elsewhere, reflecting…

Young men selling guns, Getty Images

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Is the American Dream fading in the West?

By Benjamin Waddell
Guanajuato Photo credit Waddell

I recently spent two days with a Mexican national named Alfredo because his experience and many of his surprising opinions…

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A backroad journey through time

By Dennis Hinkamp

Moab on a mid-fall weeknight was full. All the motels, RV parks and tents sites had “no vacancy” notices. Every…

Car Forest is 30 miles outside of Tonopah, NV, photo credit, Dennis Hinkamp

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A grassroots effort can defy the odds

By Louisa Wilcox

This year marks the 25th anniversary of one of the most spectacular conservation victories in recent history: the defeat of…

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Telling the truth about the way we live now

By Laura Pritchett

Evonne lives in a fire lookout in Oregon, and since I meet with these graduate students on Zoom, we’ve all…

Lookout tower

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Larmer was the first editor of Writers on the Range after it landed at HCN in 1998, he went on to become publisher/editor of High Country News (HCN) 2003-2020, and is currently senior development director HCN. Larmer is also on the advisory board of Writers on the Range.

Writers on the Range grew out of the West’s public lands, growth, and culture wars of the 1990s. At the time, environmentalists were at loggerheads with the timber, mining, oil and gas and ranching industries that had dominated and shaped land-use and rural communities for decades. 

Meanwhile, a flood of newcomers poured into the region’s urban areas and smaller towns, stressing their social and economic fabrics beyond recognition. How could the West sort through these contentious issues in a civil manner?

The answer was to give voice to a wide range of people from the region itself.  Writers with different backgrounds, espousing new ideas, were put front and center on the region’s opinion pages.

After a brief run as a think tank, Writers on the Range landed on the front porch of High Country News in 1997.  High Country News is the well-known, highly awarded publication that covers the west’s diverse natural and human communities.  It was a perfect match.

Soon dozens of news outlets subscribed.  Over the next 20 years, Writers on the Range published fresh columns from writers and thinkers across the ideological spectrum, provoking thought, generating debate, and defining the possibilities of a better west.

 It was truly a grassroots opinion service and, now as an independent non-profit organization, is still so today.

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