2006 Clarence Burch Award Winners:
Jim and Carol Thorpe - JT Land & Cattle, Newkirk, New Mexico, And
George Whitten and Julie Sullivan - San Juan Ranch, Saguache, Colorado

The Quivira Coalition was pleased to honor two ranching couples for the 2006 Clarence Burch Award who demonstrate remarkable leadership in the difficult job of linking urban and rural meaningfully through their work.

Jim and Carol Thorpe spent most of their adult lives in Santa Fe, helping to manage a family-owned hotel on a historic downtown property.

They knew which end of a cow got up first, but not much more. Today, they own and operate a 12,000-acre cow/calf ranch in rural eastern New Mexico, having very successfully made the leap to the `New Ranch.'

Carol directs the `personnel department' (the cows) on the ranch while Jim calls himself the `facility manager.' As a result of their strong partnership and willingness to look, listen and learn, the ranch has been selected as a demonstration site for various research institutions. Jim was also recently elected to the Board of the New Mexico branch of the Society for Range Management.

George Whitten and Julie Sullivan have made an equally long journey. Located in the upper San Luis Valley, the San Juan Ranch has been in the Whitten family continuously since George's great grandfather homesteaded the place in 1897. An educator and innovator by nature, George switched to holistic resource management in the 1980s. He has been committed to outreach and education, especially to urban-based environmentalists, ever since.

Julie's journey is the longest. Born and raised in San Diego, she was an actress before switching to environmental education after attending Lesley University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she stayed to become a teacher in the school's Audubon Expeditions program. She was also a vegetarian and a confirmed "Cattle Free in `93" activist - at least until she met George when one of the Expeditions made a scheduled three-day stop at the San Juan Ranch six years ago. She fell in love and stayed. Both families have also dedicated themselves to sharing their knowledge through speaking, writing, getting involved in collaborative projects, teaching interns, learning, and innovating.

Excerpt from Program:
"This year The Quivira Coalition is very pleased to honor two ranching couples who have demonstrated remarkable leadership in the difficult job of linking urban and rural meaningfully through their work.

"Each has led by example - and each began their journey at a different place on the urban-rural line...

"...The work of both families demonstrates that the relationship between urban and rural is constantly evolving, shifting, and moving. They have learned that to keep the relationship meaningful, they too must evolve with the times - reaching out to new groups, and adopting new ideas and business practices to meet emerging markets.

"They have also come to understand profoundly that it is all about relationships - between husband and wife as partners in their particular adventure; between themselves and their communities, both urban and rural; between themselves and the land which sustains them and between the ecological processes within the soil, which provides the foundation for all of the above..."