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Show DAILY Monday, July 21, 2008 Storm Over Rangelands' still rages 17 years later OB MARIES Scott Sonner THE passed away quickly and peacefully surrounded by her loving family. She was born December 25, 1922 in Provo, Utah The young est daughter of Vernon and Emma Peay Leetham. She graduated from Provo High School. She met Lowell P Christensen on New Years Eve in 1940. He literally fell for her that evening and they became eternal sweethearts on March 9, 1942 in the Manti LDS Temple. Love and service were her trademarks. She served for many years in the Primary in various callings both in the stake and the ward including ward Primary President. She served as Relief Society President, Stake Camp Director and truly loved the opportunity of serving as a visiting teacher. She served in the DUP both in her local camp and regionally. She also served along side her husband in the Golden Kiwanis and American Legion. This most loved matriarch built a loving home with her husband where they raised seven children, canned many jars of fruits and vegetables, made many dolls and many, many quilts; each member of her family being only some of the recipients. She had a special gift of showing gratitude and making others feel welcomed into her home. She is survived by six chi- land. A federal judge finally ruled last month that the government had engaged in an unconstitutional "taking" of Hage's water rights and awarded more than $4 million to Hage's estate. But his famwhile ily and supporters fear relishing the victory the fight is far from won. "What happened to us in the 1980s and 1990s is now happening across the West, so it is going to be vitally important for Western ranchers to understand what they own and how to defend it," said Ramona Morrison, one of Hage's daughters and a member of the Nevada State Agriculture Board who was a freshman in high school when the dispute began. "We could have a classic case here in some sense of laws working at cross purposes," said Ed Monnig, U.S. Forest Service supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabl- e National Forest where Hage once grazed his cattle in central Nevada. Federal Claims Court Judge grandchildren, 31 with 2 on the way, her sister, Melvina Cropper, brother-in-law Robert Sandstrom a Betty Christensen and many nieces and nephews whom she dearly loved. She was preceded in death by her husband Lowell and daughter Barbra Ann, her sister Dora Bascom, and brother Elmer Leetham. Funeral services will be Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 11:00 AM in the Sharon Park 14th Ward Chapel, 150 East 300 North, Orem. Friends may call PM on Tuesday evening at Walker Sanderson Funeral Home, 600 East 800 North, Orem and Wednesday morn5 ing at the church form am prior to the services. Burial will be in the Orem City 6-- 8 Our beloved Michele on July 18, 2008 while vacationing at Bear Lake with those she loved most; her family. Michele J A was born November 27, 1960 in Hanford, California. She graduated from Ricks College in Idaho where she met her sweetheart and future husband, Carlos Pereira. A photograph of this beautiful redhead caught his eye and the rest is history. They were sealed in the Oakland, California LDS Temple on June 6, 1980. Together they have four beautiful daughters; Melissa, Nicole, Paulina and Chant al. Michele's greatest joy was being their mother. She loved their 'girl's night' together. In keeping with Michele's generous nature, she worked as a nurse in the post care unit of Utah Valanesthesia ley Regional Medical Center for 27 years. Her colleagues state, "She was a compassionate, intelligent, and unusually talented nurse and thousands of patients that she cared for were comforted and eased in their surgical recoveries because of her skill. Though in recent years she cut her hours to spend more time with her family, her medical colleagues will find her void difficult to fill." When Michele found time for leisure, she appreciated a good book. She and Carlos were quite a pair on the dance floor, their favorite dance being the 'Forro'. Researching family history was a passion she was devoted to. Her children, and other lucky recipients, have handmade items from Michele that she crocheted, knitted or She was a seasoned traveler, having been to Spain, Portugal, France, and her husband's homeland of Brazil. In her travels, her generous nature would find her always giving bags of food to local families, bringing hospital supcross-stitche- plies to local clinics. She is a second mother to many, including two of her husband's nieces and a nephew from Brazil. She welcomed ev " -- Washington D.C., ruled that government restrictions severely reducing water flows to the Hage family's land "deprived them of the water they needed for irrigation, making the ranch unviable." Like judges before him, Smith said the cancellation of Hage's grazing permit as a result of overgrazing and trespassing did not constitute a "taking" prohibited under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution because a grazing permit is "a license, not a contract or property interest," he said. But he concluded the government committed a taking when the Forest Service apparently motivated by "hosmade tility" toward Hage it impossible for him to maintain irrigation ditches. "It doesn't do you a lot of good to own that water if you really, effectively can't use it," said Lyman "Ladd" Bedford, a San Francisco-base- d lawyer who has argued the case since Hage first filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service in 1991. Morrison said the federal agency continually harassed her father, who once was a leader of the Western movement for more local control of public land called the "Sagebrush Rebellion" and who wrote the 1989 book "Storm Over Rangelands: Private Rights in Federal Lands." "They had put my family through shear hell with various trespass notices, visits, demands and so forth culminating when they confiscated 100 head of our cattle," Morrison said. She recalls the day federal agents rounded up the Cemetery. eryone with open arms and a mother's heart. She offered her home, her kitchen, her wisdom and her time as Rita, Ivana and Michelson blended right into the Pereira home. If you were within arms reach, you were family. Michele was an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-da- y Saints and a member of the Timpview 8th Ward. She blessed the lives of many as she served in various positions in the Relief Society. Our Sunday hymns were sung to her beautiful piano playing. Michele internalized the Savior's counsel when He said, "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another." It has been said by many that they never heard Michele speak unkindly of anyone. Her father, Stanley Keith Andrus of California, preceded Michele in death. Ina Dial, Michele's mother, still resides in California. Michele will be greatly missed by her husband Carlos A Pereira and her cherished children; Melissa Peterson (Nephi) of Provo, Nicole March (Jordon) of Springville, Paulina Pereira and Chantal Pereira of Orem. Michele was blessed with one granddaughter, Chloe Neith Peterson, daughter of Melissa and Nephi Peterson. Chloe was grandma's special girl. Michele had four siblings; Steve Andrus (Sue) of California, Shauna Ramirez of Arizona, LaNae Nugent (Steve) of Arizona and Sharee Andrus of Utah. Her 'adopted' family includes Rita and Tom Richardson and their sons Ivan and Bryan, Ivana and Kevin Lackey and their son Lucas, and Michelson and Jessica Mendez and their son SCOTT SADYAssociated north of Tonopah in 1978 and began feuding with the Forest Service almost immediately. At issue, according to Smith's ruling, is that the Forest Service prohibited the Hages from using motorized equipment to clear irrigation ditches on national forest land that brought water to the ranch. "It cannot be seriously argued that the work normally done by caterpillars and back hoes could be accomplished with hand tools over thousands of acres. With hand tools the task would have taken years or decades and required hundreds of workers," the judge wrote. The ditches were regulated under the 1866 Ditch Act, which was enacted one year after the Pine Creek Ranch was established two years after President Lincoln admitted Nevada as a state in 1864. "The 1866 ditch laws and animals. other laws were really part of that free enterprise period "They were fully armed. in American history where They pointed a gun at my brother when he threw a rock Congress was trying to enat a dog that belonged to the courage Western settlement and protect private property government. We were darn rights of Western settlers," lucky we didn't have a Ruby said Chuck Cushman, execuRidge situation," she said tive director of the American about a 1992 standoff with Land Rights Association U.S. marshals that resulted in three deaths in a shootout based in Battle Ground, Wash. at the Idaho home of Randy "Nobody would go back to Weaver. somebody who homesteaded "This is really a vindication a parcel of land in the 1870s and try to take that land for what were considered radical ideas in 1989 when away from them today. And as a result of this case I think dad wrote his book," she all ranchers with grazing said, adding she wished her parents had lived to enjoy the permits have solidified their private property rights on victory. federal lands," he said. Her mother, Jean Hage, "He is a Western hero in died in 1996. Wayne Hage remarried Rep. Helen my mind," Cushman said of before Chenoweth, Hage. he died in June 2006 and she Monnig said it's more died four months later in a car accident. Hage purchased the ranch Ashurel. Michele's life carried an enormous impact and emotion for those who knew her. Words used to describe Michele are patient, happy, playful and beautiful. She was our calming rock, a generous soul, a happy woman. Funeral Services will be Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 1 1 a.m. in the LDS Timpview Stake Center, 600 West 1000 North, Orem. Friends may call at the Stake Center on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 from 6 pm until 8 pm or Wednesday, July 23, 2008 from 10:00 til 10:45 am prior to the services. Interment will be at the Orem Cemetery. Your complicated than simply uplaw holding a because the Ditch Act must be balanced against other laws that have since been passed. For example, he said, Congress enacted the 1964 Wilderness Act "recognizing we have this potential to basically modify and adapt every square inch on the face of the earth." "They said we want to set some land aside untrammeled by man as wilderness areas some areas where earth will be untrammeled by man, where man is a visitor and does not remain," Monnig Press Open Ear Technology is the 1M at;-- mauzvii J Monuments most revolutionary development in hearing care since the introduction of digital hearing aids. Come in for a FREE hearing evaluation and give them a try with our NO OBLIGATION ROAD TEST 374-058- 0 reach more than advertising message con "After Hage wrote his book, he wrote a letter to the Forest Service that said 'I own this land. You can't tell me what to do,'" he said. Echeverria said the charge that Hage was limited to using hand tools is incorrect. ear Large Selection of Colors & Styles 725 South 900 East Provo, Utah it's the foundation of customers that keep it standing land, he said. rt fl;j23f f .ustnttLr. I great product can determine the size of your business, requirement was based solely on hostility to plaintiffs," Echeverria said Hage himself is to blame. The Forest Service routinely requires ranchers to apply for a special use permit to use machinery on national forest "It was a restriction because Wayne said. Hage refused to seek a permit based on the theory that the Justice Department lawyers say they haven't decided Forest Service had no business managing his land. It whether to appeal, but Bedford expects they will. was a wound." John Echeverria, a lawyer Morrison said she's proud at the Georgetown University that her father has been vindiLaw Center's Environmental cated, but she doesn't expect Law and Policy Institute who to receive payment for damhad filed f ages anytime soon because briefs backing the governof the possibility of appeals. ment's position, expects the Regardless, the judgment can never make up for the hardruling will be overturned. "Over the last decade there ship her family endured for has been a spate of litigation years, she said. "No amount of money could over this basic issue and the litigation has pretty generally ever pay for what we went gone against the ranchers, in through," she said. favor of the public," Echeverria said. "The plaintiffs and their allies have put out lot of materials saying it is a great victory for public land grazers," he said. "But while this decision is troubling and wrong and Behind this will almost certainly be relies an engineering versed on appeal, it is a relatively narrow decision." masterpiece Though the judge said Hage "offered ample evidence that the Forest Service had engaged in harassment ... enough to suggest that the implementation of the hand tools ex-U.- if but u : Ramona Morrison, daughter of Wayne Hage, holds a book by Jim Keen open to a spread on her father's ranch, currently run by her brother, in her Sparks, Nev., home on July 1 6. (IIIIIII!HLI.-'""T".''V"- A kX I " . Loren A. Smith, based in 9:30-10:4- Michele Pereira (Andrus) Pereira passed away PRESS long-runnin- ldren Carol (Phil) Bowers, Highland; Vern (Susan), Pay son; Jolene (Stephen) Marchbanks, Orem; Nadine (Phil) Garfield, West Valley; Leon (Sue), Taylorsville and Linda (Ken) Gaisford, West Jordan, 27 sister-in-la- ASSOCIATED It took 17 RENO, Nev. years for the late rancher Wayne Hage to win a groundbreaking lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service in a g dispute over property rights, water rights and grazing on federal LaVera L Christensen On Friday, July 18, 2008 LaVera Leetham Christensen HERALD SBeesley Monuments in the Daily Herald. 92,000 readers every Sunday 375-510- 3 X (f wpi"H J PROVO - 463 N. Vnivcrsitf Avc7 Sr.lr k -- , r ;S at1 1 Lj MM Aw&kcnVour PIMc Mthc r" 1 0 c (j cl) ; 0 g " tf) SOM73-667- 7 SIX - 2731 . Trlcvj's W.vj UOWS1-022- 2 " , DINNER HOVRS Mem -- SM 4:00 pm-)0:0- ymj 0 i v |