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Show Everybody's Asking: Who Is Toni Thayer? Toni Thayer of Escalante has been writing a recent series of articles for the Garfield County News. Born to mid-central Illinois farmers and instilled with principles prin-ciples of responsibility and independence, inde-pendence, Toni Thayer moved to Arizona at the age of 19, longing long-ing for wide open spaces, adventures, and blue, blue skies. She called Flagstaff, Ariz., home through the next 28 years with short stints in Cottonwood, Ariz., and Portland, Oregon. While in Flagstaff, she married and divorced, and from that union came Jesse, her now 21-year-old son. During Thayer's career in private business management, she developed her natural knack for organizing, efficiency and precision details. In 1994, she formed Organize It, a business consulting firm, offering organizational organi-zational and accounting systems, sys-tems, staff training and support, and non-profit services. Thayer's environmental work began in 1989 when a Verde Valley cement plant proposed burning hazardous waste. Concerned over the prospect of raising Jesse under a cloud of haz waste, she volunteered to help the grassroots group forming form-ing and said her first prayer in many years, "Jesus, I will do whatever it takes to beat this thing." The following week, the group asked her to be on their board of directors. She remembers, "I thought about my promise to God, took a big gulp and accepted the work. My daily prayer then turned into an offer to do His work and a request for His guidance." For the next 1 1 years, project after project landed in her lap. Thayer's community service work included haz waste and tire burning, off-road vehicle trails, economic development, growth management, forest cleanups, and youth groups. "I learned whenever I was stuck with a project, all I had to do was pray for what I needed. Sure enough, it would show up, whether it was a scientist, lawyer, press or the public." She says she learned to trust God's higher guidance, "Service, guidance and trust turned into well-grounded faith as the years rolled by." By the fall of 2000, Thayer no longer felt at home in Flagstaff's booming population, and with Jesse grown and on his own, she relocated to Blanding in southeastern Utah. Steve Gessig of Escalante contacted her shortly thereafter via email requesting information informa-tion on an issue she was investigating. investi-gating. Their relationship bloomed, and Thayer moved to Escalante in 2001. During their first year together, togeth-er, Steve talked about the Grand Canyon Trust (the Trust), a Flagstaff environmental group, and its connections to the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, the United Nations and a global agenda to strip America of her sovereignty and remove Americans' rights. "My other research had already con- 1 I ' 3 ! 1 i l I Toni Thayer firmed the global agenda that Steve mentioned, but I had worked side by side with the Trust and didn't want to believe his accusations of their involvement," involve-ment," she said. Finally, in 2002, she sat down at her internet browser and investigated the Trust's board of directors. She explained, "I couldn't believe my eyes at first, but the web searches verified Steve's statements. After six months, I admitted that the environmental envi-ronmental movement had been railroaded by global developers, financiers, and big non-profits." "These leaders don't care about the environment," Thayer said. "What they're really doing is shutting down America's resources while they develop China, Africa, Indonesia and South America." But that's another story. See her Range Magazine Winter 2003 article, "Don't Trust the Trust". "It's not just the worker-bee enviros who've been fed info and programmed to believe that their cause is just and true. The worldwide players have tentacles tenta-cles extending into every facet of our lives schools, government, govern-ment, commerce, trade, banks, religion and special interest groups. We've all been affected in one way or another." Regarding the current coverage cover-age in the Garfield County News, she stated, "It's not my intention to point fingers or place blame for any of the projects proj-ects I research. I only want to make people aware of what's going on around us. I hope to reach everyone, ranchers, government gov-ernment employees, environmentalists, environ-mentalists, tourists, neighbors, students, Republicans, Democrats, Demo-crats, young and old." Does she worry about the plans she reveals? "Not anymore. any-more. It was fairly traumatic at first, and everyone thought I'd gone off the deep end. Now, more and more people are waking wak-ing up and realizing that something's some-thing's not right in America. I had been an activist for years. How could I just sit back, knowing know-ing that my son and his kids had no future at all?" ' Rather than being paralyzed by fear, Thayer moves towards the positive, "Our strength and hope is the combination of all of our individual talents, working together with His hand guiding us. Then, no matter what is to come, we will be in exactly the right place, doing exactly the right thing, at exactly the right time. This I know." |