The cowboy way — For Tooele ranchers, roundup is chance to reaffirm connections to the past

TOOELE — A small plane is flying overhead. You can hear sounds of cars — not only from the highway, but also from the motor sports park on the highway's other side.

But it's pretty easy to block all that out and focus on the sounds of meadowlarks mixing with the sounds of lowing cattle. You can look across the field, up toward Deseret Peak, and see maybe 15 or 20 guys on horseback tending the herd. From a distance, they look just like any cowboys you've seen in the old Westerns.

When it's time to get moving, a few "Hi-yees" echo in the air, and the herd begins to amble on down the length of the field to the pens. A few of the animals take off in different directions and must be chased down, but for the most part, the herd moves on to the cadence of anxious mamas calling to their calves and the yells of the cowboys.

It is spring roundup time on the Clegg family ranch. They are continuing a tradition that has existed in these parts for more than a century and in this family for several generations. You don't want to romanticize it too much, because it is obviously hot, dusty, hard work. Yet, it is hard not to see those connections to the past, to see in these modern-day, real-life cowboys a larger-than-life element.

For the Cleggs, spring roundup is when the cattle that have wintered on the Grantsville Soil Conservation District on the other side of the valley are gathered up and brought in so calves can be branded, ear-marked, vaccinated, castrated or otherwise taken care of, and then the herd can be moved onto the summer range — some locally, some in Wyoming.

"It's the big social event of the spring, says Janice Clegg, the current matriarch of the family. "The kids and grandkids love it. Friends and neighbors come. Some of the kids that work for us are away at college, and they all come home for it. We all look forward to it."

The roundup actually takes place over three or four weekends in April. With 500 head or so, it takes awhile to get them all moved and cared for. The cattle are separated into herds belonging to various Cleggs, including in-laws and cousins, and then brought in and branded accordingly.

"Bruce and I have been married 37 years. I did it with my family before that," says Janice. "It's just one of the things you grow up with."

The Clegg family has owned this land, "since my great-grandfather came with the pioneers in 1849. We've had a ranch here ever since," says Bruce. That makes theirs the oldest family operation west of the Mississippi and the 14th-oldest in America, he says.

True, they started out with sheep. "When wool was valuable, sheep were the thing. But when synthetics came in, it was harder to make any kind of profit with sheep. They converted to cattle in the 1940s."