Rancher clings to lifestyle amid drought

ALTON, Kane County — Southern Utah cattle rancher Karl Heaton clings to a hardscrabble way of life that is drying up before his eyes.

Two of the three ponds heading into the tiny Kane County ranching community of Alton where Heaton lives are empty. Townsfolk say they've seen one dry over the years but never two. The drought is taking a heavy toll on those whose livelihood depends on green pastures.

"For this area, it's been extremely hard. A lot of people have had to sell completely out. The old-timers say it's the worst they've ever seen it," Heaton said.

State climatologists say 2002 is the driest year on record in the southern part of the state.

"The total year is not one you want to remember. Lots of stress. Lots of thin cows."

And without significant snowfall this winter, ranchers and farmers face more dire conditions next year.

"It'll hurt a lot more if it don't get better. If we don't get much snow this year, we're done for," said Orval Palmer, an Alton farmer who recently sold 22 of his 30 cows.

But the drought can't take away what Heaton, 57, says ranching has ingrained in his family as he, an uncle and a cousin work to keep the Heaton Livestock Co. a viable concern.

The way Heaton sees it, though, ranching is more a way of life than a business. He and his wife, Joy, used it to bring their nine children up right. There was always something "meaningful" for them to do.

They learned the value of hard work. All of them, girls included, know how to drive a tractor, handle a horse and move cows. All of them, boys included, learned how to cook and clean. There was little time to get into trouble.

"None of them have been in jail or on drugs or any of that kind of stuff," he says.

Though reared on a ranch, Heaton had other plans after earning a manufacturing engineering degree from Brigham Young University. He could have gone to work for IBM, Caterpillar or Ford Motor Co.

But he moved back to Alton in 1977 to help his father, a downwinder who contracted leukemia. By the time he died, "I was so poor I couldn't move out."

Raising cattle never made him rich. And this year a lot more cash has gone out than has come in.

Too many struggling ranchers, the Heatons included, were forced to put their cattle on the market, driving beef prices down. Hay prices shot up as the drought decimated alfalfa fields across the state.