Word: madison
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...seems strange that Jeff and Nancy Madison are virtually social outcasts in Meeker. Rarely does anyone inquire after his family, or his health. Madison and his wife are both from Grand Junction, just 100 miles away, where Madison's father is a doctor. But in Meeker they are never invited to anyone's home, not even for Christmas parties, except occasionally by local police officers. "People are friendly on the surface, but we're somewhere below the dogcatcher on the social scale, and there's no dogcatcher in Meeker," says Madison. Nancy is concerned that their...
...reasons for this curious ostracism are ingrained in local tradition. It has been much the same for wildlife officers assigned to Meeker and some other rural areas in the past. For one thing, a big part of Madison's job is catching people who violate the fish and game laws. He hands out an average of 60 fines a year for offenses ranging from fishing without a license ($50) to illegal possession of an elk ($400). That riles Meekerites, who hate the thought of having their freedoms fenced in by government regulators...
...Madison also has an ongoing adversary relationship with the outfitters and ranchers around town who make thousands of dollars each season by leasing their land to hunters. They resent Madison's authority to enforce game laws on private land. "It's big money, and a good portion of them don't let the law stand in their way," Madison explains. "There's great incentive to get an animal, even go over the limit, for a client...
...summer the same ranchers complain endlessly to Madison that "his elk" are grazing on their cattle pastures. In winter they blame him when hungry elk and deer are busting their fences and devouring their haystacks. "It's not that folks don't like Jeff personally," says Herb Hughley, who operates the Valley Motel on Highway 13, which runs through Meeker. "But they don't like bureaucrats in Denver making laws about what they can and cannot do here...
...Madison, the end result is the same: he is an alien in his homeland. "It's hard to take sometimes because we're the ones that protect the game and keep this resource for them," he says. "Hunting season is what keeps Meeker alive. I'd like to run for city council but I wouldn't get ten votes." A regulation that would limit the number of bulls killed during the season for a few years would be met with great hostility, though it might improve hunting in the long...