Word: ranches
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Donna Phelps loves a good chat, so when the retired schoolteacher answers the phone one morning at the Gunnison County, Colo., ranch where her husband Duane has been raising cattle since 1958, she is happy to find a former student on the line. But the caller isn't interested in idle talk. Like so many people in the area--a remote sage-and-wildflower valley--the student is in real estate now. She tells Donna that a client from Texas wants to spend $105,000 on a 35-acre "ranchette" of undeveloped land. Would the Phelpses be interested in selling...
They could use the money. Their ranch has been profitable in only two of the past 10 years, and Donna, a vivacious 61-year-old, is sick of scraping by. She wants to enjoy retirement with Duane, a soulful, laconic man of 67 who in the past two years has survived four operations and two broken limbs. But Duane is stubborn. His family has been ranching here for more than a century. "I know how I want to die," he says. "Just fall over in my field. That's the best way." Yet he also knows that when his time...
...field beside the brick house his father built sits a huge pile of stones, polished smooth by 100 winters, bleached white by 100 years of high-country sun. It was created by Trampe's grandfather, clearing this land for farming and cattle. When Trampe took over the ranch after his father's death 30 years ago, little had changed in the valley. As late as 1990, Trampe could use the road to Crested Butte to drive his herd home from the high pastures. Along the way, the cows rested in midvalley meadows he calls "crucial stepping-stones up the valley...
...reality, there's not much left of the Comcast ranch to bet. Roberts and his father Ralph, 77, who own 7% of Comcast stock, have spent billions building up a collection of programming and telecom services. The list includes 57% of QVC (home shopping); a 68.8% piece of E! Entertainment (programming); the N.B.A.'s Philadelphia 76ers and the N.H.L.'s Flyers (more programming); a 20% stake in Teleport Communications Group (business telephone service); and a 15% position in Sprint Spectrum (cellular telephones...
JOHN CROYLE, 46, GADSDEN, ALA.; Founder of Big Oak Ranch...