The high country of central Nevada has lost the earthly presence of its best friend and champion.
It is my hope that everyone reading this will take a moment to reflect on the greatness of spirit unmatched, the courage and the will that made a home in the most rural of places, and the faith in God that guided Wayne to leave his beloved home and travel extensively to help others fight for their property rights.
Digger may now get to come in the house, but he, too, will know that the mighty physical presence has gone, though the almost tangible spirit lives on at seven thousand feet.
May the pines spread the word of his passing to the cattle he raised. May Table Mountain and the Toiyabe keep his private side private as the seasons change and the years pass.
May his grandchildren know the ranch he loved and choose to fight for it as his children have. May his two special wives know peace as they knew his love -- quiet and strong and always there, encircling them.
Dick Carver, his friend and fellow property rights warrior, has welcomed him Home!)
By Julie Smithson, Propertyrights@earthlink.net
Wayne Hage, Nevada rancher and sagebrush rebel, dies
(Note: Wayne was sixty-nine years old, but accomplished more for the freedom and property rights of America during those years than almost anyone. No matter what the media says, he did a great deal to educate people on the fact that "public lands" are extinct. They are, in fact, federal lands -- and are often off-limits/closed to the public.)
June 6, 2006 - No author provided at originating website address/URL. - The Associated Press
Las Vegas Sun, Las Vegas, Nevada -- http://www.lasvegassun.com
To submit a Letter to the Editor: letters@lasvegassun.comReno, Nevada - Wayne Hage, who battled the federal government for decades over public lands and private property rights, has died.
Hage, who came to epitomize Nevada's Sagebrush Rebellion, had been ill and died Monday at his Pine Creek Ranch near Tonopah, friends said. He was in his 60s.
"He actually successfully beat cancer a number of years ago," said Bob St. Louis, and longtime friend and fellow rancher. "In the past couple weeks, it came back in really aggressive form."
A memorial service is planned Saturday at the Hage ranch in Monitor Valley.
Hage, who married former Republican U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth of Idaho in 1999, had battled the government since the Forest Service started scaling back the number of cattle allowed to graze on national forest land in the early 1980s.
In 2002, U.S. Claims Court Judge Loren Smith ruled in Washington D.C., that Hage had a right to let his cattle use the water and forage on at least some of the federal land where he formerly held a federal grazing permit north of Tonopah, in central Nevada.
A longtime state's rights activist and author of "Storm Over Rangelands," Hage filed a claim seeking $28 million in damages in 1991 after Forest Service officials suspended his grazing permits on parts of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, saying overgrazing was causing ecological damage on the high-desert range.
Hage said the water rights came with the Pine Creek ranch when he bought it for about $2 million in 1978 and those rights carry with them the right to the associated forage.
"If you don't have the water rights, you don't have a ranch," he said during a 2004 court hearing.
Copyright 2006, Las Vegas Sun.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nevada/2006/jun/06/060610029.html
Rancher, sagebrush rebel Wayne Hage dies
(Note: Wayne was explicit -- and right -- when he said there are no "public lands," only federal lands.)
June 6, 2006
The Associated Press
The Reno Gazette-Journal
Reno, Nevada
To submit a Letter to the Editor: letters@rgj.comReno, Nevada - Wayne Hage, who battled the federal government for decades over public lands and private property rights, has died.
Hage, who came to epitomize Nevada's Sagebrush Rebellion, had been ill and died Monday at his Pine Creek Ranch near Tonopah, friends said. He was 69.
AP-WS-06-06-06 1227EDT
Copyright 2006, The Reno GazetteJournal.