Cherry Landen Elected Board Treasurer

by Nancy Debevoise

At its September meeting, WOC's board of directors unanimously elected rancher and conservation activist Cherry Landen as its new treasurer, replacing Jim McNiece, who had served as treasurer for the past year.

Cherry and her husband, Jerry, own and operate the family's cattle ranch in Wheatland. Although her first love is horses, she makes time to get involved in community issues.

In 1994, for example, Cherry and her neighbors founded Concerned Citizens of Platte County. A year later, joining with WOC and the Powder River Basin Resource Council, the group helped convince the Wyoming State Legislature to adopt stringent legislation governing industrial hog farms. Since then, however, 5,000 hogs have arrived in Wheatland, and Cherry is working with WOC to press state agencies to protect the area's residents from the hog farms' overwhelming stink and health hazards. (See article on page 12.)

Raised in the East, Cherry watched as housing developments, shopping malls and highways gobbled up open space, polluted the air and water and eroded people's quality of life. A proponent of land-use planning, she believes that "Wyoming residents need to start taking control of how our neighborhoods grow, how our landscapes look and the purity of our air and water, rather than allowing developers and industry to dictate our quality of life."

Cherry is obviously an avid defender of her adopted state. "I really enjoy educating myself about the numerous conservation challenges facing Wyoming," she says, "and I try to do whatever I can to help WOC protect our communities and our environment."