Sitting in a circle, occasionally gazing at the soaring Tetons outside the A-frame lodge's big windows, sixteen boys between the ages of eleven and seventeen discussed personal values with Lowell at his "dream ranch" in the Idaho mountains. "Nothing we said went unnoticed nor unchallenged if he found it lacking," Steven Huefner remembered from his three summers (1975-78) as a counselor. "Lowell always managed to nurture when he challenged," he said. The talk was punctuated by Lowell's laugh, "not loud or deep but hearty and full, a spontaneous and unselfconscious laugh filled with enough warmth to be embracing."¹

Another setting for spiritual and social self-discovery was the "chapel in the pines." John Durham Peters, who spent the summer of 1973 on the ranch, described this "secluded thicket surrounded by good, stiff, straight, and tall pines with logs for benches." Lowell used the integrity of the pines—"unchangeable, constant, true to their place in the world"—to illustrate "how much he had yet to learn about being true to himself and his ideals." Peters was "amazed that such a man should worry about integrity…My amazement gradually became epiphany" as he realized that "goodness comes from the recognition of one's own shortcomings, not from a one-time hurdler's leap over them." Peters also absorbed Lowell's broad view of Mormonism as a world religion. "The genius of Mormonism is not its uniqueness but its kinship to all true religions in its ethical core." Not just a "Wasatch phenomenon," Mormonism, in the view Lowell shared with these boys, was "capable of filling and blessing the whole earth with service and love."²

Lowell had dreamed into reality a "Utopian ranch, serenely situated with water, isolated, and available for a song," a non-profit enterprise for the purpose of "building boys into self-respecting and self-reliant men."³ In the twenty-four years from 1961 to 1985 more than 2,000 boys, attracted mainly by word-of-mouth, came to the Teton Valley Boys Ranch.

		Lowell at his Teton Valley Boys Ranch

The roots of the dream formed in Lowell's teenage summers on Uncle Teddy's land. These roots deepened at the institute where he taught young people the principles of hard work, unselfish service, and clear thought. After moving Merle and the boys to the four-acre "farm" in East Millcreek in 1943, Lowell continued to search, and his sons grew up with his dream. As Steve recalled, "We'd be sitting in the front room, getting ready for Sunday dinner, and Dad would read the want-ads: 'How does this one sound?—a hundred and eighty acres of mountains and cultivated land, forty acres forested, there's great water near the mountains.'…We'd say, 'Yeah, Dad, that's great.' But he never gave up."⁴

Part of Lowell's motivation was concern for his sons. Ben, a superb irrigator for the Bennion garden, learned much about farming that gave him an appreciation for the country.⁵ His hobbies, music and mountain climbing, "pleased his father," according to Steve, "but the next two sons were not as studious and were more social in their interests. It was then that Lowell began looking for a ranch."⁶

When he taught summer courses at Ricks College in 1954, Lowell visited the ranch owned by Grant Wilson and Sharol Duffin Wilson, both former students, just west of the Tetons in Alta, Wyoming. He asked them "if there were any farmer in the area who could use a husky lad of nearly thirteen who knew how to milk a cow." The "husky lad" was Steve, who spent the summer of 1954 working on Grant and Sharol's ranch. The next summer both Steve and Doug, who had spent the previous summer on Branson Neff's (an East Millcreek neighbor) farm near Manila, Utah, worked on the ranch of Grant's brother, Mark Wilson. All told, Steve spent five summers at Grant's ranch.⁷ Ranch work involved moving long lines of sprinkler pipes on alfalfa fields, weeding, cultivating peas, grain, and potatoes, and hauling hay. They fed chickens, gathered and candled eggs, milked cows, and rode horses. The magic worked for them as it had for Lowell and Wayne a generation earlier.

But Lowell longed for the chance to touch boys beyond his own sons—a working ranch where boys could test their muscles against man-sized tasks and where they could puzzle through the process of organizing a job efficiently. Sharing the dream were former students and colleagues, like Jack Adamson, who sent ideas back from his observations of summer camps in the East,⁸ Garry Shirts, and Fred Buchanan.

Merle was supportive but not enthusiastic. For twenty years she had fed, clothed, and educated five children on an institute teacher's salary, squeezing out extra funds for dinners and refreshments for students, feeding and housing frequent guests. Lowell's willingness to borrow on their life insurance made her wonder if he had inherited not only Uncle Teddy's ranch fever but his "plunging Bennion blood." (Some of Ted's investments had sent him into long-term debt that Milton had patiently helped pay off.)⁹

In the spring of 1960 Lowell met with Dr. LeGrand Larson, who owned Moose Creek Lodge and a motel not far from Mark and Grant Wilson's ranches. Larson agreed to rent the motel as housing for the summers of 1960 and 1961 in exchange for help on his ranch. The boys would paint rooms, do small repair jobs, and fix fences around the ski lodge, which would also serve as dining hall and meeting place.

With only a few weeks to prepare, the experiment began in early June 1960 and was organized into two sessions of four weeks each, with a week between sessions. Garry and Cozette Shirts, who had two young children, were the camp managers that first session for "thirteen to twenty boys ranging in age from eleven to seventeen." Merle acted as occasional cook and laundress, while also caring for a neighbor's baby. "I went up that first year," she recalled, "and oh, we worked hard!—relieving the others."¹⁰

Garry's memories of the rented setting at Moose Creek Lodge remained vivid:

The Tetons soared behind, and the trees, grass and blue sky combined to make it an overwhelmingly beautiful setting. The area had only a two-month growing season, but what a glorious two months. [The ranch] had a main dining hall and four or five cabins. It was bordered on one side by a road and on the other by Moose Creek. It had a wooden fence around the perimeter. Horses were corralled in one end of the ranch. We also had a volleyball net and trampoline. Baby deer would feed with the horses. One fawn adopted us as family and participated in most of our activities.¹¹

The schedule called for a morning of work and an afternoon of play. According to Richard Nelson, physician, ranch investor, and friend, "Lowell worked the boys eight hours a day at first… but it didn't take him long to figure out that four hours of work and four of play would be better."¹²

Cozette and Garry Shirts received a salary of $1,000 and generally found the experience both challenging and rewarding. "We learned a great deal about ourselves," commented Garry, "and… began to view Brother Bennion as a person and not a saint."¹³

One of those humanizing moments occurred on a particularly trying Sunday when Cozette tried to roast a turkey for Lowell's visit. As the hungry campers gathered around the table, she discovered that the turkey was still almost raw. Embarrassed, she announced a delay. "Brother Bennion was clearly irritated," Garry recalled. They later learned that the leaky oven could not hold heat. Cozette finally cut the bird up and fried it. "The boys took it in stride, but Lowell didn't," recalled Garry. The young couple began to think "that perhaps Brother Bennion thought of us as hired help rather than as partners."¹⁴

Other problems emerged in the Edenic setting. Garry was puzzled about why some of the boys wanted to stop at Victor's little drugstore after a morning's work when they seldom bought anything. He was horrified to learn that several were stealing candy bars and toys. "That was discouraging. Here we were trying to impart some important values to these young boys, and we discovered we were serving as their chauffeur while they robbed a small town merchant."¹⁵

The first summer was hard because it was the "shake-down" cruise; the second summer was hard because of the emotional turmoil of Lowell's termination from the institute. Burr and Joy Chamberlain managed the ranch that summer with the help of an excellent cook, Veda Thompson, a local woman in her forties. She and her daughter, Noleen, cooked lunch and dinner six days a week at the ranch each summer until her death two decades later.

Burt Chamberlain, a full-time social worker in the Salt Lake City schools, was persuaded to manage the ranch by Lowell's moving description of his dream. But actually handling the logistical, practical, and emotional responsibility of dozens of boys seven days a week was drastically different. He and his wife Joy often felt stranded by Lowell's frequent absences. Lack of tools and real structure were frustrating. Only years later did it occur to Chamberlain that work crews of boys could have relieved him and his wife of much of the stress. Though exhausted, they had learned so much by summer's end, they still evaluated their experience as "good" with "no unhappy campers."¹⁶

Lowell's colleagues, Ed Lyon, George Boyd, and Albert Payne, offered encouragement but did not invest in the project or become involved except to visit and to send their sons. "Dad was always fixing things for Lowell," Lynn Lyon recalled, "but didn't do much with the ranch. It was one of Lowell's dreams and interesting, but Dad left it to Lowell."¹⁷

For the boys it was designed to benefit, the rough edges of those shake-down years were not very important. Lowell's friend and colleague, Edith F. Shepherd, sent her only son, Bob, for the first two years, and she reported the ranch as "a good social and work experience…a wonderful program" and invaluable maturation experience for an only child.¹⁸

Richard Nelson sent eleven-year-old Eric to an early camp. Eric later became a counselor and horse handler until his mission at nineteen and then for one summer afterwards. When Eric tried to break a "spoiled horse" of bad habits, Lowell asked him what he'd named the horse. "I'm going to call him 'Dammit,'" said the exasperated Eric, "because that's what I say every time I'm on him." From then on even Lowell called the horse "Dammit."

Eric and his father kept a list of the evening programs Lowell convened in those first years: how to use and carry tools; first aid; capital punishment; the usefulness of college; outdoor survival; and self-esteem. There were talent nights and guest speakers. On Sundays the boys met in the Chapel in the Pines where each who wished could share ideas on an announced topic like "Why I Am Proud to Be an American."¹⁹

Moose Creek Lodge was a stop-gap. In June 1960 Lowell opened successful negotiations for property owned by Francis Weeks, three-and-a-half miles west of Victor, on the opposite side of the Tetons from Jackson, Wyoming. Its "seclusion and rugged splendor" reminded Lowell of his beloved Switzerland. To his sister Frances, Lowell described the site as "80 acres of farm land and 80 of forest country in the Teton Valley that is out of this world for beauty for the reasonable price of $18,000."²⁰ Emma Mosher, Lowell's and Merle's friend who had accompanied Merle to Europe in their youth and who derived her meager income from sewing temple clothes, contributed $2,000. Lowell raised the rest by borrowing on his life insurance and selling two acres of his East Millcreek farm to his neighbor, O. C. Tanner.

In the summer of 1962, the year Lowell left the institute, they opened shop at the Victor property. Fred Buchanan, Lowell's loyal student and friend, volunteered to be one of the counselors and camp manager. In his diary he described the Victor ranch as a "delightful spot surrounded by pine-clad hill and near a rushing mountain creek." Although some of the campers were "terribly spoiled and some very inept," Fred rejoiced in the physical exertion. He found his religious skepticism waning as he prayed nightly with the boys. He became attached to the youngsters who in turn tolerated his bagpipe reveilles.²¹

Buchanan, like Garry and Cozette Shirts, outgrew some of his classroom adulation of Lowell. In a ranch discussion group, when each boy was asked to say one negative and two positive things about another member of the group, Buchanan complimented Lowell on his vision but critiqued his lack of organization, scheduling, and "sense of time."²²

In 1964 the adjacent 160-acre ranch, Teton Peaks Ranch, was offered for sale. Fearing that someone might turn it into a dude ranch, thereby cutting off access to the mountains and the rolling Forest Service land on either side, Lowell bid on the land. He had no idea where the asking price of $25,000 could be found. Once again his students came to rescue. John and Barbara Redford Cook had been active members of Lambda Delta Sigma.

John, now a physician, had worked with DuWayne and Alice Schmidt at the institute and had fond memories of Lowell's medical seminar. When Cook told Schmidt, newly returned to Utah from his medical residency, about Lowell's dream, they collaborated in forming an investment group to buy the property. Schmidt saw it as an opportunity to "repay Lowell" for his influence on himself and his wife and to expose their children to Lowell's brand of Christianity. As Barbara Cook would later describe it, the two men were attracted to Lowell's dream of "contrasting roughness with fineness, primitive nature with refining discussion of the gospel."²³ Schmidt appreciated a plan "that allowed boys to clear land like the pioneers and to develop muscles and feel manly."²⁴

Other doctors and their wives were easily recruited.²⁵ Robert A. Parry and Richard Stucki, also former institute students, volunteered as well, and Parry became the group's accountant. Feeling that "there is no way we can pay him back for his impact on us, for his philosophy of freedom and trust," they nevertheless decided to try.²⁶ Some borrowed money to raise the necessary $25,000. Schmidt's shocked father scolded, "You can't buy your own house, but you can go in on a ranch!" But after a visit to the "garden of Eden" in the Tetons, "he understood."²⁷ Ironically, Richard Nelson had been bidding on that same ranch, but when the investment group approached him, he willingly "became part owner instead of the owner."²⁸

One of Lowell's conditions was that anyone who needed to withdraw his funds could do so at any time. Nelson took part of his interest in the land and built a small house that enabled him to spend enough time there to keep the group posted on developments in the region. Stucki withdrew his money and moved to Moab, but the others felt with Schmidt that "it was the best investment we ever made." As the Schmidt sons grew old enough to become part of the ranch and their daughters took turns as cooks and laundresses, the ranch became woven into their family life, a project that spanned a generation.

When the group met, they "would plan things to improve: fix up the bunkhouse or the wash house, put in a new water system or put new power in. We would all meet together and decide how much we each needed to kick in to make improvements." From the accountant's perspective, Lowell "never worried about the money. It would come in from some place, and he and the boys and the leaders would build what was necessary and buy what was necessary with the money."²⁹

Lowell's attitudes toward money were simple: "I haven't cared much about money in my day. I have read the 'Sermon on the Mount' too many times."³⁰ He had learned from his father's sad experience not to borrow money for speculative purposes and not to invest in things that he could not understand or control. He felt that his East Millcreek farm and Teton ranch were "profitable economic moves" because they gave him "much pleasure and ego satisfaction," and had increased in value.³¹

The ranch always remained a nonprofit venture. "We had to put in a little extra to keep it going," Parry recalled, "but that was part of it. I guess anyone around Lowell tended to accept the idea of doing a little extra for others."³²

But the geographical base was firm. Buying the extra acreage doubled the boys' territory, and the connection with the national forest gave them "a whole mountain to roam."³³ Much of the ranch's success depended on Dale Marcum, a Teton Valley neighbor, farmer, schoolteacher, bishop, and member of the core staff. He aided in almost every aspect of ranch development, from building to planting, to working with the boys. Art Kearsley, a horse wrangler, famous for his long-winded, comical, and salty stories, was the expert on ranch life. "Art could talk your head off, was quick to make up his mind, and wanted things up front," recalled Rodney Schmidt. "Lowell would put things off and would be vague about physical arrangements.…More than once Art would stomp out of Lowell's shack, gather up his horses, and vow he wouldn't be back." But he always came back because "they shared a strong love of working with boys."³⁴ Once Art tracked two runaway boys on horseback and brought them back. He rode herd on them for the rest of the summer, with the result that "they were among the proudest when they finished."³⁵

In addition to this more or less permanent staff, six or eight older boys worked as counselors. Often a camper's parents helped in return for reduced tuition or no tuition.

One year in the 1970s one of the senior counselors bought beer and cigarettes for the boys. The other counselors found the contraband in the library, confiscated it, and telephoned Lowell, fully expecting him to fire the offender. "Let me come up and see if I can talk to him," Lowell said. He worked with the young man the rest of the summer with no further difficulty.³⁶

Lowell seldom gave direct instructions, instead expecting counselors to use a combination of creativity and common sense. "He would ask for opinions, and he fostered freedom and liberty," recalled the youngest Schmidt, Brian, a counselor during the late 1970s. "He let us be creative." This laid-back style was a shock to one counselor. Experienced with delinquent boys, tight controls, and strict schedules, he was horrified to find boys "running around" and doubly horrified when the other counselors told him, "That's the way it's supposed to be."³⁷

Discipline was a minor though persistent problem. Sid Frazier, a counselor during the 1970s, seized control of an out-of-hand boy by dunking him in the horse trough. "Horsetroughing" became the accepted punishment for sweating, with the result that sweating virtually disappeared.³⁸

Jeffrey Schmidt, the eldest Schmidt child, was head counselor in 1976 at age twenty-two. He looked back in amazement on his experience from his perspective as a pediatrician and father. People entrusted their sons to Lowell and his young assistants "almost blindly," he marveled. He shook his head over the legal liability no one ever worried about. The ranch had fire insurance; but there was no health, accident, medical, or liability insurance on the ranch, the staff, or the campers that there is today. "I don't know if it was faith or ignorance," he commented, but there was never a problem. Jeffrey recalls seeing Dale Marcum "on top of the A-frame putting shingles on, no ropes or anything. We boys climbed up and cleaned the big windows." There were accidents, including broken bones, but nothing permanently disabling and no fatalities. Jeffrey concluded that in spite of risks, he wanted his own children and his young patients to have the same chance to "get away from Morn and learn to figure out who they are on their own—working, playing, thinking—to build their self-esteem."³⁹

The newly purchased ranch already had a few buildings, and a never-ending series of building and remodeling projects filled the air with hammering for the next twenty years. A broken-backed barn became a "little exercise place" after investors secured cables to the roof and straightened it out. "We didn't want to tear it down," said Parry, "because that was the flavor of the place."⁴⁰ An old ranch house was dubbed the White House and set aside as an impromptu residence for investors, their families, and neighbors. The children called it "bugs house," because of the winter's accumulation of dead insects along the windows. There was also a run-down bunkhouse and wash house.

Allen Price, an architect and former student of Lowell's, submitted designs for a lodge to Lowell—designs simple enough that the boys themselves could contribute part of the labor. The lumber would be cut from the surrounding forest. Lowell also consulted his nephew, Kent Morgan, an architectural student at the University of Utah. Morgan drafted up Price's plans for Lowell's conception of an A-frame lodge that served for meetings and dining, and recalled that Lowell had thought through the need for a bunkhouse, library, tackhouse, bathhouse, log house for guests, and swimming pool.

Fifty-three-years-old when the ranch began, Lowell quickly took on the look of rancher. The ruddy Bennion complexion tanned under a battered cowboy hat. His razor-blue eyes focused on the sky but were quick to attend to the expressions of others. Grandson Lindsay Bennion, Doug's eldest, fondly recalled his grandfather's "rancher alter-ego in old coveralls and a beaten up cowboy hat, standing on the deck of the A-fame making work assignments."⁴¹

Heidi Schmidt's favorite memory was seeing Lowell drive a team of "big work horses" hauling a load of manure for the garden. "He'd ride like a twenty-year-old. It was as though he had lost his age and was full of energy and spunk."⁴²

Steve Bennion summed up the ranch:

This is neither a dude ranch nor a profit-making venture; nor is it a rehabilitation program equipped to help boys with serious behavioral problems.⁴³ Our whole purpose is to build good boys into self-respecting and more self-reliant young men.…The ranch's goals are to help the participants (1) learn to work and enjoy working, (2) increase self-confidence, (3) increase health and physical stamina, (4) improve ability to get along with others, (5) learn specific work and outdoor skills, and (6) appreciate nature.⁴⁴

While this formula was being refined, Merle provided stability at home. The youngsters would "come to our home the night before their first day of camp. We bedded them down on the back lawn," she recalled.⁴⁵ Those who lived nearby would drive to the Bennion home the next morning to eat breakfast before departing on "The Magic Bus," an old school bus that became legendary for its regular breakdowns and its artistic graffiti.

Lowell's commitment to his dream came at personal and family cost. In 1990 Merle recalled her own part: "I did a lot down here that he doesn't appreciate. Put them up, placated the mothers, fed them—I spent hours." She was proud of the ranch's achievement, but the memory of loneliness still stung. Turning to Lowell during the interview, she asked, "Why didn't we run it together, Lowell?"⁴⁶ He had no answer.

Robert Parry also noticed. "His wife, his kids, his associates, kind of bent to his drive.…I think that Merle, that little angel, has through the years subordinated her interests to support him…but she rarely let on."⁴⁷

Strange as it may seem to the present generation, the question of a parallel experience for girls and young women never came up. Two or three teenage girls, usually the daughters or sisters of ranch investors or counselors, worked in the kitchen and laundry. They were welcome to join in the social and recreational activities, and at least one girl, Susan Lindsay, recalls her experience there as "the summer I grew up."⁴⁸

Daughter Ellen Bennion spent eight summers between the ages of twelve to twenty serving as breakfast cook, laundress, and assisting Veda Thompson in the kitchen.

Katherine England, a cook one summer in the 1970s and a "sophisticated seventeen-year-old," reinforced Lowell's discussion of the A-B-C dating method by giving the girl's version of "how to behave on dates, and how to ask a girl out." Recalled Stephen Bradford, then sixteen, "We got information that we were too cool or too embarrassed to ask about."⁴⁹

By the late 1960s and early 1970s the ranch had a smooth routine. It still ran in two sessions of four weeks each, but now with thirty to forty boys, ages twelve to fifteen, per session. A day at the ranch meant arising at 6:00 a.m., making beds and sweeping bunkhouses. After breakfast Lowell or his substitute organized the boys into work groups, describing how each job was to be done under the supervision of the counselors. Sometimes the whole group tackled a large project—like digging the swimming pool—but usually several projects were in the works—building, cleaning, maintenance, fence-making, and clearing land.

Lowell taught "respect for every type of job," recalled George Handley, a counselor from Connecticut.

He would take time to explain how to use the tools, how to get them ready, how to put them away. It seemed just as important to him as anything else. This reverence for manual labor inspired many of us. He spoke of the three characteristics of a job well done: (1) Be functional; i.e., a post hole should withstand the winter; (2) Be sound; and, (3) Be aesthetically pleasing (a fence post should be well placed.)⁵⁰

The boys also worked for neighboring ranchers, sometimes for pay to be reinvested in the ranch, more often as service. Like the Lambda Delts, they spread into nearby communities to paint a house, help in the fields, or clean the sidewalks. Lowell's approach to this service was low-key and matter-of-fact. Handley observed, "It was never said that we were there to learn to serve. Discussing it, as is often done in church, makes you too much aware that you are serving. Lowell never liked that.…No patting ourselves on the back."⁵¹

Part of Lowell's program for teaching the boys responsibility was paying them for their work—$50 per session. Jeffrey Schmidt recalled those one-at-a-time interviews and accountings at camp's end. "That was big time—for twelve-year-olds to get a check for their work on the ranch!"⁵²

Stephen Bradford, a "city kid" from the East, internalized Lowell's idea of hard work. "My idea of working outdoors was cutting lawns," he confessed. "At the ranch, we went out into the woods and chopped trees, carved lumber, split the lumber, built fences, built a barn, saw the whole process of how things were made. We would…harvest things from nature to use in building projects. It gave me an appreciation for what the earth can provide."⁵³

Lowell nearly always worked with the boys in the mornings while writing lessons and counseling with boys in the afternoons. He often returned to his garden for individual time with a boy who needed a little therapy and low-key discipline. When a boy became so obstreperous that the counselors voted to send him home, Lowell said, "I'd rather err on the side of mercy. I'll take him to work in the garden." The results were predictable: "The little devil would calm right down."⁵⁴

The afternoons devoted to play were as valuable, in Lowell's opinion, as the work. Boys were free to swim in the pool, raft or tube on the river, hike, ride horses, organize softball, basketball, and volleyball games, play the piano in the lodge, or curl up under a tree with a book. Sometimes they went into Victor to shop or see the "mellerdrama" at the lone theater. Only a few options were out: no television, radios, knives, or guns. But boys who had worked together all morning, using their minds to solve problems and their muscles to achieve solutions, found it easy to play together.

Brian Schmidt recalled a catalogue of homemade fun:

Once, after a hike, we found an old car, rusty and awful. We started playing on it and posing. It got funnier and funnier, so we divided into groups to take pictures.…We used to have tumbling contests, and we'd made signs with numbers like the Olympics.…Some would write things on the bus with magic markers…It was creative work. Pat King designed the Pat King Memorial Toilet. He put designs around the toilet with magic markers. Then in the afternoon, he'd play the saxophone on the roof of the bunkhouse.⁵⁵

Lowell, or "Doc," as they called him, joined regularly in the afternoon games. One boy remembered playing volleyball with Doc. "He would compliment people and make you feel good—'It's a rally, boys!' He would clap and get excited. His team would win not so much because they played better but because they played together."⁵⁶

Another part of the fun was participation in Victor's 4th and 24th of July parades. In 1980 the boys chose the theme "Use Your Freedom to Vote" and created a float for both presidential candidates—Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. Another year Lowell quipped, "I've had an idea in mind for years and have never used it:…'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses'—and just use boys as they are." The float was a fabulous success. The boys, deliberately ungroomed, huddled together on the wagon, holding their sign.⁵⁷

The evenings were memorable parts of the ranch experience. After hearty suppers, in good weather the boys met outdoors at the chapel for discussions; in bad weather they formed a circle in the A-frame. Steve Bennion felt that these evening sessions met Lowell's need for intense interactions with young minds, assuaging the loss of his beloved institute.⁵⁸ The discussions revolved around timeless topics: the nature of God, current affairs, nuclear disarmament, civil rights, the Vietnam conflict. Boys lined up on either side of an argument. With Lowell as referee, "no matter the age, the kids knew they all had important things to say that would be respected by others."⁵⁹

Lowell arranged parallel experiences for the staff. Boyer Jarvis, an associate of Lowell at the University of Utah, brought his wife Pat and their two sons to the ranch in 1967. Pat acted as assistant cook and Boyer did carpentry work. "Some of the evenings," recalled Boyer, "when the kids [were] doing things that didn't require close supervision, Lowell would gather his staff people—about half a dozen—and we talked about things." There Boyer first began thinking analytically about Vietnam. Lowell "was not satisfied just to let people ruminate but was always challenging people not to just use their minds but to prick their consciences as well."⁶⁰

Although approximately 90 percent of the boys were Mormons, Lowell wanted members of other faiths or of no faith to feel welcome. Parents who expected Lowell to insist on Sunday church attendance in Victor were sometimes disappointed, for Lowell refused to "push and shove people into activity."⁶¹ It was easy for the boys to attend church if they chose. Someone always provided transportation, and no other activities were scheduled. Lowell himself attended Sunday meetings and sometimes taught Sunday school classes in Victor. But anyone could drift into Sunday evening gatherings in the pines and feel at home. It "was never a testimony meeting, though it had the same atmosphere," recalled Brian Schmidt. "Doc would offer a subject, and whoever felt like expressing themselves could get up. We talked about such subjects as where we expect to be in ten years. Less churchy people were impressed. We would burst into tears sometimes."⁶²

Those who were not Mormon added a cosmopolitan flavor to the mix—a Jewish boy from New York, a Russian émigré, a young Frenchman. Recruiting boys was not difficult. Since some boys could not afford the $300 tuition, Lowell found ways to support them. "Lowell was the finest Christian gentleman I've ever known," said Albert Payne. "If a widow came along with a boy, the boy went."⁶³

Ed Lyon's grandsons came to the ranch in the 1970s. James Lyon observed that his two sons learned to work and that both now "speak in reverent tones of Lowell." The second son was "a little close-minded" as an adolescent, but "ever since Lowell Bennion he sees the gospel with the same broad view Lowell has."⁶⁴ Bennion relatives also made up a share of the attendees. Vaughn's son Ricky called his session at Moose Lodge "slave labor,"⁶⁵ but cousin Richard Lindsay reported that "the discussions and the informal classes had a lasting effect on [his three children's] search for knowledge and their value systems."⁶⁶

Merle's cousins, Sterling and Eleanor Colton, sent all three of their sons. "We loved [Lowell] and admired him so much that we wanted our children to have some exposure to him," explained Eleanor. "He didn't run such a tight ship that they couldn't have fun," but the boys learned the "joy of honest labor."⁶⁷

The ranch let Lowell achieve, for at least a short period, his dream of simple living and high thinking. His quarters, despite the ironic title, "Doc's Mansion," were minimal—just a small shed "right in the middle of the action…between the trampoline and the bathhouse, beside the A-frame."⁶⁸ In twenty-four years Lowell never occupied more luxurious quarters. The "mansion" housed a double bunk under a sloping tin roof. Lowell slept on the bottom bunk on a foam pad and sleeping bag, while the top stored "junk" used for repair work. A sheet of plywood served as a desk beneath a small window with yellowed curtains. An inverted drum was his seat, and a piece of pipe served as a closet for his clothes. The boys often noticed that the naked bulb behind Doc's curtains outlasted "the rest of us into the night, and it was almost impossible to be up before Doc in the morning."⁶⁹

Esprit de corps was usually high. The ranch rapidly developed its own legends, folkways, practical jokes, and elaborate hoaxes. As a university student in the late 1980s, Brian Schmidt collected some of these for a senior honors thesis that described how the ranch became a rite of passage, one that created its own social matrix.

As the youngest in his family, Brian had been acculturated in ranch lore long before he was old enough to attend. He recalled,

My brothers returning each summer with the stories and pictures of what went on at camp.…My family would set up the slide projector and I would see and hear the adventures my brothers had been involved in.…I loved to hear their stories.…I would hang around as they bragged to their city-dweller friends about the fish they caught or the bear they saw…how my brother broke his arm in the pickup truck, the boy who hitched from New York, and the pranks they played.⁷⁰

Lowell created a memorable ghost story—"The Piano Wire Murders"—that became part of legend. Newcomers would run to ask him if it was true. "In part," he would answer, and add yet another detail. According to Brian's version, rowdy trappers rendezvousing in the valley raped and murdered some Indian women. "The next year one of the trappers…was found hanged by a piano wire in a tree where the women had camped," a scene that was repeated each year for the next ten years until finally the rendezvous was abandoned. The killings were mysteriously linked to Old Joe, a solitary Indian "who sold Doc the ranch." When Lowell took possession, he found in the little log cabin "a piano with eleven strings missing." And "some say" Old Joe still returns to the ranch. The boys shrugged off the stories, said Brian, "but when they were on camp-outs they would often be scared to leave the group."⁷¹

Lowell saw the core of the ranch as building self-esteem, forging character in physical achievement, exploring principles, and learning about unselfish service. He downplayed his own influence, but boys who struggled to capture the essence of their experience at the ranch located its impact in Lowell's personality and example. "You were away from your family with a big group of boys, and you thought you would be indistinguishable," recalled Stephen Bradford. "But when he'd look you straight in the eye, you knew he cared about you as an individual. He differentiated among boys. You'd carry back increased self-confidence."⁷²

Jeffrey Schmidt remembered a quiet moment with Lowell when he was sixteen and he confessed to Lowell his fear of the devil. "Jeff, are you serious?" Lowell said, surprised. "Listen, you tell the devil to go to hell!" It was a one-sentence summation of Lowell's philosophy that, instead of worrying about the evil "out there," each person should accept responsibility for his or her own thoughts, beliefs, and actions.

The ranch became a living network that constantly replenished itself, but the strength that Lowell drew from it could not renew his health indefinitely. By the early 1980s it was clear that Lowell could no longer spend all his summers there, tracking all of the details necessary to keep it running. A painful memory for Ellen and Steve was the day they gently pointed out the obstacles caused by his failing health and asked him to consider giving up the ranch. Lowell finally conceded the point and retired in 1985, but he refused to sell. For three years it stood vacant.

Once again Lowell's students found the solution. Richard (Dick) and Susan Jacobsen bought the ranch from Lowell and Merle in late 1988. At that time Dick turned to his brother Ted Jacobsen and to Steve Bennion and said, "Let's get the Boys Ranch running again." With Lowell, Lorin Pugh, Jeff Schmidt, and Richard Nelson, Ted and Steve formed a non-profit board to run the Bennion Teton Boys Ranch.

To gear up for operations, the board met twice a month for six months to organize, publicize, and hire a staff. The old A-frame lodge, judged "structurally deficient," was burned down and replaced with a new lodge, designed and built by Ted Jacobsen and the Jacobsen Construction Company in time for the summer session of 1990.

In late 1989 Steve Bennion, now president of Ricks College, gratefully accepted the invitation of Dick and Susan Jacobsen to have Ricks use the ranch during the academic year "if Ricks could come up with a proposal that both the Jacobsens and Ricks felt good about." A proposal to use the ranch as a "training location to build self-esteem, service, work ethic, and leadership," called the Teton Mountain Leadership Institute, was organized by Mack Shirley and Jerry Price of the student life office. Lynn Smith of the sociology department became its first director. The parallel purpose of both the boys ranch and the Teton Mountain Leadership Institute was pleasing to Lowell, the Jacobsens, and Ricks College. The director since 1993 was Brian C. Schmidt, who described his position as an "ideal" combination of "teaching college students on the rustic ranch property and serving the community below the Teton Mountains."⁷³

Steve Bennion described the training program, which welcomes women, as a boon to a number of Ricks's students—as many as 2,000 in a year. It also touches students who are not otherwise involved in leadership development and provides selected retreats for college employees.⁷⁴ Rather than restricted to student body officers or other formal leaders, the classes are open to anyone who wishes to learn more about leadership, time management, personal values, stress management, and the building of relationships. This arrangement allowed for year-round use of the ranch but did not replace the summer sessions for boys.

In June 1989 seventy-two boys pioneered the reopening, with two counselors living in each of the three bunkhouses and supervising the activities. For three summers Steve Peterson served as camp director, and Kathy Peterson, his wife and an artist, coordinated the arts and crafts program. In 1992 and 1993 Gordon and Kathleen Lindsay, Lowell's cousins, directed the summer session. Lowell still made occasional appearances, led discussion groups, and worked in the garden when his health permitted.

Lowell accepted with equanimity criticisms of his administrative skills. The ranch, he said, is "where I learned how poor I am as a detail man." Like most creative people, he had a high tolerance for ambiguity and disorder, but he delegated easily and seldom failed to encourage his staff to dream their own dreams. Boldly he attempted new plans, abandoning failures quickly and without regret. His ability to draw out the best in others overcame administrative deficiencies. It seems safe to say, "He was not a manager. He was a leader."

Lowell also supported a similar venture in Utah. In 1963 he described his ranch to Bill Hutchinson, personnel director of the Granite School District in Salt Lake City, who told Lowell, "We really need a ranch like yours in the Salt Lake Valley. There are at least one hundred kids a year in the district alone who need a place to live because they can't get along at home."⁷⁵ He and Lowell met with schoolteacher Normand Gibbons, state legislator Dix McMullin, and attorney Gordon Madsen. Gibbons located a fifteen-acre property in Kearns that could be purchased for $1,500 an acre. After protracted negotiations, they established the Utah Boys Ranch. "We did it on nerve because we had no funds whatsoever," Lowell recalled.

Since most of the boys were Mormon, Lowell appealed to the LDS church for funding. His first contact, the Presiding Bishop's office, with responsibility for youth and physical properties, told him, "You are in for a lot of work and trouble," and refused assistance. The men bought the first five acres for $11,000 and began to build a house "on faith and credit." Halfway through the plan, creditors threatened suit, so Lowell wrote to the First Presidency, asking for $10,000. Again the answer was no, and the answer from various acquaintances was silence.

A few days later Lowell was startled to receive a message from President David O. McKay's secretary: "President McKay is mailing you a check for $10,000," a gift from the president's emergency fund. The gift "saved our necks and our credit rating," Lowell recalled. Gibbons pronounced it the "boost we needed."⁷⁶ It was also personally heartening to Lowell, a gracious gesture relatively soon after his departure from the institute. David O. McKay's support of the Utah Boys Ranch communicated continuing respect.

With donated furniture and food, the Utah Boys Ranch established three homes dedicated to reclaiming teenage boys from the ravages of society. By 1994 the ranch had expanded to a campus of seventy-seven acres in West Jordan, Utah, that offered "early intervention" for troubled boys, many without families or guardians. It boasted a home atmosphere, education, clinical therapy, moral and spiritual values, and was operated entirely as a nongovernment charity.⁷⁷ Another dream realized.

Footnotes
1. Steven Huefner to "Mom and Dad" (Robert and Dixie Huefner), 10 Nov. 1988, photocopy of typescript in Bradford's possession.
2. John Durham Peters, "Memories of the Ranch," unpaginated, 10 June 1988, typescript in Bradford's possession.
3. Huefner to "Dear Mom and Dad," 10 Nov. 1988.
4. Steven D. Bennion, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 26 Sept. 1990.
5. Lowell Colton (Ben) Bennion, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 7 May 1988.
6. Steven D. Bennion, "Summary History of the Bennion Teton Boys Ranch," 14 Feb. 1992; typescript, 1, photocopy in Bradford's possession; hereafter "Ranch History."
7. Ibid., 2.
8. Jack Adamson to Lowell L. Bennion, 27 Dec. 1954, photocopy in Bradford's possession. Adamson became a respected member of the English faculty and vice president of the University of Utah in the 1960s.
9. Merle C. Bennion and Lowell L. Bennion, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 26 Jan. 1990.
10. Ibid.
11. Garry Shirts, interviewed by mail by Mary L. Bradford, 20 Feb. 1991.
12. Richard J. Nelson, interviewed by Lisa Stringham, 21 Mar. 1989, audiotape in Bradford's possession.
13. Garry Shirts, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 20 Feb. 1991.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Burr Chamberlain, interviewed by mail by Mary L. Bradford, 1 Apr. 1991.
17. Joseph Lynn Lyon, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 26 Sept. 1990.
18. Edith F. Shepherd, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 17 Feb. 1988.
19. Richard Nelson and Eric Nelson, interviewed by Lisa N. Stringham, 21 Mar. 1989, tape and transcription in Bradford's possession.
20. Lowell L. Bennion to Elmo and Frances B. Morgan, 20 June 1961, photocopy in Bradford's possession.
21. Frederick S. Buchanan, Diary, 14 June 1962, photocopy in Bradford's possession.
22. Ibid.
23. Barbara Redford Cook, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 7 May 1987.
24. DuWayne Schmidt, Alice Cannon Schmidt, and their children (Tracy, Jeffrey, Rodney, Heather, Heidi, and Brian), interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 22 July 1988; hereafter cited as DuWayne and Alice Schmidt Family.
25. These physicians were Richard Nelson, Chase N. Peterson, Madison H. Thomas, William S. Jordan, Alan P. Thomas, and Gilbert Tobler.
26. Robert A. Parry, interviewed by Lisa Stringham, 21 Mar. 1989, tape and transcription in Bradford's possession.
27. DuWayne and Alice Schmidt Family, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 14 Feb. 1988.
28. Richard J. Nelson, interviewed by Lisa Stringham, 21 Mar. 1989.
29. Robert A. Parry, interviewed by Lisa Stringham, 21 Mar. 1989, tape and transcription in Bradford's possession.
30. Lowell L. Bennion, "Memories," 87, photocopy in Bradford's possession.
31. Ibid., 85-86.
32. Robert A. Parry, interviewed by Lisa Stringham, 21 Mar. 1989, tape and transcript in Bradford's possession.
33. Ibid.
34. Rodney Schmidt, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 21 Mar. 1989.
35. Brian C. Schmidt, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 13 Feb. 1988.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. Jeffrey, DuWayne, and Alice Schmidt, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 14 Feb. 1988.
40. Robert A. Parry, interviewed by Lisa Stringham, 21 Mar. 1989.
41. Richard Lindsay Bennion, interviewed by Lisa Stringham, 14 Mar. 1990.
42. Heidi Schmidt Shipp, with the DuWayne and Alice Schmidt Family, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 14 Feb. 1988.
43. After the second year, when a severely troubled boy burned down a bunkhouse, Lowell concluded that his ranch was not really organized for the reformation of juvenile delinquents but rather for "boys who were a lit fie shy or who were having a hard time developing self-esteem." Quoted by Richard Nelson, interviewed by Lisa Stringham, 2 Mar. 1989, tape in Bradford's possession.
44. "Ranch History," 3.
45. Merle C. Bennion, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 17 May 1987.
46. Lowell L. Bennion and Merle C. Bennion, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 16 Jan. 1990.
47. Robert A. Parry, interviewed by Lisa Stringham, 21 Mar. 1989.
48. Susan Lindsay Gong, conversation with Mary L. Bradford, 3 Mar. 1990.
49. Stephen L. Bradford, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 15 May 1989.
50. George Handley, audiotaped reminiscences, 17 July 1989, in Bradford's possession.
51. Ibid.
52. Jeffrey Schmidt with DuWayne and Alice Schmidt Family, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 14 Feb. 1988.
53. Stephen L. Bradford, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 15 May 1988.
54. George Handley, audiotaped reminiscences.
55. Brian C. Schmidt, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 13 Feb. 1988.
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid.
60. Boyer and Pat Jarvis, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 15 May 1989.
61. Elizabeth Strobel Card to Mary L. Bradford, 4 July 1988.
62. Brian C. Schmidt, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 12 Feb. 1988.
63. Albert Payne, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford and Eugene England, 5 May 1987.
64. James F. Lyon, audiotaped reminiscences, ca. 10 Mar. 1989.
65. Vaughn L. Bennion, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 9 Feb. 1988.
66. Richard Powell Lindsay, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 28 Oct. 1989. Gordon and Kathleen Lindsay became directors of the ranch in 1992.
67. Eleanor Ricks Colton, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 10 Aug. 1988.
68. Steve Huefner to "Mom and Dad," 10 Nov. 1988.
69. George Handley, audiotaped reminiscences.
70. Brian C. Schmidt, "Teton Valley Boys Ranch: Individual Identity and Group Cohesion through Folklore," Senior Honors Project, University of Utah, Aug. 1990, 4, photocopy in Bradford's possession.
71. Ibid., 10.
72. Stephen L. Bradford, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 15 May 1989.
73. Brian C. Schmidt to Mary L. Bradford, 23 Feb. 1993.
74. "Ranch History," 5.
75. Lowell L. Bennion, "Memories," 86. The quotations from Lowell that follow are from this source.
76. Normand Gibbons, interviewed by Mary L. Bradford, 19 July 1988.
77. Utah Boys Ranch, Today a Boy's Success, Tomorrow a Nation's Destiny, 5500 West Bagley Park Road, West Jordan, UT, 84088, copy in Bradford's possession.