A Little Ranch Story The Governor’s Family Tradition
BY KAREN DAY
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I wake up at night, worrying about the debt load of the Federal Government,” said Idaho’s Lieutenant Governor, Brad Little in October 2018. “I worry what will happen to people when some of these programs go away.”
dedication to serve through many more sleepless nights: his concern for the people and land that define Idaho. So where does the governor seek respite from 24/7 job stress? “The ranch is where I go to unwind,” Little says. “I ride Old Buster out to look at the cattle, the grass, the range improvements. I check out the seedlings we planted 10 years ago and see how that investment has made a big improvement in the ecosystem.”
This quote is excerpted from an interview during Lieutenant Governor Brad Little’s campaign to become Idaho’s 33rd Governor. The fiscal challenges that accompany his winning the top office have not faded, Little’s stewardship of the land but it’s almost hyperbole to state and livestock runs in his DNA. His the unprecedented health crisis has grandfather, ‘Andy’ Little, arrived in superseded all Brad Little’s governing imperatives. Clearly, one theme remains Idaho from Glasgow in 1884 with twenty-five dollars and two border predominant in Governor Little’s 24 www.idahomemagazine.com
“The ranch is where I go to unwind.” -Govenor Little collies. He settled in Emmet and by 1935, “The Sheep King of Idaho” employed 400 men to care for his 100,000 head of sheep that produced a million pounds of wool a year. The familial roots of First Lady Teresa Little, also run deep in Idaho soil and history with her forebearers among the first Europeans to settle Latah County in 1877. Like her husband, Teresa Soulen Little was raised shearing, shipping and lambing. Seven generations later, many relatives
