Chauncey Watson
DeKalb, Illinois
1949

A.A. Smith
Sterling, Colorado
1948

First rebuffed as a “half-breed,” being a cattle feeder, Smith was later accepted and loved.  Born in Ohio , he ranched in Wyoming , homesteaded in Idaho , and settled northeast of Sterling , Colorado , where he was the largest early feeder of wet beet pulp.  He became president of the Colorado Livestock PCA and director of two banks.  He opposed price controls, worked for an industry public relations plan and was the first to suggest ANLSA buy their own building in Denver.

Lawrence Brock
Wakefield, Nebraska
1947

William B. Wright
Deeth, Nevada
1946

With a sharp tongue, he attacked the BLM and Forest Service.  “Wording in the Taylor Grazing Act,” he argued, “meant equitable disposition of the public domain to permittees.”  He also opposed deficit spending, internationalism and free trade, and the “lack of understanding by the public of their dependence upon cattlemen.”  He fought to contain foot-and-mouth disease in Mexico.

A.D. Brownfield
Deming, NM
1944-1945

Born in Broomfield , Texas , a town named for his father, young “Dee ” moved to New Mexico in 1915, where he produced fine Herefords.  He helped organize the Production Credit Association, helped establish the New Mexico agricultural Experiment Station, served in the state legislature, was President of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association and one of the first directors of the Cowboy Hall of Fame.  He felt his greatest accomplishment was to help write the Taylor Grazing Act and Federal Range Code.

Frank S. Boice
Sonoita, Arizona
1942-1943

A brother of the 1931 ANSLA President, he helped devise a program of controls during WWII.  Not a believer in controls he became convinced they were necessary to avoid disastrous inflation.  In an emotional speech during the 1944 Convention, he expressed “a mixture of pride and hope, confusion, doubt and frustration… concerning the kind of nation we are building for ourselves in the future.”  For his services, Boice was elected to the Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1958.

J. Elmer Brock
Kaycee, Wyoming
1940-1941

Brock was born in Missouri, attended high school in Wyoming, business college in Nebraska, and then settled in Wyoming.  He was remembered as a “far-sighted and many –sided’ man, known to his colleagues as an independent thinker, diplomat and practical economist.   E was also candid and had a fiery disposition.  “There are 59 federal land management agencies controlling our public lands,” he snorted in one speech, “and the Forest Service is the worst.”  A fighter for private ownership of public lands, he frequently slammed “the federal over-lordship.”  As president when the U.S. entered World War II, he pledged the Association’s support and extolled patriotism among members.