{"id":71564,"date":"2017-02-12T04:34:19","date_gmt":"2017-02-12T11:34:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-rancher-al-heaton-named-stockman-of-the-year\/"},"modified":"2017-02-12T11:34:19","modified_gmt":"2017-02-12T11:34:19","slug":"dolores-rancher-al-heaton-named-stockman-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dolores-rancher-al-heaton-named-stockman-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolores rancher Al Heaton named Stockman of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=e2e4480e-b25c-4132-95e8-5bb8e71eab3a&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1521\" alt=\"Al Heaton is congratulated by his wife, LaVonne, after being named the Stockman of the Year during the Southwest Colorado Livestock Association banquet Saturday night in Cortez.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Al Heaton is congratulated by his wife, LaVonne, after being named the Stockman of the Year during the Southwest Colorado Livestock Association banquet Saturday night in Cortez.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Sam Green\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Al Heaton, of Dolores, is known as a man \u201cwho can do anything with nothing,\u201d according to Lynelle Brumley, the livestock association\u2019s treasurer. In addition to his ability to fix truck engines with a pair of pliers, he is also known among Colorado ranchers for his work with the Dolores Water Conservancy during the construction of McPhee Reservoir and his ongoing efforts to educate the public about land and wildlife issues. He has served as the association\u2019s director, and he currently works on his family\u2019s ranch near Dolores.<\/p>\n<p>Saturday wasn\u2019t the first time Heaton had received a Southwest Colorado Livestock Association award. He received an award for distinguished service in 2012, when leaders of the association praised his work on the Bureau of Land Management Advisory Council. He has also served on the Colorado Cattlemen\u2019s Association Public Lands Council, the Federal Lands Committee and the Montezuma County Stewardship Committee.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe is fair and open-minded, dedicated to creating good working relationships among all parties, striving to resolve issues for the benefit and best interest of all involved,\u201d Brumley wrote of Heaton.<\/p>\n<p>Despite his current position on the livestock association\u2019s board of directors as the voting secretary, Heaton said the other members kept him in the dark about who would be named Stockman of the Year in 2017. He became visibly emotional as he accepted the award alongside his wife, LaVonne.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve always appreciated and enjoyed working with our industry \u2026 and protecting our way of life and trying to educate others,\u201d he said. \u201cAll I can say is, Thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Heaton is congratulated by his wife, LaVonne, after being named the Stockman of the Year during the Southwest Colorado Livestock Association banquet Saturday night in Cortez.Sam Green\/The Journal Al Heaton, of Dolores, is known as a man \u201cwho can do anything with nothing,\u201d according to Lynelle Brumley, the livestock association\u2019s treasurer. In addition to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71565,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[281,21,13,1398],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-71564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-agriculture","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-livestock-farming"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71564"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=71564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}