Teacher turns summer ranch wrangling into weighty issue

Gallup's Wendy MacPherson-Sklenar at the Laramie River Ranch near Laramie, Wyo., where she worked as a ranch wrangler. (Courtesy Photo)

By Gaye Brown de Alvarez
Staff Writer

GALLUP — When school let out last spring, Gallup resident and teacher Wendy MacPherson-Sklenar decided to do something different for her summer vacation.

She went online and found a job at the Laramie River Ranch near Laramie, Wyo. A job as a ranch wrangler.

She wanted a job at the Grand Canyon, but the park service needed a 90-day committment from summer employees, and that would have cut into her job as a fourth-grade teacher at Red Rock Elementary.

MacPherson-Sklenar, 40, had her heart set on leading pack mules at the Grand Canyon. After all, she was a trained mule-skinner, which, she explained, doesn't mean actually skinning mules, but working with pack mules and mule trains. The Grand Canyon uses mules to ferry tourists and supplies in and out of the Grand Canyon.

So she applied online at coolworks.com which specializes in jobs dealing with the outdoors and found the job at the Laramie River Ranch. She drove up one day, gave a riding demonstration on a horse (twice around the ring) the next day and was hired.

Her duties for the summer involved horse maintenance and care and riding an average of 12 hours every day with the guests at the ranch.

The Laramie River Ranch, which is on the border of Colorado and Wyoming is 1,300 acres with adjoining lease acres of around 50,000 acres.

"You could ride for ages and not see anything," MacPherson-Sklenar said. She and her husband, Milan, stayed in a conversion van for the summer a mere two miles down the road and he kept busy hiking, photographing the area and editing a video.

Families would come in on Sunday night, stay either overnight, four nights or for an entire week. There were cabins for families, or they could stay in the main lodge.

There were no televisions. The ranch belongs to the Colorado Dude Ranch Association, whose requirements are no televisions, group meals, and riding groups according to skills. MacPherson-Sklenar said she spent most of her time with the beginning riders. It was a little hard, she said, and she was sore and her muscles ached the first two weeks she was at the ranch.

MacPherson-Sklenar learned to love horses when she was a young girl and used to feed carrots to the horses on the only remaining farm in the suburbs where her family lived when she was a freshman in high school. In the summers she took odd jobs, a barn manager in Warrenville, Ill., and at a draft horse farm in another part of Ill. She learned to ride in Chicago, Ill., at National Lewis University, where she graduated with a teaching degree in 1986. She always loved horses and farms, she said, and would trade stable work for riding lessons.

She fell in love with a horse named "Guinness" at the Laramie Ranch.

"You could take him out on the trail in a rainstorm with a small child and feel safe," MacPherson-Sklenar said of the horse. "And it rained every day I was there. They had a great hay crop."

All the horses on the ranch were spirited she said. They lived so much as a herd, that when they were turned loose they would run. And it was a diverse herd, with about 60 horses to 30 or so guests, so they weren't overworked.

Now, she's back to her normal daily routine, teaching fourth graders in Gallup. She's been invited back next year to work the summer tourist season, but isn't sure if she can go or not.

"I utilized every outdoor skill I've ever acquired," she said and counted off on her fingers, compass orienteering, horse training, weather observation, doctoring of horses... It was a great experience she said, and not only that, she worked hard and lost weight!