She was able to keep the grazing off the bottom land for the last four years. It was an amazing achievement compared to what had happened before it was a monument. Irv McMillan, a longtime cattleman and friend of Marlene Braun (Al Seib / LAT)
After going through her friends belongings, Kathy Hermes at first got angry. Then she acted. She wrote to her congressman, who requested a federal investigation (Al Seib / LAT)
FERVENT: The Bureau of Land Managements Marlene Braun, in 99 with her dogs in Alaska, site of an earlier assignment, called Californias Carrizo Plain a place where I finally found a home. (Al Seib/ LAT)
VISTA: The view from the porch looks across the austere plain shared by antelope and falcons, the California condor and the California jewelflower. (Al Seib / LAT)
BOSS: Ron Huntsinger came with marching orders almost guaranteed to bring him into conflict with Braun. (Al Seib / LAT)
PLAIN: What began as a policy dispute to graze or not to graze livestock on the grasslands became a morass of environmental politics and office feuding. (Al Seib / LAT)
IN HONOR: Friends left a plant memorial on the gate to the ranch house at Carrizo Plain National Monument where Marlene Braun killed herself this spring. (Al Seib / LAT)
