42 NEBRASKAland • DECEMBER 2018
T
wo summers ago, when I pulled
into Dan Frank and Allyson
Dather's Sandhills ranch just
west of Bassett, their appearance was
unexpected. Dan wore shorts, T-shirt,
tennis shoes and a ball cap, while
Allyson sported shorts and low-cut
cowboy boots that exposed a colorful
tattoo of prairie wildflowers running
the length of her right calf. This was
not standard rancher attire.
Though unconventional in aspects,
Dan and Allyson are traditionalists at
heart who could talk shop with any
weathered Sandhills rancher. On this
day, however, their minds were not on
cattle. They were excited to show me
the prairie they recently restored on
former center-pivot-irrigated cropland.
At day's end, after bouncing around
for miles in a UTV, I was impressed by
the prairie restorations, their grasp of
prairie ecology and land ethic.
A Sandhills family restores grasslands
Story and photos by Gerry Steinauer, Botanist
Allyson Dather and Dan Frank pose in a Sandhills meadow.
PHOTO
BY
ERIC
FOWLER