54 Nebraskaland • June 2026
Several other photographers spent time on the staff,
including Dick Schaffer, Greg Beaumont, Charles Armstrong,
Steve O'Hare and Jack Curran.
While photography had become the calling card of the
magazine in the 1960s, it was the work of four individuals
who joined the staff between 1969 and 1974 that took it to
the next level: Ken Bouc, Jon Farrar, Bob Grier and Rocky
Hoffmann.
Grier and Hoffmann were the first staff assigned to district
offices, Grier in Alliance and Hoffmann in North Platte. Prior
to that, staff often made two-week-long road trips from
Lincoln to other parts of the state to gather images and words.
All four captured stunning landscapes, with perhaps Grier,
who the Commission sent to a workshop taught by Ansel
Adams, leading the way on that front. They photographed
wildlife, with Farrar going to great lengths to capture
intimate portraits of so many species, including the obscure,
lesser-known ones. (Read "A Rare Bird: Remebering Jon
Farrar" in the March 2022 Nebraskaland) Hoffmann often
focused on people and what they did outdoors. Bouc often
focused on history, fishing and fish in his work. He captured
many of the photos in The Fish Book, a special issue produced
in 1987, using an underwater camera, mask, snorkel and fins,
or strobes and aquariums in the photo studio.
By the time the last of the quartet retired in 2012, they
had a combined 155 years of experience with the magazine.
Another outstanding writer and photographer who worked
during that same era was Don Cunningham, who joined the
staff in 1981 and was the editor before moving on in 2000.
Those five helped young Michael Forsberg, hired in 1993,
get started down a path that allowed him to leave his mark
in both images and stories in the magazine and become one
of the top conservation photographers in the country.
"I think what sticks with me about that staff in
general was across-the-board, you know, they were just
consistently good," Forsberg said. "And they knew what
they were good at. And so they self-sorted, I think, the
kinds of stories and the kind of photography that they knew
LEFT: Ken Bouc witnessed multiple lightning strikes
above an old farmstead.
BELOW: Rocky Hoffmann found Canada geese and
mallards swimming through steam fog on the North
Platte River on a cold winter morning.
ABOVE: Farrar captured a bison
wearing a bouquet of sunflowers on its
horn on the Niobrara Valley Preserve.
RIGHT: Farrar said this photo of an
eared grebe laying an egg in a Sandhills
marsh was his "all-time high."
