'Grasslands go to who we are as Nebraskans' — Prairie near Red Cloud now forever protected

'Grasslands go to who we are as Nebraskans' — Prairie near Red Cloud now forever protected

June 26, 2020

June 20, 2020

by Sofia Saric in the Lincoln Journal-Star 

RED CLOUD--A family has preserved a 1,147-acre grassland that helped inspire Pulitzer Prize-winning author Willa Cather to capture the beauty of Nebraska’s prairies in her classic novels. Kami and Brandon Meyer, owners of the land in the Republican River valley, worked for three years alongside local conservation organizations to protect the land.

Delbert Lewis, Kami Meyer's grandfather, purchased the land 50 years ago, but had admired the area long before he owned it. “He came from nothing. He had to quit school and start trucking to support his family,” Kami Meyer said. “It was always a dream of his to own this land because he wanted to take better care of it.”

The world is in a crazy state, and this land offers refuge from city life, she said.

“I take it for granted, but when you show other people it you realize how special it really is,” she said. “It’s peaceful; it’s its own world.”

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