Kevin Wiltse’s conservation journey began on a bus.

He traveled with his father to Dakota Lakes in 1996 to learn about soil health. The day after returning home, they sold their tillage equipment and bought a no-till drill. But soil health success didn’t come overnight, nor was it achieved relying solely on not tilling the soil.

Lazy KT Ranch’s story is one of resilience. A mother and daughter’s land ethic has revived the native grasslands of a ranch located a few miles east of the Dust Bowl’s epicenter.

As a child, Rose Kline Blunk took shelter at a neighbor’s home on Black Sunday. The bank took her family’s cattle as they struggled through the Great Depression. During a severe drought during the 1950s, she vividly remembers the sky turning gray and the wind feeling like a sandblaster. Since then, the importance of caring for the land has never left her.

Mark and Sindi Lohrding, along with Marks Parents Arlie and Patricia own and operate Lohrding Three Bar Ranch Inc. in Comanche and Clark County Kansas.  Three Bar run both registered and commercial black Angus cattle in a year round grazing system.  The ranch has been involved in management intensive grazing for 20+ years that encompasses over 100 semi- permanent paddocks and has recently added their cropland to the grazing system.