Rachel Gabel
He told me he was a tough bastard when he introduced himself at the Colorado Farm Show. He was a rancher who had overcome some bad years. He had been injured years earlier while loading cattle, and the broken bones and bruises he had brushed aside in his youth were starting to catch up with him. He searched in his wallet and pulled out a folded newspaper page. It was worn as soft as paper. When I unfolded it, I saw that it was a page torn from Fence Post Magazine, signed by me. I didn't need to read it. I knew it was a brutally honest article that first appeared in Colorado Politics and my weekly column that originally appeared in the Denver and Colorado Springs Gazette. I was going to write a column about fall work and shipping calves and the short period in which it feels like one job is done before the next one begins.
But, as I wrote, “All I was thinking about was a guy I knew who had finished work, sorted out his papers, dismissed the cowboys, and shot himself in the barn.'' All I could think of was the man who got a call from his banker, drove halfway and did the same thing.'' It was written in the era.
It remains true that mental health services are sparse in rural Colorado, and people in communities like mine are afraid to reach out and ask for help.
I wrote that the proportion of unbred heifers culled that year was very high. It was dry and hot, and I couldn't leave the heifers and cows alone just because I liked it. I wrote that the burden on a rancher's shoulders goes beyond just virgin heifers being sent to the sale barn.
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“It's not just the heifers. It's not just the costs or the bank loans or the dust. It's the weight of trying to stay profitable in a world where farming is the only thing that believes it shouldn't be profitable. It's the weight of fast food chains and marketing interns and TikTok sensations, driven by activist money, trying to dictate production methods when they're not used to it, and it's the weight of fast food chains and marketing interns and TikTok sensations who, driven by activist money, are trying to dictate production methods when they're not used to it. I don’t know if it will go up first.”
He reminded me again that he was “too tough” sitting in his mailbox pickup crying as he read this, and that's where his wife found him. He carries it with him to remind him of the day his wife found him crying instead of finding his body in the pickup truck. He handed her her article rather than try to explain it to her. It's been in his wallet ever since.
A bill, SB24-055 Agriculture and Rural Behavioral Health, from state Sens. Perry Will and Janice Marchman, and state Reps. Megan Lukens and Anthony Hartsack, passed out of committee last week. This is a good bill and creates a state-level leadership position between the BHA and the Colorado Department of Agriculture within the Department of Behavioral Health. This allows us to award grants to existing programs that are implemented and functioning, such as the Coffee Break Project or his COMET training. For rural Colorado, there is no need to reinvent the wheel or ignore the work already being done in rural Colorado.
The bill, which passed 8-1 in committee, was supported by the Colorado Department of Agriculture, the Coffee Break Project (part of Valleywide Health System), the Colorado Farm Bureau, the Colorado Cattlemen's Association, the Rocky Mountain Farm Bureau, and private sponsors. I received it. From rural and rural mental health providers in Colorado.
Alternatively, the next bill to be considered in committee, SB24-057 Agricultural Workforce and Suicide Prevention, was filed by state Sen. Tom Sullivan, the ranking lawmaker. None of the major agricultural organizations were contacted prior to the bill's introduction, and the Colorado Department of Agriculture did not provide testimony.
The bill would create a new program within the CDA and contract with organizations to provide crisis assistance, even though the program is severely underfunded and understaffed. It has been introduced. While I appreciate Sen. Sullivan moving the conversation forward on rural mental health, any bill that benefits agriculture without the input of those affected is counterproductive. This bill is scheduled to proceed to appropriations, but should be allowed to stall in favor of SB24-055.
After all, those tough guys don't need a public awareness campaign started by some clean-shoes stranger to rural Colorado. He needs people who understand that He is more than just a heifer.
rachel gavel I write about agriculture and rural issues. She is the associate editor of Fence Post Magazine, the region's premier agricultural publication. gavel She is a daughter of the state's oil and gas industry, part of a family that raises 12,000 cattle across the state, and an author of children's books that teach students about agriculture in hundreds of classrooms. .
