longtime elko gop activist gerber dead at 72 102714

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Longtime Elko GOP activist Gerber dead at 72

Followed by Grant's recent letter and a Klamath article
Here is letter to KBC News from Grant Gerber who was organizing convoys to aid Klamath Farmers

October 27, 2014 Washington Times

In this 2000 file photo, Grant Gerber holds a map of the Jarbidge, Nevada area during a panel in Elko, Nevada. Gerber, a longtime lawyer and conservative political activist, died Saturday Oct. 25, 2014, from injuries he suffered when he fell off a horse in Kansas while protesting a federal crackdown on livestock grazing. (AP/Photo, Elko Daily Free Press, Ross Andreson).

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ELKO, Nev. - Elko County Commissioner Grant Gerber, a longtime lawyer and conservative political activist, has died from injuries he suffered three weeks ago when he fell off a horse in Kansas while protesting a federal crackdown on livestock grazing. He was 72.

Described by his allies as a freedom fighter, Gerber was surrounded by family and listening to his favorite songs when he died late Saturday at a Salt Lake City hospital, his son, Travis Gerber said.

Grant Gerber grew up roping horses in Elko County before he entered the U.S. Army. He was awarded the bronze star for his service in Vietnam and rose to the rank of captain of a Special Forces mountain climbing and ski team, his son said.

�Grant Gerber was a true patriot,� Nevada Assemblyman John Ellison told the Elko Daily Free Press (http://tinyurl.com/oloz7p3)

�Elko County lost one hell of a freedom fighter, a torchbearer for freedom,� added county Commission Chairman Charlie Myers.

Over the past two decades, Gerber was at the forefront of the fight for private property and states� rights, beginning in the 1990s with a battle with the U.S. Forest Service over protection of the threatened bull trout and access to a national forest road near the Nevada-Idaho line.

Ex-Assemblyman John Carpenter helped him organize the �Shovel Brigade� that defied the Forest Service, using shovels and picks to reopen the road to Jarbidge by hand on July 4, 2000. He said that will be part of Gerber�s legacy.

�The road�s open and it�s going to stay open, no question about that,� Carpenter said Sunday.

In recent years, Gerber focused on ranchers� rights, opposing the listing of the sage grouse as a threatened species and promoting a �Smoked Bear� advertising campaign that argued federal cutbacks on grazing were fueling wildfire threats at the expense of deer and other wildlife on public lands.

Gerber was leading the �Grass March/Cowboy Express� horseback ride from California to Washington, D.C., when his horse stumbled on a prairie dog hole in Kansas and he was knocked unconscious, Travis Gerber said. He said his father was examined and released from a hospital in St. Louis, and completed the journey to the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 16.

He was on his way home last week when he complained of nagging headaches and checked into a hospital in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Doctors discovered internal bleeding, and he was transferred to a hospital in Salt Lake City where he had surgery on Thursday.

�He was an exceptional man,� he said, �but we know his spirit lives on.�

Information from: Elko Daily Free Press, http://www.elkodaily.com

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A secretary at Gerber Law Office, Madison, found the following email entitled "Dangerous Venture" Grant wrote and sent to himself on September 10, 2014, sixteen days before the Grass March Cowboy Express began:

Dear family and participants of the GRASS MARCH/COWBOY EXPRESS,

When I volunteered for the Army and went to Vietnam I did not expect the country to stop fighting if I was killed or hurt. And now I do not expect the GRASS MARCH/COWBOY EXPRESS to stop if I am killed or hurt. In both cases I believe the cause of freedom was and is worth the risk. This ride is dangerous and I accept that danger. I believe the risk is worth the danger and hope you also take that approach. Please carry on if I am killed or hurt. And then after the petitions are delivered you can then scrape up my old bones and deliver them back to Elko County. -Grant Gerber

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Jarbidge shovel goes to Bush

By JUSTIN POST, Staff Writer Herald and News 4/1/2002

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. -- A shovel still speckled with dust from South Canyon Road in Jarbidge is en route to President Bush.

The Jarbidge Shovel Brigade used the shovel and others to work on the road in July 2000.

Assemblyman John Carpenter, R-Elko, and Shovel Brigade attorney Grant Gerber presented two Cabinet members with the shovels Friday during a meeting in Klamath Falls, just before officials cranked open the flood gates sending water gushing toward approximately 1,000 farmers' fields.

The flood gates were closed last summer after federal biologists said continued draw-downs during a drought would harm endangered sucker fish in Upper Klamath Lake.

Environmentalists applauded the decision while farmers on the Oregon-California border faced bankruptcy.

Gerber, who is also the Klamath Bucket Brigade's attorney, believes a study conducted at the request of Interior Secretary Gail Norton proves a previous study on the fish was falsified.

He hopes the symbolic move in Klamath Falls will aide efforts to delist bull trout from being listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The fish live in the Jarbidge River that runs along South Canyon Road.

Neither Norton nor Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, who were given shovels, were aware of the controversial fight between Elko County and the U.S. Forest Service over the road.

Some Jarbidge residents and Elko County commissioners say the town could be destroyed by fire because emergency vehicles can't drive up the decrepit road. The administration, says Norton, is interested in snuffing out potential fire dangers.

Bob Vaught, the Humboldt Toiyabe National Forest supervisor, doesn't believe the area is a fire danger. Furthermore, he says a lengthy environmental impact statement is unavoidable because work to repair the road would be a federal action. That study will take more than a year to finish.

Elko County commissioners are slated to vote at an upcoming meeting whether to move forward with efforts to delist bull trout via congressional hearing.

Gerber expects the administration's recent stance on the listings to weigh heavily on the outcome.

The National Academy of Science released an interim report in February which says the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service had no scientific basis to block the farmers' water for fish last year.

Norton says the study was the crux behind Friday's action.

"The National Academy of Science was very helpful to us in making sure that we were operating under the best science and that was very helpful to us," she said to a group of 32 people at the Shilo Inn before driving to the flood gates. "I think that now allows us to move forward with a better plan."

President Bush, added Norton, "asked us to have the National Academy of Science study as our basis as we move forward" in the Klamath Basin as well as other endangered species listings.

"These are things I think will create a better base line so that as we deal with endangered species issues in the long-term future we sort them out," Norton says.

President Bush has appointed a cabinet level group to work out endangered species issues, which can be a "very complex situation that involves many government agencies," says Veneman.

Carpenter told the officials he was impressed with the administration's support of the farmers.

"I think it is great to see you here, I think in all my years of public service this is the first time I have seen two secretaries for such an important occasion," he said. "I think maybe now we are going to get some common sense back into environmental situations."

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., asked Carpenter whether he was in favor of Sen. Harry Reid's amendment to the farm bill. The Nevada Democrat's amendment would allow the government to buy land and use it for purposes other than agriculture, such as endangered species habitat, according to Doug Busselman, executive vice president of the Nevada Farm Bureau.

Carpenter said he was not in favor of the amendment.

Smith said he voted against the farm bill "because it has the potential to turn every farm community into a Klamath Falls."

The next step, he said, is to solidify efforts to amend the Endangered Species Act.

"I think that because of Klamath Falls it has some resonance like it never did before, we have a president that will push for it and a congress that will do our best to get it through," Smith said. "At the heart of this people have known that when one species gets 100 percent and the human species gets zero percent, that is fundamentally unfair, it is wrong, it is radical, it is out of balance and deserves to be changed. That is what we are doing."

Bill Ransom, president of the Bucket Brigade, asked the officials to take a bucket and shovel to President Bush.

"They are simple tools but they are the symbol of the toil and the struggle that it took to build this great nation," he said. "We applaud your efforts and pray that what happened here in Klamath Falls will never happen again, and that we can all live the American dream together."

Grant Gerber grew up roping horses in Elko County before he entered the U.S. Army. He was awarded the bronze star for his service in Vietnam and rose to the rank of captain of a Special Forces mountain climbing and ski team, his son said.

�Grant Gerber was a true patriot,� Nevada Assemblyman John Ellison told the Elko Daily Free Press (http://tinyurl.com/oloz7p3)

�Elko County lost one hell of a freedom fighter, a torchbearer for freedom,� added county Commission Chairman Charlie Myers.

Over the past two decades, Gerber was at the forefront of the fight for private property and states� rights, beginning in the 1990s with a battle with the U.S. Forest Service over protection of the threatened bull trout and access to a national forest road near the Nevada-Idaho line.

By - Associated Press - Monday, October 27, 2014

ELKO, Nev. (AP) - Elko County Commissioner Grant Gerber, a longtime lawyer and conservative political activist, has died from injuries he suffered three weeks ago when he fell off a horse in Kansas while protesting a federal crackdown on livestock grazing. He was 72.

Described by his allies as a freedom fighter, Gerber was surrounded by family and listening to his favorite songs when he died late Saturday at a Salt Lake City hospital, his son, Travis Gerber said.

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