Through the Chapters

My love for the United States of America was first instilled in me from a young age by my father, Donald C. Steiger. Dad was a great patriot who took a stand for God, country, and family. I remember him lecturing his children around the dinner table when I was a youngster. After turning down an opportunity to run for Congress from Wyoming to focus on his family and the JH Ranch, he later moved to Arkansas and was one of the early Republican pioneers in the 1970s to help establish the Republican Party.

One of Dad's close friends in Wyoming would become a hero and friend of mine as I got older. JW Nuckolls was a rancher who shared many things in common with my Dad, including raising Corriedale sheep. My first 4-H project was a ewe and lamb that I bought from JW in 1968 when I first started raising sheep. Later, he would always welcome my sons and me back to his ranch overlooking Devil's Tower where we hunted White Tail Deer.

In my latter years, I was blessed to get to know Michael Martin Murphey. Through my Dad's love of Western literature, my brothers and I donated a good part of Dad's western novels to the Murphey Western Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving Western culture and the values it represents.

Fritz Steiger