The Life and TImes of Governor Tom Bolack

You Oh Who gives me a home where the buffalo roam, and the deer, and the antelope play. Where a seldom is heard, a

discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day. Where a seldom is heard, a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day. Where a seldom is heard, a discouraging word, and the skies are not cloudy all day. On May 18, 1918, Thomas Felix Bollack was born to Hazel's Sheets Bollack and our W. Bollack of Winfield, Kansas. The world would be forever changed.

Some men set out to be different, and some men are just different when they set out. The amazing Tom Bollack has led many lives, as a world -renowned conservationist and a big -game trophy hunter, as an oil man, a politician, a rancher, and a philanthropist. The name Bollack means beautiful lake. Tom Bollack's B -square ranch, a 12 ,500 -acre experimental ranch and wildlife refuge in farming through New Mexico, is a wildlife haven. This former governor of New

Mexico has created natural habitats and populated them with many forms of wildlife, demonstrating his theories and principles of full -multiple land use to the people of New Mexico, the United States, and the world. Tom has not only taken from nature, but has also learned how to give back to it. To our modern sensibilities, Tom Bollack is truly a unique, complex character. He's a conservationist, and yet he continues his lifelong love of hunting. Here in the four corners area of the United States, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado, unites in natural splendor. This is where the B -square ranch sprawls. Five miles by five miles of paradise has been recreated.

Former Secretary of the Interior, Roger CB Morton described Tom as a geologist without a degree, a politician who is not running for office, a hunter who spends most of his time protecting game, a farmer who profits from few of the crops he grows, and a philanthropist determined to keep the land productive. Tom Bollack is one of the most interesting men I've ever met. He's a big bear of a man, and he's very, very gentle, very kindly, and he's had one of the most interesting lives of anybody I've ever spoken to have been with. This man, as I'm sure other people have related to you wonder when an accident that would kill a normal man about, I think about 15 years ago, he rolled a truck out here and sustained massive facial injuries, paralyzed his facial nerve, underwent multiple surgeries, got an excellent recovery.

I don't know, I guess it was a bullheaded bull like blood in him, that kept him from dying because he was in terrible shape, they didn't think he would ever live. He had five skull fractures, and the left side of his face was just, I don't know, he was just crushed, and they had to put in steel plate in the skull area. Tom never did go out, I mean, lose consciousness, he was conscious when they got to him. It was a pretty sad thing, it certainly slowed me down. So you're going after the Great White Shark in Australia? That's the last place, and I'm going to stay till I get one. Of course I went to these other places in New York,

and the Baja, three times the Baja, and never even saw a White Shark. Well, I sort of ended up in this last of the man killers, I guess, by chance, because I collected polar bears, grizzly bears, black bears, tigers, and all that. I finally ended up having all the man ears, except the shark. Tom Bollack springs from the American Frontier spirit of rugged individualism, self -reliance, and hard work that brought his grandfather from Canada into Kansas. I was delivered in the ranch house, the same house, my dad was born in. My granddad built that on home, that in 1870. From the very beginning, Tom was just, he

was just an outdoor boy. He had to have a dog, always had to have a dog. Tom was always exploring everything. He wanted to know what made everything tick, and he wanted to know all about the whole farm and everything in it. Snakes, lizards, anything that way, he wanted to know about him. And he loved fish. He got that from his mother, mother loved to fish, and she would take us kids' fishing. As long as she was able, she'd come out to the farm and take us fishing. Always, she just loved it. And dad made us kids earn our spending money. If I helped dad, I got paid. If Tom helped him, he got paid, but Tom would rather hunt, trap, and his furs that he sold were always really in good condition. And I guess

that's one reason he ended up being a big game hunter. His love for hunting. And there was nothing too big for him to tackle, to hunt. He was never afraid of anything, man or beast, I don't think. And my father loved the land too. In 1936, I believe it was, Tom would have been a senior in high school. Our land was leased out for a test well. And it was back in the old cable tool days. And every minute he wasn't in school, he was down at the well. I mean, he knew everything that was going on. And I think that was his first interest in really getting involved in oil well. And he took a diesel engineering course, correspondence, because they were beginning to use the diesel engines and he wanted to know more about it. He really took that seriously. And then as soon as he was

out of high school, the man that had drilled the well on us, even though it was a dry hole, was interested in effing Tom that he put him to work out in the western part of the state of Kansas. And he came out as a drilling superintendent for a drilling company out of Kansas. Eventually, he would go out into the San Juan Basin where there were wells being drilled. He would convince the drillers to let him look at the soil samples and that type of thing. And then he would come up with his own different geological theories of what was going on down underneath the earth. As a result of all that studying, he started acquiring oil and gas leases. Everybody made fun of him because he leased land where they'd been wells drilled. And they said he was just crazy. See, Tom came out here with nothing. Some of the old timers, some of them thought you were a little crazy when they'd see you parked along the highway with a bonfire going in a cotton tail rabbit on the spit. Well, there's still

some people that have some questions in my intelligence. And maybe rightly so. He didn't have a house. He slept in his car and he slept in a tent a lot. He had tents out on those locations usually and he slept in the tent and he cooked in it. And he lived off the land for nearly three years. Tom Bollack is the quintessential western rugged individuals. He's the type of guy who his model is none other than Teddy Roosevelt. And he liked Teddy Roosevelt because Teddy Roosevelt is tough or was tough. And he lived in the west. He was a hunter. And he did all those wonderful things that people do when they're free. You feel as if you've got this huge sky and you've got this incredible expanse of land that is just staggering. It's overwhelming.

What were your goals? And all of a sudden you've got rules. Well, of course, I have some degree of conviction about wanting to be a success. And I think when a prime objective at that moment was I had an empty stomach. I think we have an appetite and certainly no funds was which to change that. Nonetheless, in 1946, Tom married Alice Schwartfager of Bushton, Kansas. And they returned to live in Farmington. And he bought him an old cable -tooled drill and rig and ran it himself and struck her. I was at the right place at the right time. The fact that I'm a doubter, I'm one who doesn't take no

where to answer. I sort of had to be showed a lot of these things. And that doubt probably had a lot to do with my success. Federal land and thousands of acres of it were open for the filing. And the filing came at 25 cents an acre, cash on the barrelhead. That would pay for the rental for a year. And then he'd put up another 25 cents an acre. I noticed some of your knuckles look like they've been broker -time too. Did you have a few all -fill fights? Yes, not all in the field either. But I had my share of his to come. He used to me that he had to be able to whip your crew or they wouldn't work like I did for him too. So there was some differences of opinions and

they were worked out pretty much in my favor always. Well, I think that I got the greatest enjoyment and the greatest satisfaction out of succeeding. In other words, improving that there was oil there rather than the dollars that had involved in the end. It was a challenge. It was something that I have to admit that even I wondered about many, many times. But yet my conviction would overrule and I would keep going and under considerable hardship. And I think that the very thrill and it has a lot to do with one's very religion and one's very soul. Tom basically is the kind of man that is a man's man. And he's a real honest -to -god westerner and there aren't very many left. And as soon as he appreciated the fact that he

had become a person of substance, he then said about putting his resources to work for the good of other people. He has made a career out of trying to help this state, trying to help it raise better products, grow better foods, and also whenever that was necessary he's taken steps to lead efforts to bring water in and to help, for instance, the Navajo Indians up on the Navajo project near his home. I do feel that many of the works in some public works such as the Water Projects of the West, I've been very much in the middle of, will bear fruit for many, many years to come. I think the Upper Colorado River

Project will provide water for hundreds of years and for millions of people. Tom, your fiery leadership of the Aqualantes in the 1950s led to the opening of Navajo Lake in 1962. It was the first in a system of interconnected storage dams along the Upper Colorado River. I know there's a series of water compacts that divide state's water rights here in the southwest. First time I met Tom was in 1951. I was 17 years old. First time I met Tom, Tom was a mayor of Farmington. You know the hours that he went a lot of this time of year. I know you did. Tom,

I'll tell you one thing I remember so well is the work that you did for the Navajo irrigation program. Because I remember you spent full time at Washington and thousands and thousands of your own dollars to see that that thing didn't get chewed up in the congressional machinery. And it got through and you deserve an awful lot of credit for what you did on that. Another thing I remember, Tom, is that you did a lot of things like that. You were always very generous. I worked with Tom on the development of the San Juan Chama diversion, diverting water from the Colorado River watershed to the Rio Grande. And that was Tom lobby for that for many years to get water over to Albuquerque. By now, his children Tommy and Terry had been born. And when he struck oil, he just continued his belief that you had to take care of the

land and he bought where the ranch house is now. Back in 1957, Tom bought a very small farm in Farmington on the Old Bloomfield Highway. There were a better ranchers to be had. And I could have bought them, I guess. But I chose this rather marginal line and so it wouldn't be able to say that if they had a better ranch, they'd do better. The real was to convince people that they could do everything that I've done. From that little farm, he was determined in every way possible to expand it, not just for his own pleasure, but to teach us here in the Southwest in general in New Mexico how to utilize our lands for cultivation and irrigation and that it was possible to grow anything you wanted to grow in

this arid country of the Southwest. Using innovative methods, Tom made four unusable channels along his section of the San Juan River into a controllable resource. Over 400 junk cars secured by cable kept and continued to keep the river banks in place. But it was the water that held everything together, allowed all forms of life to grow and to prosper. Water was also rooted from the Animus River onto the ranch. Now with the San Juan and Animus rivers more dependable allies, Tom could get back to carving out more of his vision for the ranch. Reging more lakes,

clearing land for new fields, cutting roads. Water was the essential element, controlling, diverting and storing water was needed to turn barren ground into arable land supporting plant, animal and human life. Without water there is no life, a basic fact we too often forget. The first crops emerged from the now fertile soil sprouting in rich abundance. This was only the beginning of what would follow. These early successes

led to reclaiming and planting more land for farming purposes. The experiment was working. Tom varied the growing factors of soil, water and fertilizer. And these practices quickly led to the growth of record -sized specimens. But crops were not the only life forms flourishing here. Multiple land use was vital to Tom's long range overall plan for the ranch. Birds, deer and other wildlife need to be protected and provided for. And as time went on he was able to purchase more and more of the land and even turn it into a reserve for a wild game that is indigenous to this part of the country to prove to

everyone else because he already knew himself that he could bring about within the minds of people, the reality of preserving the ecology, the environment, the land in general for good purposes. And to help other people who were in need of using the land wisely and prudently. Allways the pull of nature tugged at Tom's civilized coattails and now it was time to spread his wings again to see more of the world, to learn more about the cycles, patterns and rhythms of nature. So there is a lot to be learned from out of doors just to go out and be among the wilds and be alert. We'll certainly be thought -provoking. Hunters

remain a direct link in the food chain. They experience the predatory instinctive responses that civilization has taken away or displaced in most of us. Tom either killed for food or as a trophy hunter took males past their reproductive primes. Conservationists frown upon the wasting of any while of life or natural resources. Hunting embraces the love of the outdoors and the wilderness. While in Alaska buying oil and gas leases, Tom also hunted. Using small supercup planes on the ice packs off the bearing straits, Tom tracked down and bagged a world record polar bear towering 12 and a half feet tall. Ironically, the next time he tried firing that gun, it jammed. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the initial 60 acres of tillible farmland proved over 100 assorted usable non

-cipless crops could grow in harsh New Mexican soil. Inexpensive greenhouses were built and put into operation. Anyone anywhere could erect greenhouses like these. Germanation and cross -pollination practices were developing new and better plant strains. Flowers were grown to beautify the landscape. Many were given away a sold at cost. Making a profit was not the purpose of the farming efforts, developing and sharing new techniques that would allow more people to live a better life in New Mexico was always the goal. Tom Bolax, one man crusade to turn New Mexico green, was underway with a full head of steam. Nine out of ten workers employed on the ranch were from the Navajo

Nation. They were learning farming skills they could share with their people. Tom took cuttings from three Navajo willow trees he found growing near Shiprock on the Navajo Reservation. The trees had been brought there by Chinese missionaries in the 1800s. These willows grow from easily transplanted shoots, and since they have no seeds, need little care and grow rapidly with ample watering, they've proven well suited for not only New Mexican soil, but now thanks to Tom's efforts, flowers as far away as Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, in North Dakota, Florida, and even New York State. Along with the Navajo willows, the B -square began the forestation projects with poplar, spruce, cottonwood, and Russian olive trees. Reforestation is a vital part of the full multiple land use concept. Trees serve as cover for small animals and birds. The trees hold

the soil together, which minimizes the effects of erosion. Also, the intent of the project was to give away trees as part of a statewide beautification plan. During his lifetime, Tom Bola has planted and then given away over one million trees. Sort of a New Mexico -Johnny apple seed. The thousands and thousands of trees that he gave, for example, I think like 100 ,000 trees just to the city of Albuquerque, through the years, to beautify and to encourage people to take pride. In their land, in their homes and their businesses. And so, as we developed and knew we had a piece of land out that would make a great park or we later developed the name Urban Forest, we thought it was natural that it ought to be dedicated to Tom Bola because of anyone in New Mexico, he is the real leader in planting more

trees in our state. Now it's rather popular to reduce the ozone depletion, things like that. He's a great New Mexican, a great American. He's done a lot for our state. I've been particularly impressed that over the years he has had a commitment to provide Navajo willows to schools all over the state. And I can remember many years ago when I would be in Farmington on business, when I was in law practice going by the nursery that he had at his farm and buying Navajo willows and other plants from him at that time. But I think he's made a great contribution to the state and politics and government and business, and I'm glad to seem being recognized. Well, let me say this. The reason we have baseball in Albuquerque today goes back a lot of years to 1956.

The baseball team here was broke at that time. Tom came down from Farmington. I don't know if he even was about baseball, but he knew he wanted to promote New Mexico. So he wrote a check for, I think, an excessive $100 ,000 to pay all the back expenses to where baseball could again survive. Dodgers wanted to move their ball club closer, the AA ball club closer to Los Angeles. So they came to Albuquerque. They've been here ever since. Tom was appointed president of the ball club. I was appointed vice president. His only instruction to me was, if it's good for Albuquerque, it's good for New Mexico, give it a 100 % support. Don't even bother to ask me, just do it. Always an advocate of fair play, one of his greatest contributions to New Mexican politics was organizing and serving on the bipartisan fair election committee. He served as a representative from San Juan County in the state legislature. Tom was an up and coming force in the Republican Party when President Eisenhower appointed

him to the United States Assay Commission and he served on the United States Small Business Administration Advisory Board for 11 years. In 1960, he became the first Republican Lieutenant Governor elected in New Mexico in 32 years. And this is the reason that I've gone into public service as mayor, as legislator, as governor, because I can affect more people, affect the lives of more people, I think, in that way for the hours spent. And I could by trying to do it through a philanthropic sort of way. When Governor Mitchim resigned to fill a U .S. Senate seat, Thomas Felix Bolack was sworn in as the governor of New Mexico. He's a real powerhouse. He plays very low key, but he makes a significant contribution to the state and to our community because

of his interest in health and in welfare. And in rights of people, and I think that's just wonderful that he's been able to do this for all of the years that he's been doing it. He hasn't gone tired of it. Well, I remember I had you on the board of finance. We went through two terms and never had a tax increase and had a tax rebate one year. But you served on that board and you were good. You gave me a lot of ideas, Tom. Well, I'll tell you that you have said so several times. But I feel that putting the state finance into the bidding position was a real part. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember you came in and you said, why aren't we getting paid for the float? I said, float. And then it struck.

And boy, I could see that bold light up. They said, ah, ah. And let me see. I said, who, what are we doing on that fiscal agent? You said, light, put it out for bed. We did. The state wasn't paying any interest at the time, really. We put it out for bed, made $16 .5 million the first year. And Tom, it took you about five minutes to explain it to me. Tom, I was just reminiscing about our safari and what was then French Equatorial Africa. We were three months going from the Sahara Desert down into what is now Central Africa. Do you remember that one? Sure do. We were hunting and doing archeology. Shoot a lot of movies, a lot of sound tape. That's about as close as I could get to taking many, many of the

people with me that I would like to see go on these trips. Tom Bollack and I had been interested in hunting and also ecology. And we especially had an idea that certain animals in various parts of the world were becoming rare and extinct. We and a number of other conservationists had made numerous attempts to send money and in some cases equipment such as land rovers and even two helicopters, two various places in Africa to stop poaching, especially the killing of elephants for their ivory, which is going on a large scale. We found that most of our efforts of sending money and support generally was a failure. In other words, the game decimation continued at a very alarming rate. Always with proper permits and within bag limits, Tom enjoyed

the thrills of hunting. It's been said that one does not hunt in order to kill, one kills in order to account it. The true hunter wants to understand the animals he stalks. He witnesses animal behavior. He learns instincts. How particular animals might respond in specific situations. He can't afford to guess wrong. The price could be your life. The true sportsman looks forward to the spirit of the fair chase. Man and animal interacting in the wild on the animals terms and turf. Governor Bollack has been called the greatest hunter of all time, ancient, all modern. Like Teddy Roosevelt, when gathering specimens for the Smithsonian Institute of the American Museum of Natural History, Tom Bollack witnessed African nature and the animal kingdom in the wild. He faced man killers, huge and ferocious animals, experiences few others have shared.

Away from the constraints of civilization, the hunter is reliving the scenes from 100 ,000 years ago when our more primitive ancestors dressed in animal skins and huddled around fires eating meat from the kill. Hunting is in our blood. Many of them are on the endangered species list now. And he couldn't do it today if he had to do it over again. He just got in on the tail end of the big game hunting because many of those animals are now endangered and should be protected. This was because of population pressures. Also the fact that guns and bullets were getting easier and easier to get. There were various revolutions and military uprisings and various parts of Africa and Asia which were making a bad situation even worse. And so during the 1950s, we began to gradually formulate a plan

to perhaps get some of these animals and bring them not back to zoos but to places in North America where we could protect them and perhaps release them in the wild in ecological nature. There were many villages where they would survive and at the same time not interfere with animals that we already had in these areas. We got that going and you were governor just at the right time because we needed some political oomph and I was chairman of the game commission at the time. You remember and you saw that I had adequate authority and then we had to be head of the zoo at the same time because any rare and endangered animals have to be imported by an accredited zoo. And our Rio Grande Zoo wasn't accredited at that time so the first thing we had to do was get it accredited which you got done through your influence in Santa Fe and Washington.

So we got it all set up and what we thought we could do in three or four years actually took about 25. Tom is still going on as far as that's concerned. Tom helped move African animals onto wildlife reserves and into areas where their chances for long term survival would be greater. There are now over a dozen different exotic animals living in New Mexico ranging from bobbery sheep and greater kudu to Arabian and Gemsbok orics and Siberian and Iranian Ibex. It must be emphasized that during the times especially after World War II when the animals of the world and many animals in many parts of the world became endangered then it was the hunters who saved them. The reserves in Africa for example were set up by people who had hunted all of

their lives. And it must be emphasized that the hunters are the ones who are closest to the animals who gain a respect for them and who want to see them reserved and preserved and saved from extinction. Not to hunt them but to have these animals as a major part of our wildlife scene and so they should be. And I have had the opportunity to trap a number of live animals which I'm in the process from time to time shipping back to our zoo in New Mexico. I know that I've been with zoo now for almost 13 years and I know that you were involved with the zoo prior to that time. I've been with the zoo for almost 35 years. About 35 years. That's really great. We've really appreciated your support of the zoo over the years and you've certainly been a big part of making it what it is today.

Well, what do you think? Looks pretty good, huh? Good shape. Do you know how old she is? Do you know how old she is now? 25. Well, 26 and you brought her in when she was what about three? Two years. Well, last date. Hi. Well, hi. How are you? You're wearing a pretty well -considering. Do you remember me in heart or do you? Think maybe you're new. I believe she does remember me now. Well, you know, they claim elephants got a superb memory, so... I believe she does. She's probably a little bit of shot for that eye

with her horn. Yeah? Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Goodbye. Come on, get up. Yeah. That's what they do in a wild. You've seen them in a wild? Oh, one. Peekaboo. Peekaboo. This is what we think is the one you brought. One of them. You can see by the size. These are some females. That's the female that came at the same time. Remember you brought two? And then they'll bought some more females. I remember I first met Tom. More years ago than I cared to remember. And we did a television show together. Actually, he was my guide and mentor on the hunting expedition we did for the American Sportsman television show. And I met Tom at his home the first

night. And I came to this ranch, which was a beautiful ranch then, but there's a lot more beautiful now, a lot more developed. That's mighty pretty in. Well, it's certainly in keeping with this room that was sitting in. This is a beautiful trophy room, Tom. I love to hunt. This comes from early boyhood. And I would say that the only change it'd been that in the present set up, I'm able to go to Africa and India. And if secured trophies from you might say all over the world, I do hold a cup of world record. I have a great fondness for the memory of those. Just a few days that we were together. There's something about being out on a hunt with somebody that has kind of an intimacy and a wonderful feeling of camaraderie. And I cherish that. You were a wonderful teacher, Tom. A successful teacher creates, observes and draws upon life's unique experience as an

opportunity. Your latest safaris included not only returning to Africa, but also to extended expeditions to India. On one, you were called into killer man -eating tiger that was terrorizing a village, killing and eating cattle and people. Unlike most traditional Indian tiger hunters who use drives and elevated tree stands called machines, you were a down -to -earth hunter who liked to meet your adversaries face -to -face, night -to -eye. I know you continued your interest in food production and agricultural techniques in these less developed areas of the world. You were able to see firsthand the difficulties of population demands and food production limitations that have haunted human history.

I know that you told me that you had probably grown and profited by your exposure to so much poverty and suffering, particularly in Africa and India. I guess it really got your attention. Hundreds and thousands of people going to bed hungry, practically starving every night. At the rate it's going, a lot of these people are going to starve before it's all over because we are eliminating any surplus that ever existed and we're simply not keeping up with the replenishment. That's why I think that somebody who sets up a system where they can continue to live and we can continue to live and progress continues is, I mean that's what we're looking for, that's the secret.

And you've come pretty close to finding a good balance here. I see that he's one of the original conservationists. He's put an awful lot of effort into it. I've watched it grow as I grew and wanted to willfully take a part in it and I've got a commitment the same as he does to try to preserve our resources. Some of the conservation practices that we do here is basically geared to multiple land use as far as resource conservation and trying to preserve our resources. I've seen a lot of my father's initial practices and developed on them and seen that we really are caretakers of our resources and that we should strive to pretty well try to preserve these, draw life from them and preserve them for future generations. We've got quite a few different projects as far as agricultural land reclamation. We've got the wildlife habitat improvement. We've got waterfowl improvement for habitat plus the cattle and other vegetable

gardening operations also. There's some new land being cleared there for it was originally an old swamp area. We're trying to clearing that now so that we can grow some corn to feed the wildlife here. We feed about 200 to 300 tons of corn here to keep the 60 ,000 plus birds and other migratory waterfowl here through the winter. Primary crops as far as acreage wise is alfalfa and pasture grass for the cattle. The other vegetable crops in compass a small amount of acreage under 20 acres. But you can grow a tremendous amount of produce on an acre of land when you've really fertilized it and take care of it. I'm always hopeful that some of these things that we're cooling well so we say we'll play off. I think the biggest single thing that the ranch is contributed is the fact that most people, and elderly, water too much. They've ground the plants in water.

They fertilize those down beyond the reach of the plant roots for us lost forever. And even goes back maybe as a pollutant, doesn't it? All the time it was just a pollutant. It gets in the water stream, right? And they've watered too much. If we water more often, about half is much. For three weeks during the run of the New Mexico State Fair, Tom greets people and shares information about farming and gardening methods. He makes new friends and old friends drop by knowing right where to find him. I'd sure appreciate your help and it's gone long well. We've been working on economic development, which you taught me a lot of. And you've done a great job in San Juan County. I've been working with the environmentalists too, and we always express, don't build down where the beautiful farmland is. That's something else you taught us, wouldn't it? It was. Tom's story is about

how we can provide for ourselves as our pioneer forefathers did before us. How our relationship with nature needs consistent care and cultivation and that it's everyone's responsibility to take care of Mother Earth. The New Mexico State Fair has provided a platform to deliver his messages and share his successful methods. It started out as a small competitive display, but when Tom began dominating the competition, he withdrew and started matching first place premiums with cash prizes to further encourage others, especially children, to plant small gardens and to practice multiple land use and resource conservation. If we could just get the kids all educated back to the good old beginning and the earth and everything that's involved, what it would mean to the entire world. It was

a long, long way to solve other than known problems of the day. Tom Bollack has had the kids out to camp and we're talking 100 children out the camp at the B -Square Ranch that has nothing to do even with all of the cub scouts that are out here on a regular basis in year after year. Beautiful, the children get an opportunity to up close look at the wild geese, the guineas, fox, coyote, and to be so close to them and not be kept away from them in relationships when we have the zoos in the cities where there's a mode between the children and the animals. Open freely to the public, Tom's Wildlife Museum is one of the world's largest private collections with over 400 animals from nearly 200 species. And so many people ask me, well, what do you get out of all this now? You've got these animals, these stuffed with them heads and they're all wild, what?

Well, if I had to say why, I guess, the one thing I would try to describe, I would try to convey the look on the face of these youngsters when they see an island run elephant or a rhino or a tiger, it is probably the only chance they would ever have to see it or will ever have to see it. They could see the look on that kid's face they would have the answer to why. I would guess that every school in our entire county comes out to the ranch at least once a year and Tom makes available to them then the museum which in the museum are things that are just awesome. I've never seen a natural history museum that has as many specimens. But they will never see most of these animals in their lifetime ever if they didn't see it here. And I'm sorry that they couldn't have all

seen them in the wild as I did throughout the world. And a lot of animals today have been dangerous that I have collected. They will see it that way and run to appreciate what it's all about, I hope. They think it's just one facet of a thing to see what the animal looks like. This crocodile had the beads of seven women and some are part of an eaten digested crocodile. They don't digest everything. This is a very large tiger here in record class. It probably was the biggest tiger taken in all of India in that year. They made a big fuss out of it but it was nice. They appreciated it. I think that there's something in all of us that wants to leave a

legacy. And Tom's kindness is pretty hard to beat. I don't know what I'm going to leave undone that I might have done had I not had that accident. I'm sure there's something that would have been accomplished. But that's bygone now. I don't think he's afraid of anything in the world. Whatever he sets out to do, he normally accomplishes it. Whatever the quest may be. We were offshore drifting, anchored up, chumming for five days and nights before we finally moved to the right spot to have a chance at catching this great white. Tom, he spent a lot of time just

watching us do the fishing but when that big old fish got on, he was ready for him. And that's all it took. Then the fight was on. These great whites are... They'll keep going for a long time. Right and fair now, Tom. And two and a half hours later we brought him alongside and then you could really see how enormous he was. And we had to hoist him out of the water with a hundred ton crane and when we pulled him out of the water, his jaws were still snapping. And the winch is up as much as it'll go. Oh, really? Touch that. This way? Yeah, that'll be all right. Yeah, that's fine. Yep. Okay, we're looking here now. Are you all ready for it? Ready. The fact is that I was determined that I was going to do it and I kept on until I did.

And former governor Tom Bollack got a delivery from his taxidermis today. It was the 13 -foot great white shark, the 71 -year -old caught in February off the Australian coast. The shark will be added to his museum at the B -square ranch. The world -renowned trophy hunter has captured every man eating animal in the world, 30 in all. It took three hours for the wheelchair -bound oil tycoon to reel in the 1 ,400 -pound shark. Next month, it's back to Australia for Safari. He has the particular quality of a man who's close to nature and is sort of at one with nature. I admire the fact that he not only takes what he gives. Sometimes I think that's one of the problems that our civilization has today, that we've drifted away from a close relationship and understanding and interaction with nature as a society, especially the developed countries of the world have drifted away from that. We live

in big cities and we don't know where the water comes from. We don't know where the food comes from. Somebody turned off the gas hoses, we'd be just about finished. But I think Tom would get along anywhere in the world for any time. He's very self -sufficient and he understands nature. Here's the past I'll be high. Know when I go but I'll find just where the trail will wind. Rifting along with the tumble and tumbleweeps. I know when night has gone, that I

knew we'll fall not done. So I'll keep rolling along, deep in my heart as a song. Here on the range I belong, drifting along with the tumble and tumbleweeps. Oh, carry me back to the long hurry, where the colors count. And the windows free, and when I die, you can bury

me. With the resting sky on the long way me. I'm alone and gathered, far away from home. Far from the valley where you're still alone. If you have enjoyed this program, determination, the life and times of Governor Tom Bollack, you can receive a video cassette by calling 1 -800 -328 -5663 for 1995, which includes shipping and handling. Thanks for watching.