Sedalia
State Sen. Tom Wiens believes that at some point, everyone wants to be a cowboy.
Skyscrapers, traffic jams and fast-paced urban living may make people forget that. But Wiens, a Republican from Castle Rock, loves to jog that memory when urban folks attend the Western-themed charity events at his family’s 1,500-acre ranch in the West Plum Creek Valley, 10 miles southwest of Castle Rock.
The biggest event – the annual Buckaroo Ball, benefiting Children’s Hospital – has raised more than $1.5 million since the family began hosting it four years ago.
This past weekend, country music singer Clint Black was the celebrity headliner. Eight hundred people attended, raising an estimated $500,000.
The Wienses host three large charitable events a year, including the Buckaroo Ball; the Husky Ho Down, which raises money for the Douglas County High School football team; and the Boot Scooting Boogie, which benefits Larkspur Elementary. The ranch also is known for hosting Christian retreats.
Philanthropic experts say such elaborately themed events are a new cornerstone in the charitable world, with Western themes being big favorites for celebrities. They have become “parties with a purpose,” says Bob Hopkins, publisher of Philanthropy World Magazine, based in Dallas.
“Every event has a theme to it, and every event is a party,” says Hopkins. “It’s not just fundraising, it’s about marketing and promotion for the people who come and those who didn’t.”
The moments spent on the Wiens ranch, nestled at the foot of the Dakota Ridge Red Rocks, can make jaded city dwellers yearn for a simpler life.
“It’s a great thing to be able to share the heritage of Colorado with people,” says Wiens, 53.
“We’ve always felt that to whom much is given, much is expected,” he adds. “We want to encourage people to get together with their neighbors and do things bigger than themselves to help others.”
“We didn’t plan it; one need just always leads to another,” says Wiens’ wife, Diana, 51.
The ranch offers a taste of the Western experience. “It’s almost like going to church,” says Wiens, describing the joy he feels when his body is in sync with the horse moving beneath him, and the natural landscape.
Some children who visit tap into that sense of open spaces. “The children were able to run for as far as they could,” says Janie Perry, executive director of the Watch-Care Academy, a private nonprofit elementary school for Park Hill youth.
About 100 students learned about the care of horses, goats, cows and sheep.
“They reach out to people,” Perry says. “It’s a grand thing to see, because there is absolutely no way we can repay it. It’s from the heart.”
The Wiens ranch is still a working one, with the family managing 350 head of cattle and breeding competitive cutting horses at the ranch. They also run a mortgage company with a state-of-the-art Internet setup to keep them connected to the outside world. Wiens also maintains contacts with constituents for his legislative duties.
Twenty years ago, Wiens and his family lived an urban lifestyle, raising their four young children in Greenwood Village. But Wiens couldn’t resist the pull of his Western roots.
His grandfather farmed and ranched in eastern Colorado in the 1940s by Cheyenne Wells, and his father also worked in the industry.
“Our kids were growing up a little too urban,” says Wiens.
In 1990, the Wienses bought one cutting horse – an animal bred for its athletic ability to separate a cow from the herd so it can be branded, healed or have its babies weaned. It wasn’t long before the Wiens family became entranced with the animals as well as the
cutting-horse competitions that earn winners more than $40 million in prize money each year.
A year later, they bought the ranch they own now, which was homesteaded in 1854 by a family of shipbuilders named the Nicksons. A small white house built in 1876, an old red barn, a silo and a chicken coop suited the Wienses’ needs when their children were small.
Eventually the family built their dream house. Then they designed a 55,000-square-foot arena that houses an indoor riding area, 27 stalls and a tack room, a conference center and the business offices where the ranch and mortgage company are run.
Initially, it was difficult for Diana Wiens to settle into their new life. She was born and raised in Denver. While the sweeping mountain landscape were inviting, the rattlesnakes and bears weren’t.
“In the city, you worried about your kids being picked up off the street,” she says. “Up here, you have to worry about the bears.”
She grew accustomed to her environment, however. Some of the pressure she once felt to keep her children busy with scheduled events, dissipated.
The kids enjoyed simple pleasures of catching minnows and crawdads in the creek. It wasn’t long before they became cowboys and cowgirls themselves.
But will the ranch ever be a private haven for the Wienses?
“There are some times when I wish I could say, ‘No more!”‘ Diana Wiens concedes. “I want to do something for us. But then I think, that’s just not who we are. We think we should share it.”
Staff writer Sheba R. Wheeler can be reached at 303-820-1283 or swheeler@denverpost.com.
