GUEST COLUMN

By Randy Mankin, Editor of the "Eldorado Success" Floyd County Hesperian-Beacon - Floydada, Texas

Running a newspaper in Eldorado, Texas has been an experience these past three years. I had always loved the business, but I never planned for a national news story to blossom a mere four miles from my front door. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened in 2004. The story actually began in the Fall of 2003 when a man named David Steed Allred came to Eldorado and purchased a 1,691 acre ranch just outside of town. He told folks here that he was in the cement business and that he had a lot of customers in Las Vegas. He said he would be using the local property as a hunting retreat where he could entertain his clients. Wildlife is abundant in Schleicher County, so his story made sense and folks hereabout were pleased to have the small boost to the economy that a hunting retreat would bring. The fact that Allred said he was of the Mormon faith was of little consequence. Gary Grubbs, our head football coach at the time, and his entire family were Mormon. So are a couple of other families here. It was only later that we learned Allred was a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway sect that continues to practice polygamy. No one here had ever heard of Warren Jeffs, or the FLDS Church. In fact, I doubt if there were more than a handful of people here who knew that polygamy was still being practiced openly anywhere in the United States. The ensuing months have been a blur for us. First we learned Allred's true identity. Not only is he Warren Jeffs' cousin, we have learned that he is the fundamentalist prophet's father-in-law....and son-in-law. I'm going to pause here and let that one sink in. Yes, I said father-in-law and son-in-law. It seems they married one another's daughters - polygamous marriages for each. Since that time, the erstwhile hunting retreat has grown to be a stand alone town, complete with a public water system, a wastewater treatment plant that is under construction, a dairy, nearly two dozen large homes (ranging in size from 12,000 to 30,000 sq. ft. each) and a massive white limestone temple. There are numerous shop buildings and warehouses, plus a large storehouse which serves as the ranch's grocery, dry goods and hardware store. Since only a handful of local citizens have been allowed on the property (Sheriff, tax appraiser, etc.) no one can be sure how many people presently live on the YFZ Ranch. Careful examination of aerial photos convince me that there could be as many as 400 - maybe even more if you count the dozens of small children that are seen from time to time. Four hundred is a lot of people to add to a county whose population stood at 3,000 only three years ago. Judging by the size of the water system and the sewer plant at the YFZ Ranch, it's not difficult to image that in a few short years the ranch's population will surpass the number of locals. I've said all that to say this. I was in Lockney last Friday evening and listened intently as Samuel Fischer tried to allay fears about his involvement with the FLDS Church. Much of what he told the citizens gathered in the Community Center is absolutely true. But as we've belatedly learned in Eldorado, Warren Jeffs' closest followers (remember that Fischer said Jeffs is his spiritual leader) value the truth so dearly that they seldom use it. Here are a few of my observations. 1) Mr. Fischer tried valiantly to control his message. By having people write their questions down, he hoped to control the situation, answer the questions he liked and dismiss the ones he didn't. I couldn't help but be reminded of a politician trying to spin a message while casting aside one substantive question after another. Few people in the room were fooled. Alice Gilroy's column a week earlier in the Hesperian-Beacon had served as a clarion call. Apparently more than a few Lockney residents took Alice's information, then supplemented it with their own research. 2) Mr. Fischer desperately wanted to portray himself as a fine upstanding businessman imbued with high moral ethics and strong family values. His story about learning the cabinet trade from his father might have touched even my calloused heart had I not already known that he stood aside and did nothing when Warren Jeffs excommunicated his father from the FLDS Church then reassigned his mothers (yes, I said mothers) to other men. Likewise, when those men proved unworthy of Warren Jeffs' continued blessing, the women were reassigned again. I would have liked very much for Mr. Fischer to explain how this translates to family values. Similarly, I would have liked for him to explain why he did nothing as some of his sons were kicked out of the church, and the town in which they grew up. I would also like to ask him why even to this day he prevents them from seeing his own mother, their grandmother, who we are told is dying of cancer. 3) Mr. Fischer told us he is being forced out of Hildale, Utah because the state is taking over the United Effort Plan Trust. The fact of the matter is, the UEP was one of Warren Jeffs' cash cows. District Judge Denise P. Lindberg rightly ruled that Jeffs and his cronies were looting the charitable trust and removed them from their positions as trustees. She then appointed new trustees, including a few people Jeffs had excommunicated. Some of the new trustees are women, horror of horrors, so Jeffs has directed that his followers have nothing more to do with financial empire he once ruled over like a king. A Salt Lake City accountant named Bruce Wisan was appointed as Special Fiduciary to oversee the day-to-day operations of the UEP. Wisan has been busy in recent months transforming the UEP so that individual members may own the homes they built on UEP land. Samuel Fischer has been given this same opportunity. All he has to do is work out a payment schedule to buy the land his home and business occupy. It is Fischer who balked at the deal, not the State of Utah. 4) Mr. Fischer told us that the State of Utah is persecuting one of his friends by evicting him from a farm he owns near Beryl, Utah. The facts are these. Harker Farm near Beryl was given to the UEP by Parley Harker. The late Mr. Harker stood during a church meeting to announce that he had realized his dream of donating his farm to the trust. However, unknown to everyone except Warren Jeffs and one of Mr. Harker's sons, the land was moved into a company controlled by Jeffs. Profits from the farm were funneled into Jeffs' pockets and helped shield him while he was on the run from the law. Recently, a Utah judge ruled that the land belonged, not to Mr. Fischer's friend or Warren Jeffs, but to the UEP Trust and directed that the trust take immediate control of the farm. Efforts are currently under way to work out a deal by which Mr. Harker's heirs can regain control of the land. Mr. Fischer failed to tell us any of this. 5) Mr. Fischer kept emphasizing that he intends to hire local people at his Lockney plant. That may very well be the case. I hope it is. However, we have been told here in Eldorado that the YFZ Ranch truly was intended as a hunting retreat but that the group's intentions changed once they owned the land. Let me say this about the people I've gotten to know both in and recently removed from the FLDS Church. They seem like decent, hard working people. Their work ethic defies comparison. Their craftsmanship is unparalleled, as is their zeal for their religion. There is no need to fear that they will attempt to recruit your children or otherwise look for converts within your community. They consider anyone outside their faith to be Gentiles and tend to keep to themselves. Polygamy is the absolute cornerstone of their faith, albeit one that they have tried to keep hidden. I was stunned when Mr. Fischer openly admitted, after some prodding, that he considers himself married to his "two ladies." I did find his story about adopting 9 children and then adopting their mother a bit hard to swallow. The fact is his second wife Glenda, and her children, were reassigned to Mr. Fischer by Warren Jeffs. I have heard the argument that the freedom of religion that we Americans cherish extends to polygamy and that the Constitution prohibits us from legislating against it. I beg to differ. If the First Amendment protects polygamy, then it must also extend to other forms of worship that modern people find reprehensible. The Aztecs and Mayans practiced human sacrifice. I know of no one who would argue that killing virgins to appease a fertility god should be a protected form of worship. What many people don't understand is that religion is a belief system and beliefs are absolutely protected under the Constitution, just as the freedom of speech is protected. But, our rights end when they impact others. The freedom of speech doesn't give me the right to yell, "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Neither does freedom of religion mean that the state that licenses marriages cannot regulate them in order to protect the weak and defenseless, such as the underage girls Warren Jeffs married off to his older male cronies. Polygamists are free to "believe" as they wish, but believing and practicing are two very different things. If not, then we should brace ourselves for the next group that comes along wanting to sacrifice virgins or burn witches. (Randy Mankin the owner and publisher of The Eldorado Success newspaper in Eldorado, Texas. He and his wife Kathy purchased The Success in 1994. Since that time they have received numerous awards from the Texas Press Association and the West Texas Press Association. He currently serves on the board of directors of the TPA and as Chairman of the Board of the WTPA. The Mankins took on a second newspaper in 2005 when they purchased The Big Lake Wildcat in Big Lake, Texas. ----------- "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." THOMAS JEFFERSON

HesperianBeacon.com Originally published May 17, 2007

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