From Mark:

It sneaks up on you. I realized today that I have spent nearly forty years (almost two-thirds of my life) documenting middle America. I have a special interest in the Flint Hills region of eastern Kansas—4.5 million acres that represent one of the last significant stands of tallgrass prairie in North America. Just eighty miles or so at its widest, this narrow oval of land, bisecting Kansas and extending into Oklahoma, is all that remains of a diverse prairie ecosystem that once stretched from Canada to Texas, and from the Great Plains to the forests of the East. According to the Nature Conservancy, less than four percent of the world’s tallgrass prairie remains—and most of that is in Kansas.

Saved from the plow by a layer of “flinty” rock lying just beneath the surface, this last little bit of lush, protein-rich, bluestem prairie is one of the most economical places in the world to add weight to livestock. It is estimated that more than a million head of cattle are fattened here each summer. As has been the case since the earliest days of statehood, it is a ranching economy that underpins the Flint Hills, and it is the stockman who serves as the principal steward of the land.

My journey of discovery began innocently enough—with a borrowed film camera and a desire to learn something of my family’s history. How I tumbled from a long weekend in the Flint Hills into four decades of photography, publishing,  and advocacy is beyond me! But I wouldn’t trade it.

In 1996 I cofounded The Konza Press with an express mission of promoting the “people, places and rich history of Kansas” and I have coauthored a handful of books on Kansas and the Flint Hills. We have a sister company to the press, the Konza Art Company, that deals in corporate and institutional art. In 1997 I launched Emil Redmon’s Cow, a long-term effort to collect stories from the farm and ranch.

Links:
www.TheKonzaPress.com
www.FlintHillsAnthology.com
www.RedmonsCow.org