I am a forest ranger's daughter. They say we should write what we know. I wanted to write something a little bit different and I realized no one ever writes about forest rangers. So I proposed a series of stories to my editor based on my father's life. My editor loved the idea. The first book is titled The Forest Ranger's Promise and became available from Harlequin Love Inspired May 2011.

In the course of fighting wildfire and working to manage our National Forest Lands, my father saved lives and became a real life hero.

I didn't go to work every day with Dad, but I sure was exposed to the life of a forest ranger. My mother served right beside my dad. It isn't easy being the wife of a forest ranger. There were no doctors, dentists, movie theaters or restaurants in most of the towns we lived in. My parents grew enormous gardens and Mom bottled everything they produced. She sewed all my school clothes and made every drill team, cheerleading uniform and prom dress I ever wore. She taught me how to clean house, bottle fruits and vegetables and sew.

I remember us kids riding with my parents to the camp grounds and picking up other people's garbage. As a result, I really dislike litter bugs. We always took along picnic lunches. I watched as my father and other Forest Service employees used a ham to trap a large brown bear in a cage. The bear had started coming down the mountain and into the camp grounds and terrorizing some of the campers. For the safety of the campers and the bear, the animal was removed to a higher elevation. I've watched big horn sheep clash during rutting season, their horns striking together sounding like thunder. I've teased my father by hiding his dinner plate when he was called away to the radio during summer fire season. My dad barely had a moment to sit down and gobble his meal before he was called out on another forest fire. I've watched him assemble his fire pack so it was ready at a moment's notice. I've witnessed his gentleness as he dodged flying hoofs and cut away barbed wire when a deer or elk got strung up trying to jump a fence.

Truly my father is a great American hero. A good, gentle man with a ferocity for fighting fire. Having been raised on a farm, he knows firsthand how important our National Forest Lands are to farmers and ranchers. He has worked his entire life to help manage these lands so they might be used and yet preserved for our future. Dad isn't a preservationist, but rather a conservationist. He believes in using our forest lands, but managing them properly so they are not destroyed.

I am lucky to have such good parents. They taught me love of God and country. They taught me to work and to serve others. I learned good, old fashioned values from my Mom and Dad. I'm so grateful to call myself their daughter. Every child deserves parents like mine.

Dad with Apple (the horse), doing what he loves
Ruby Mountains Ranger District, 1984