If it’s possible to say that someone can be born a cowboy, then Alan Day was born one. He and his sister Sandra Day O’Connor were part of the third generation to grow up on the 200,00-acre Lazy B cattle ranch that straddled the high deserts of southern Arizona and New Mexico. The ranching and cowboy lifestyle appealed to him so much that after graduating from the University of Arizona, he returned to manage the Lazy B for the next 40 years. During his career, he received numerous awards for his dedicated stewardship of the land. In the 1980’s, Alan purchased a cattle ranch in Nebraska, followed by a ranch in South Dakota called Mustang Meadow Ranch that became the first government sponsored sanctuary for unadoptable wild horses. He was the first rancher to develop and successfully use a herd modification-training program for cattle and wild mustangs. He relates his heartfelt adventures with the horses and government in his award-winning memoir The Horse Lover: A Cowboy’s Quest to Save the Wild Mustangs, co-authored with Lynn Wiese Sneyd. Booklist has called it an “instant classic.”
Alan’s first book was the New York Times best-selling memoir, Lazy B, which he co-authored with Justice O’Connor. In it, they tell the story of the Day family and of growing up on the harsh yet beautiful southwestern cattle ranch.
Now a retired rancher, Alan divides his time between Tucson and Pinetop, Arizona. Through genealogy tracing, his daughter recently discovered that the Day family is related to Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams.
