Oklahoma veteran restores 400-acre ranch as native grasses and streams return

Heishman started working with Duel Brown, the Pawnee County conservationist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, who helped find practical ways to improve the property. Retired Marine Corps veteran Brian Heishman has been slowly turning a 400-acre ranch near Pawnee, Oklahoma, into a cedar forest for five years. An overgrown property, choked by Eastern Red Cedars, is showing signs of ecological recovery, with native grasses returning, ponds filling up faster and streams reappearing. For Heishman and his wife, Melinda, the work has become more than just a land management project. After more than two decades of military and government service, it has given Heishman a new calling. According to a USDA report, Heishman served five years in the infantry, 16 years in Explosive Ordnance Disposal and a decade as a U.S. government contractor in Iraq. After retiring from his career of service, he searched for a meaningful way to remain active and then the chance to manage the family property was the opportunity. When Heishman and Melinda bought the land, it had three ponds and large areas thickly covered with Eastern Red Cedars. At first he wondered if he could manage the vast clear...