Leonard R. Sargent ’37

Len Sargent died Feb. 16, 1997, of a heart attack, leaving wife Sandy, children Kerri and Rick, and three granddaughters.

He prepared for Princeton at Gunnery. At Princeton he majored in geology, was on the 150-pound football team, and was a member of Cottage.

Len taught algebra and geometry at Taft and coached football, hockey, and baseball. He was commissioned an ensign in 1942 and saw action in the Mediterranean, including a diversionary invasion of Sicily as part of the Normandy strategy. He taught navigation at Columbia and the U. of Washington. He came out a lieutenant cmdr.

In 1962 he bought the Cinnabar Ranch in Montana near Yellowstone Park. He retired from teaching in 1969 and became a rancher. He helped found the Montana Environmental Information Center, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, and the Cinnabar Foundation. He and Sandy were instrumental in halting a dam on the Yellowstone River. They were also vocal proponents of the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness, often facing a hostile and jeering crowd. As Len put it, "Sandy and I spend more time fighting so our granddaughters when they grow up may be able to see wild habitat the way it is now and is supposed to be, with elk, deer, moose, sheep, coyotes and bear and all that goes to make up a true ecosystem."

He moved to Bozeman in 1994, leaving the ranch under a conservation easement.

The Class of 1937