Dear Parents,

More than sixty years ago, America’s schoolchildren became part of the movement that helped protect our wild mustangs.

Today, we have an opportunity to introduce a new generation to that history—and invite them to carry it forward.

We’re asking parents to take this idea to their child’s teacher, principal, PTA/PTO, or school and help create a Wild Mustang Student Project and Contest.

Part One: Learn the History — and Pay It Forward

In the 1950s, Velma Bronn Johnston—better known as “Wild Horse Annie”—began a national campaign to stop the brutal treatment and removal of wild horses.

Schoolchildren joined her.

They learned about the horses, wrote letters to Congress, and helped bring national attention to their protection. Their voices contributed to the passage of the 1959 Wild Horse Annie Act and helped build the movement that ultimately resulted in the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971.

That history offers children a remarkable civics lesson:

Young people have a voice. They can learn about an issue, participate in democracy, and help shape what happens next.

Today, wild mustangs face a new generation of challenges:

• Roundups and removals that take thousands of horses from public lands.

• Fertility control and sterilization that raise questions about genetic diversity, natural breeding, and maintaining truly wild, sustainable herds.

• Competing uses of public lands, including livestock grazing, wildlife, recreation, water, and forage.

• Habitat fragmentation and checkerboard land ownership that make maintaining connected wild habitat more difficult.

• Questions about natural population dynamics, including predators, foal mortality, drought, and other environmental pressures.

There are also solutions waiting to be explored—from habitat connectivity and conservation agreements to land exchanges and better ways of managing horses on the land.

Part Two: Let This Generation Add Its Voice

We’re inviting schools to create a Wild Mustang Student Contest combining education, creativity, and civic participation.

Students can explore the mustangs through:

Writing — Essays, stories, poetry, or research exploring wild horses, public lands, history, or possible solutions.

Art — Drawings, paintings, sculpture, photography, or other creative interpretations of what wildness and America’s mustangs mean to them.

Letters to Congress — After learning about the history and current issues, each student can write a thoughtful letter to an elected representative expressing what they learned, what matters to them, and what they hope adults will do.

Each classroom can collect its students’ letters and send them together.

Schools can recognize outstanding writing and artwork, with the possibility of selected entries moving forward into a statewide Wild Mustang student contest.

From One Generation to the Next

The children who wrote letters decades ago grew up knowing that their voices mattered.

Now another generation can learn that same lesson.

This is an opportunity to teach American history, civics, ecology, critical thinking, writing, art, and conservation through the story of an animal that has represented American freedom for generations

Our children inherited the legacy those earlier students helped protect. Now we can give them the opportunity to pay it forward.

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