Lester Hiram Fuller son of John Hyrum Fuller Part 3 of 3.

As the story continues for Lester Fuller, more sheep were present as can be surmised from the statement about Will Anderson who died from a heart attack in one of the corrals on the Valle Ranch in 1938 while working sheep. During 1938 and probably into 1939, many of the holdings of the Arizona Livestock Company were sold to cattlemen. This included range lands and ranches. By the spring of 1942, 12,000 ewes were at the new headquarters at Red Hill and Blank Tanks. (Red Hill is a ranch south of the Williams area). The sheep could still be seen on the range there in 1943-44.

WWII brought other challenges to ranchers. Trying to get herders who understand the nature of working with sheep were few and far between as sons who knew the ins and out of the sheep business were drafted.  Sometime in 1944, or maybe the end of 1943, Oscar Rudnick bought lambs from the outfit and then he both the whole sheep outfit. Rudnick also bought other holdings of the Arizona Livestock Company including the VVV Ranch. Lester, now working for Rudnick, said in the Arizona Pioneer Ranch Histories that he was given a checkbook, and no one bothered him until lambing season, October 1945. Over the next couple of years, cattle were purchased from many sources to stock the range, but sheep were still a part of the operation as Lester stated that during the summer of 1947, they had 20,000 cattle and 16,000 sheep. All sheep were finally sold in the spring of 1948 and shipped to Lancaster, California where Rudnick had Basque run the flock. From 1950 to 1966 Lester headed the Sheep Sanitary Commission enjoying traveling the state and seeing the sheep men he used to work with. While there were other interesting tidbits about Lester, they did not include sheep and thus, ends the story of another sheep man in Arizona.