New exhibit by photo-journalist Jeff Scheid features Fallini family, Nevada ranching traditions

The story of one of the most rugged and resilient Nevada families, as told by one of the state’s most enduring photo-journalists, comes to the Nevada State Museum, Carson City, Thursday, Aug. 13, as photographer Jeff Scheid premieres a one-year exhibit, “Ranching in the High Desert: Five Generations, One Family.”

The exhibit text and labels that explain Scheid’s photos are written by journalist Jennifer Robison. The exhibit debuts in the museum’s South Changing Gallery with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. that is free and open to the public.

The exhibit shows the day-to-day operations of a ranching family, including teaching the skills of roundup and branding to the family’s younger generation. It explores the role of ranching in Nevada history, cowboys, rodeo traditions and rural Nevada.

“Ranching was an economic mainstay in the region before statehood and before flashier industries such as mining and gaming began to define Nevada’s business climate,” Robison said. “Few families embody that ability to adapt more than Nye County’s Fallini clan. The Fallinis have ranched central Nevada’s arid desert for 150 years – for as long as there’s been a Nevada.”

“Ensuring survival of the family’s Twin Springs Ranch has required careful stewardship of the countryside, healthy respect for a fickle Mother Nature and, increasingly, political and policy skill to maneuver ever-changing federal regulations on land use in rural Nevada,” Robison said.

For more than three decades, Scheid has been photographing Las Vegas. He said he chased down the infamous Hole in the Wall Gang and Chicago mobster Tony “The Ant” Spilotro walking defiantly with his defense attorney Oscar Goodman. He photographed the UNLV Running Rebels basketball team on the road to the national championship. He captured some of the most famous celebrities on the Las Vegas Strip. In a way no one else could, Scheid has been there to tell the story of Las Vegas.

Scheid was born and raised in eastern Montana where the badlands meet the prairie. Inspired by his mother’s work as a journalist, he took his first newspaper job in Glendive, Mont.

“I’m a visual anthropologist photographing Nevada and Las Vegas,” Scheid says.

The museum is open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday, at 600 North Carson St., Carson City. Admission is $8 for adults; free for museum members and ages 17 and younger.

Contact Deborah Stevenson at dstevenson@nevadaculture.org or (775) 687-4810, at ext. 237.