The Hero Within: Healing Troubled Boys at Colorado Boys Ranch

Cynthia Quicksall Landsberg moved about the country as a child until her father retired from the Air Force and settled in Colorado in 1971. She attended Regis College in Denver and earned a BS in nursing from the University of Colorado in 1977. As a registered nurse, Landsberg worked with premature infants at Children's Hospital in Denver and Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs. In 1979, she married former Colorado Boys Rancher, attorney David Quicksall, and worked as a freelance writer while raising their two daughters. In 1985, her husband was diagnosed with leukemia. They fought the disease for six and a half years. After her husband's death in 1991, Landsberg went back to school and earned a degree in English from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She was remarried in 1993 to attorney Bill Landsberg, who adopted Cynthia's daughters. They also have a son, now ten years old. Landsberg currently serves on the board of directors for the Colorado Boys Ranch Foundation as well as the Board of Directors of Colorado Association of Family and Children's Agencies. Along with volunteering as a Red Cross nurse during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, she has dedicated the last several years to writing the stories of these troubled boys.

Judith Pettibone has been writing for newspapers and magazines as a freelance writer and personal essayist for over 25 years in Colorado, Washington, and Oregon. As a Lamaze instructor, she wrote and coproduced a pregnancy exercise video, Pregnant and Fit, to critical acclaim and wrote informational columns on the prenatal period. She is now the director of a social service agency and community resource center. Pettibone and her husband of 32 years, Tom Graham, are the proud parents of two grown daughters. They reside in Monument, Colorado.