Wild Bill Ward
My wife Susan and I live in Austin, Texas. We have four grown children and nine grandchildren, so we worry about the future. Specifically, we fret about the future of our air, water & food in Texas, America, and the rest of the world. Regenerative agriculture can improve the quality and quantity of our air, water & food. So, we're developing a Texas prototype, a model for an entertaining and enlightening regenerative agriculture training center, and a viral storytelling engine that can be franchised and replicated across America and around the world.
The Texas Regenerative Agriculture Center (TRAC) and the Grab the Bull by the Horns Makeover Competition Reality TV Show, together can become the blueprint for many US states and other countries to follow, as they entertain and enlighten their citizens about the benefits and co-benefits of regenerative agriculture across America, and around the world, by transitioning millions of farmers & ranchers away from industrial agriculture to regenerative agriculture and telling millions of viral stories about the journeys of these unlikely climate heroes.
I'm writing this remembrance on September 17, 2025, the day after Robert Redford's passing. In 1980, while living in El Paso, I met a lady named Kitty Bradley. Miss Kitty was a war correspondent and screenwriter during World War II. After the war she wrote a screenplay entitled China Doll, using her maiden name at the time which was Kitty Buhler. The China Doll film starring Victor Mature was released in 1958. Miss Kitty used her China Doll screenplay to mentor me through writing my first script entitled, Faulkner, about the Hollywood years of a pretty fair Mississippi writer.
Miss Kitty introduced me to her agent Sam Weisbord, who was then the President of the William Morris Agency. Paul Newman and Robert Redford were both interested in playing Faulkner. Newman opted out in about a month, but Redford hung in there for over year, and kept saying he, "loved the material." A great gal named Barbara Maltby ran Redford's Wildwood Enterprises at the time. On our conversations Barbara kept referring to Redford, Ordinary Bob. When I asked her about the nickname, Barbara said Redford had just won four Oscars for his directorial debut, Ordinary People. So, Barbara called him Ordinary Bob just so his head wouldn't get too big and explode from all the adulation. Ordinary People grossed 90 million on a 6.2 million budget.
When I met Kitty Bradley, she and her husband Five Star General Omar Bradley, had retired at Fort Bliss in El Paso, which is still the funniest name ever for an American Army base. The last time Barbara Maltby and I talked she said they were having a tough time raising the money for a fly fishing film. She apologized and explained, "We just don't know how long this will take, so you might want to talk to some other people. If your Faulkner story is still available when we come up for air, we'll resume conversations then." A River Runs Through It was released over a decade later in 1992. My wife Susan and I saw A River Runs Through It. I turned to Susan about halfway through the movie and said, "This is the movie Barbara Maltby told me about way back in 1980." My wife Susan said, "This newcomer Brad Pitt is a handsome young fellow, and he also has that it factor. He just might have a future in the movie business."
