Circling back; rancher raised in Johnson Canyon returns to reestablish ranch and rejoin healthcare community

According to Tammy Orr, née Quient, she and her sisters “came up in Johnson Canyon, back in the 60’s … our dad bought ranch land from the Buntings, and that’s how we spent our childhood.”

Left to right, photos by Tammy Orr:

• Debbie Orr is bringing her expertise - ranching and medical - back to Kane County. Photos via Tammy Orr.

• Debbie might branch out from her Red Brahman!

While each of the Quient sisters went their own sepa­rate ways into their adulthood, their gold­en years have given them reason to return - especially Tammy’s older sister Deborah, “Debbie.”

Debbie made her liv­ing as a medical PA, but she always kept the ranching spirit - including running a successful ranch in Texas during some of her practicing medi­cal years. Now in her 60s, Debbie has found reason and means to return to Kane County and obtain some old Johnson Canyon prop­erty of her own.

Debbie has titled the property “Circle Back Ranch,” after not only her own return to Kane County Ranch­ing as a whole, but also her return to work in Kanab’s medical scene. Said Tammy, “That’s the first medical job she had when she was going into medi­cal school: working at that nursing home at the hospital in Kanab. That’s where she first felt the love of the area, and of the medical practice back in the day, and she’s coming back to feel that love again.”

Debbie has plenty of ranching background and resources, though Tammy says there might be some adjust­ment necessary going from Texas to Utah: “I don’t know if the Red Brahman she’d been raising in Texas would do so well in Johnson Canyon like they do down there … but she’s committed, she’s got the ranch, the garden, the cattle, the chicken.”

To Debbie and the rest of the Quients, the Circle Back Ranch represents a life lived well enough to return to one’s home and give back to the community that raised them, as well as to the memory and legacy of their family.