Daniel T. "Bud" Kelly Jr. doesn't think of himself as a tree-hugger, but the fact that the 88-year-old has embarked on the conservation of a wide variety of trees on his 160-acre ranch in Cow Creek, east of Pecos, would lead you to believe otherwise. Back in the 1960s, Kelly took an interest not only in preserving the trees but also in providing a refuge on his ranch for deer, elk, bears and other wildlife that would otherwise be prey to hunters and poachers.

Kelly spent years working on his timber-stand preserve, but it was on Memorial Day 2000 that his hobby became a real mission.

"That was when the Vivash Fire burned down just about every tree on my property," Kelly said. All that was left from the fire's devastation were 30 pines and one aspen, which Kelly has nurtured back to life.

"The great thing about aspens is that their roots are all connected, almost like tentacles," Kelly said. "These trees are able to clone their root structure, and the trees come back quickly. Ultimately, what I'm trying to do with this property is to keep it in its natural state like it was 300 years ago."

Kelly was born in Santa Fe in 1921 at the family's home at the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Paseo de Peralta, where Century Bank is now. His father, Daniel T. Kelly Sr., ran the Gross Kelly Co., a mercantile business founded in 1895 by Bud's two grandfathers, Jacob Gross and Harry Kelly. As legend has it, Jacob Gross, from St. Louis, and Harry Kelly, from Leavenworth, Kan., met while working in Kansas for Miguel Otero of the Otero Seller Co., which distributed products along Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. The two men became partners and bought Otero's business, opening their first location in Las Vegas, N.M. Within a few years, the partners had offices in Santa Fe Fe, Albuquerque and Gallup and other parts of the state. (Santa Fe's old Gross Kelly warehouse, where Barker Realty has its offices today, is in the Santa Fe Railyard.)

In addition to the mercantile stores, Gross Kelly operated ranches throughout New Mexico.

"Back then, people did a lot of bartering for goods with sheep and other livestock, so we had to have ranches to handle all of the animals," Kelly said. It was while working on the ranch in San Miguel County as young man that Bud Kelly became an able-bodied ranch hand, which was a stark contrast to his Ivy League school days.

His father, who had graduated from Harvard in 1908, felt that his son would get a better education back East, so at age 13 he was sent to Portsmith Priory in Rhode Island for five years. Kelly graduated from Harvard in 1943, receiving a degree in business. During World War II, he became a second lieutenant in the Army field artillery, serving in Europe. After the war, he received his MBA from Harvard and returned to New Mexico to work in the family business.

In 1951, Kelly was called back to military duty during the Korean War. In 1954, he came home and worked as president of Gross Kelly until it was sold to the Kimbell Co. in 1954. He then became a partner in the Howell Ernest Insurance Co.

During his professional transition, he met his future wife, Jeanne Wise, in 1953. As Kelly remembers, "Jeanne was visiting from New York, and my sister Caroline introduced us at a party. We were married four years later." Bud and Jeanne had four children; plus several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Jeanne died in 1993.

In 1965, the Howell Ernest Co. became the Kelly Agency, which Kelly operated until his retirement in 1985. During the past 20 years, Kelly has stayed involved with many organizations in town. He was a board member for First National Bank, St. John's College and Santa Fe Preparatory Schoo,l and was the president of the board of the School of American Research, now called the School for Advanced Research.

In addition to working out on the ranch, Kelly stays fit by playing squash twice a week and is a member of the Santa Fe Chile and Marching Society. Last month, it was Kelly's job to lead the weekly hike for the group near Rowe Mesa, where his early experience as a ranch hand proved useful. As he says, "Keeping the hikers together and making sure that they don't stray off the trail is a lot like being a sheepherder."

Ana Pacheco is the founder and publisher of La Herencia, a culture and history magazine (www.herencia.com, 505-474-2800). Her weekly tribute to our community elders appears every Tuesday.