We don’t always know the impact someone will have on our lives. That was the case with this man. “My name is Eugene Wyatt,” he said in a low, quiet voice. “I have a farm here in Goshen, and I raise the largest flock of Saxon Merino sheep in the United States.”
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Those words led to a friendship of careful respect and mutual admiration. A few years later, he offered me a bale of his precious fibers, which led to the Great White Bale project, whose notes continue to play in my life.
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Eugene came to sheep after running an art gallery in San Francisco and then running away to Paris. He married his sweetheart, a successful fashion designer, and they bought a farm outside of NY. He wanted cattle, she wanted wool, they settled on sheep.
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Over the next decades, through an amicable divorce and move across the river, he established a flock of Saxon Merino sheep with extraordinary fibers and temperaments. He tended this flock with care, commitment, and creativity. Like the time he played a trombone in the woods to ward off coyotes.
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The only thing he loved more than his flock was the written word. He was an avid reader and a devotee of Proust. He also loved music, fine art, and film. He was, in my eyes, the definitive renaissance man.
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Eugene left this earth on Tuesday, May 28th. Rest in peace, my friend.