Cal Crabill
Dust Bowl Survivor, Retired School-Teacher
Cal Crabill, who survived the Dust Bowl growing up in Holly, Colorado, near the Kansas border, is featured in the Ken Burns film The Dust Bowl. A naval navigator in WWII, Crabill worked briefly for Walt Disney Studios and later attended UC Berkeley on the GI bill. He taught high school math for more than 30 years and co-authored three best-selling textbooks, one of which is still used today. After retiring, Crabill built homes — three for himself and dozens for Habitat for Humanity — and plays trumpet in a big band orchestra.
Presenter for the Following Session
- National Youth Summit on the Dust Bowl
In the 1930s drought and intensive farming in the Great Plains brought about dust storms, crop failure, and human misery in one of the worst ecological disasters in America’s history. The 2012 National Youth Summit will unpack this story and connect it with current issues of drought, agricultural sustainability, and national and global food security. The Summit will include segments from award-winning documentary filmmaker Ken Burns’s forthcoming film The Dust Bowl, and a discussion moderated by Huffington Post science correspondent Cara Santa Maria featuring: Ken Burns; Dust Bowl survivor Cal Crabill; USDA ecologist Debra Peters; 5th generation farmer Roy Bardole from Rippey, Iowa; and Glenn Roberts, farmer and founder of Anson Mills.
