Cindy Sheehan will sell her war protest site near President Bush’s ranch to a California radio talk show host, who will preserve it as a peace memorial and keep it open to protesters.
Sheehan, who announced on Memorial Day that she was stepping down as the face of the anti-war movement, will sell the 5-acre site in Crawford for $87,000 to Bree Walker, Sheehan spokeswoman Tiffany Burns said.
“I’m going to have native prairie grasses planted on the plot and create some kind of peace memorial that can include the names of fallen soldiers and injured soldiers,” said Walker, who describes herself as “progressive.”
Walker, a former TV news anchorwoman who hosts a weekend talk show on KTLK-AM in Los Angeles, planned to formally turn over a check for the property to Sheehan during her Saturday broadcast.
“Cindy is happy the land is going to be used for something positive,” Burns said. “But Cindy does not plan to have a continued presence there.”
Sheehan initially planned to sell the land on eBay with an $80,000 starting bid but scrapped the idea after getting an offer from Walker, Burns said. Since she bought the property last year for $52,500, Sheehan’s group put in gravel roads, cleared brush, planted gardens and made other improvements that boosted the land’s value, Burns said.
Rejected bid from pro-Bush group
Sheehan had said she would not willingly sell to Move America Forward, an organization that supports the U.S. intervention in Iraq, which wanted to buy the land to erect a monument. The land in Crawford, about 100 miles south of Fort Worth, is about 7 miles from Bush’s ranch.
Sheehan gained national attention from her vigil in August 2005 when she camped in ditches near Bush’s ranch for 26 days, demanding to talk with him about her son’s death. Army Spc. Casey Sheehan was killed at age 24 in an ambush in Baghdad in 2004.
Her protest that summer drew more than 10,000 people to the small town that overwhelmingly supports the president. But it also drew counter-protests, including a large downtown rally after a cross-country tour called “You Don’t Speak for Me, Cindy!” sponsored by Move America Forward.
Sheehan plans to return to Crawford one last time in July to sell the property’s remaining items, including a generator, refrigerator, freezer, stove and camping equipment, Burns said.