Rugged Stuff

Holiday Cards with Western Roots

By R. Keith Rugg, 11-21-08

	At Leanin’ Tree’s headquarters are Ed Trumble, Lynn Trumble, Tom Trumble, Jane Trumble, Nancy Fox and Tim Trumble.

The Ruggs have been a Leanin’ Tree kind of family for a long, long time.  And in addition to sending and receiving a truckload of Leanin’ Tree cards over the years, I have written in the past about the Leanin’ Tree Museum of Western Art.  (In fact, watch this space for an updated article on ol’ Edward Trumble’s art collection.)

So when Twila Green, Leanin’ Tree’s customer service manager, shot me an e-mail the other day about this season’s holiday cards, I thought I’d pass a little bit of the info on to y’all.

Christmas and Hanukkah overlap this year, so the U.S. Post Office recommendations for mailing (send by mid-December is what they are pushing) apply to cards for both holidays (and yes, Leanin’ Tree does have a Hanukkah card in the lineup!)

There’s two styles for this year’s offerings:  personalized photo cards and traditional Christmas cards.  Card orders ship from Leanin’ Tree to you in three business days, and an order of $10 or more also gets you a free note card assortment with it.

The background skinny on the Leanin’ Tree company makes for some good reading, too.  The greeting cards have been a rural American tradition since 1949, when co-founders of the company, Ed Trumble (chairman) and Bob Lorenz (designer of the first cards) started selling Christmas cards through the mail to farmers and ranchers.  They were strapped for cash, and started the business in Colorado by trading art for advertising.  Trumble managed the business side of things, while Lorenz, an aspiring young Western artist, did a painting for the cover of Western Livestock Magazine.  In return, their card company got a full-page ad to promote the Western Christmas cards… all four of them.

They must have done something right, because business boomed.  But as with every start-up, the two had their obstacles to overcome.  Trumble and Lorenz at first filled their orders from shoe boxes stored in a one-room apartment.  Plus, they had to deal with the problems caused when the local card printer misspelled the word ‘Christmas.’

Ed Trumble purchased full ownership in the company in 1965, following Bob Lorenz’s death due to cancer.  Ever since, Leanin’ Tree has been a family-owned and operated entity.  These days, Ed Trumble is active as the chairman of the board and senior director of the museum, while his four children manage the day-to-day business of the greeting card company, which has grown from its four original Christmas cards to offering a selection of more than 3,000 unique greeting cards covering the holidays and other themes and events.  From the headquarters in Boulder, Colo., Leanin’ Tree ships more than 20 million greeting cards a year. 

That’s it in a nutshell.  You can find all this info at the Leanin’ Tree Web site- www.LeaninTree.com- as well as a bunch more.  But what I’m going to close with is just a nod to the company’s environmental dedication.  In addition to using wind generated electricity to light the museum, and promoting an aggressive recycling program, Leanin’ Tree “supports a public service tree planting program that plants two trees for every one we use in our promotional materials.”

It reminds me of another Western family owned-and-operated business that started up in the late 1940s.  The tag line for that company, at one time, was “Where one tree is cut, another is planted.” Anybody know what outfit I’m talking about?  If you think you know the answer, send it on in to me.  And just to make things interesting, I’ll put up a prize for the first right answer.  Send your guesses to .  Lots of luck… not to be a pessimist, but I think my prize is pretty safe…

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