Our History
Established in 2007
In 2007, Dorothy Branson had recently retired from her 25-year teaching career at Lo-Inyo Elementary and sought to give back to her community by supporting programs that positively impacted the youth of Inyo and Mono counties. As a lifelong educator, she naturally gravitated toward out of the classroom educational programs for students in Inyo County.
That same year, the Donald and Ruby Branson Foundation was established, with its original founding members—Bruce Branson, Dorothy Branson, Ben Branson, Matt Branson, Liz Branson, and Jim Johnson—choosing to name the foundation after their grandparents, who devoted their lives to strengthening the Lone Pine community.
Married in 1942, Donald & Ruby lived in Lone Pine and raised two sons.
Donald Branson
Donald Branson was born in Huntington Beach, California, in 1909. He spent most of his life in the Easter Sierra area of California.
Donald was very mechanical minded. He made a ski lift out of an old Model T Ford in the early 1940s, built a motel, managed the local water company, started the local television cable company in the late 1950s, and was a miner, mining gold, silver, and talc.
A self-taught and highly skilled worker, was one of the early pioneers of cable television in the Owens Valley. A seasoned miner, he spent much of his time at his mines and, in 1956, installed the first repeater at his mining site on the top Cerro Gordo peek, enabling Lone Pine residents to receive CBS broadcasts from Los Angeles.
Throughout his life, he enjoyed gardening, hunting, cooking, baking, and tinkering with machines.
Ruby Branson
Ruby Butler Branson was born in Imperial Valley, California in 1913. Her family moved back to Arkansas shortly after she was born and then returned to California in the late 1920s. She was raised in the Downey area of Los Angeles. She received her BA and teaching credential from UCLA in 1937.
After teaching for one year in Arizona, she moved to Lone Pine in 1938 and began teaching at the elementary school there.
She met Donald when he was installing the new plumbing at the school. They were married in Reno, Nevada, in April, 1942. Ruby enjoyed traveling with her sisters, hiking and camping with Donald, and sewing.
Ruby taught for 42 years in Lone Pine. After retirement, she worked in the television cable company office for over 20 years.