Stories unfold in rhyme and meter at Cowboy Poetry Gathering

There also were stories told about breaking a leg, breaking a horse, surviving blizzards and hail storms and even seeing a UFO while camped out under the stars and a grandson who roped a cub grizzly bear.

Most of the stories were based on actual experiences or semblances thereof, the 16 presenters said. A few of the tales brought tears, many of them sparked laughter and nearly all of them undoubtedly jogged memories for those in the audience.

This year’s event was combined with a Western art show that will remain open in Memorial Hall through Feb. 2 and a concert Friday night by the Prairie Rose Wranglers of Wichita, Kan.

The coordinator of the event, Loree MacNeill, director of cultural programs and college relations at Chadron State, said both the poets and those in attendance urged the college to “do it again.”

“Everybody said it was great weekend and wants us to continue it,” MacNeill said. “We’ll try to find a date for next year that fits the community, the college and the poets. We want the best poets we can attract.”

Among those impressed with the poets during the day on Saturday was Waddie Mitchell, the headliner who performed that night during the weekend’s capstone event.

“Waddie really liked the quality of the poets he heard,” MacNeill said. “Of course, he also was outstanding Saturday night.”

MacNeill noted that during the past year Chadron has now hosted the men who are generally recognized as the top three cowboy poets in the nation. They are Baxter Black, who was the featured poet at last year’s inaugural event at CSC; Red Steagall, who was in Chadron last July for Fur Trade Days; and Mitchell.

MacNeill added that several of the presenters during the day Saturday aren’t far behind “the big three.”

The Prairie Rose Wranglers were also a big hit as they gave a two-hour concert filled with old cowboy songs such as “Tumbling Tumble Weed,” “Shenandoah” and “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” They sprinkled the program with humor, such as, “They raised the drinking age in Tennessee (home of Jim Farrell, one of the Wranglers) to 34. That way they can keep it out of the schools.”

Several in the audience agreed that the Wranglers’ Stu Stuart has as rich and mellow a baritone voice as anyone who ever sang on the Memorial Hall stage.

“He was wonderful,” MacNeill exclaimed.

As might be anticipated, horses were the subject of several of the poems. Veteran rancher Willard Hollopeter of Long Pine recalled trying to break a four-year-old mare that “learned to buck faster than I learned to ride.” He also told of having to shoot a retired workhorse that had been wire cut and the loneliness that his mate experienced afterwards. After the second old-timer died, Hollopeter said he buried them side by side in the same arrangement as they had been hitched while pulling a wagon or hayrack.

Mitchell’s story of the agony he felt when he had to shoot a favorite saddle horse that was old and worn out caused several equine lovers to reach for their handkerchiefs Saturday night.

In a lighter vein, Mike Moutoux, a New Mexico cowboy, recited a poem about “Joker,” a horse on the ranch where he works that was so smart he could round up cattle while the cowboy rested in the shade. That worked fine, he said, until the boss found out. The boss figured he could get along with one less cowboy if the horse was so intelligent and well-trained.

Montoux added that he knows numerous couples who met and fell in love because of their fondness for horses. “May your love outlive your horses and your horses live forever,” he stated.

Slim McNaught of New Underwood, S.D., explained what he called “cowboy mentality. “It’s when you get bucked off three times in a row and you still think you can ride him if you get right back on.”

Tim Nolting of Berthoud, Colo., whose poems included the sadness felt by long-time residents of the Ute reservation when the government tried to round up and reduce the number of wild horses roaming there, said there’s a reason for cowboy poetry.

“When a story is put to rhyming verse, it is always told the same way,” he said. “We don’t have a chance to embellish it.”

Nolting added that the poets write mostly for themselves. “If people enjoy it, that’s a bonus,” he said.

One of Nolting’s poems called “Midnight Ride” had the audience spellbound as he recited the trials and tribulations of riding a wild bronc at a rodeo, only to learn at the end the cowboy had merely been dreaming and fallen out of bed.

Cowgirl poets also had a major place in this year’s program. Deb Carpenter, who lives on a ranch north of Rushville and teaches composition at Chadron State, opened Saturday’s schedule with a series of touching songs and stories in verse form. One of them called “Billy Boy” was inspired by a grave in a pioneer cemetery near her family’s ranch and relates a mother’s heart ache after her 3-year-old son died.

Another of Carpenter’s songs, “The Heart’s Compass,” advises, “Follow your heart, follow your soul. Eyes straight ahead, watch your journey unfold.”

Bonnie Krogman, a rancher’s wife at Wood, S.D., has turned several of her unfortunate experiences into poems. They include being rushed to the emergency room after an encounter with a mad cow that put a gash in her hip pocket and barely escaping the same fate when she helped her husband rescue a newborn calf that was born in a snow storm.

Krogman also told of her confrontation with a skunk while helping her husband clean out a shed after plans to celebrate their 30th anniversary that day had been put on hold. Another of her poems told of checking the heifer “one more time” before going shopping and winding up stripping to her waist to pull the calf.

Another cowgirl poet, Theresa Orr of Woodbine, Iowa, received a standing ovation after singing a song, “Four Stars,” that she wrote about her four sons in the military, including one who recently came home from Iraq and another who recently was sent there.