Texas Highways Magazine September 2021

Horsin’ Around Once, when Maddie Ferguson was riding her horse at a rodeo in Bowie, she overheard a young girl exclaim to her mom, “Oh my gosh, she’s a real cowgirl!” The 18-year-old Nocona High School graduate, pictured on the cover and above with her horse, Boonie, doesn’t mind the moniker. “Rancher” and “horse trainer” also capture facets of her lifestyle, but if you ask her what she does, she'll say “I run barrels.” Ferguson’s day-to-day routine on her family’s 600-acre ranch in Spanish Fort isn’t all that different from that of her ancestors, who worked the same land the family purchased in 1872. Most days, she wakes up around 5 a.m. to feed her horses and complete chores around the ranch. Then she might go into town and help clean rooms…

When doing research for “The Original Cowboys” (Page 58), writer Katie Gutierrez realized she had never learned the histories of real-life vaqueros, despite having grown up in South Texas where they were historically abundant. “Looking at vaqueros as this really unrepresented, unknown entity that had so much to do with Texas ranching history made me really passionate,” the San Antonio-based writer says. “They had been left out of the cowboy mythology, and I wanted to see why that was.” Speaking with vaqueros made Gutierrez realize that while their lives were nowhere near easy, they wouldn’t want it any other way. “Too modern of an eye can make you almost victimize them in your head,” she says, “but that’s the total opposite of what they experienced and what they would want.…

Andy Hedges The songster, reciter, storyteller, and collector of cowboy songs and poems wrote about the cowboy poetry tradition for “From Hide and Horn” (Page 82). Hedges grew up in the small Panhandle community of Tokio where he fell in love with cowboy music listening to his father’s cassettes. “I’ve been reciting cowboy poetry for 25 years, so I feel like I’ve been preparing for this my whole life,” says the Lubbock-based writer, whose repertoire includes classic cowboy poetry, obscure cowboy songs, Dust Bowl ballads, and blues. Hedges hosts the podcast Cowboy Crossroads, which features interviews with musicians and poets. Andrea Luttrell The North Texas-based author writes about the time she signed her son up for mutton busting at the Fort Worth Rodeo in “Hold on for Your Life” (Page 16). Luttrell now…

TH: The above is excerpted from a poem Haines wrote to George Getschow, thanking him for his August story on the town. Down by the River Great article on Leakey [“My Hometown,” August]. For quite a few years, I would visit a dear friend who pastors a church there. Staying at my friend’s house, he insisted on introducing me to Mama Chole’s. Now my visits are not complete without at least a few meals at the best restaurant in town. Phillip E. Schwab, Fort Worth Spring in Your Step What happy memories your article on Aquarena Springs brought back [“When Aquamaids Reigned,” August]. We enjoyed the submarine theater, the glass-bottom boats, and staying in the hotel. Yes, I even remember the swimming pig. Now, all the aunts, uncles, and several cousins are no longer with…

While taking photographs this summer for “Fight or Flight” (Page 46), Dave Shafer visited the Jim Bowie Days Rodeo and Celebration in Bowie, between Wichita Falls and Fort Worth. Shafer was taking portraits of rodeo contestants when the sun descended behind the clouds, and he turned his attention to the arena. “The sun and clouds were my heroes at this moment,” Shafer says. “The crowd was full and excited. I just needed some compelling action.” Fortunately, the ranch bronc riders rose to the occasion. Shafer captured this cowboy as he was closing in on the 8-second buzzer, which marks the minimum time a rider must stay on the bronc to get a score. The rodeo is held annually at the Bowie Rodeo Arena during the last full week of June.…

Jared Session is a man of the land—specifically, the Rolling Plains of the southeastern Texas Panhandle. Born and raised in Childress, Jared left only long enough to earn a degree in ranch and feedlot operations at nearby Clarendon College before returning to work on the Buckle L Ranch south of town. Now, he shares his love of the land and the rural lifestyle with his wife, Suzy Session, and their three children. Surrounded by some of the nation’s best cattle country, Childress took shape with the merging of two frontier towns and the arrival of the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway in 1887. As the Childress County seat, Childress became a center of trade and government, as well as a hub for agribusiness and ranching—a status it retains today.…