High Plains Guide Festivals, Fairs, and Rodeos 2019
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HIGH PLAINS GUIDE FESTIVALS, FAIRS, AND RODEOS 2019 Contents Festivals, Fairs, and Rodeos Bent County Fair 4 Maine Street Bash 5 Sand & Sage Round-Up 6 Lincoln County Fair & Rodeo 7 Arkansas Valley Fair 8 Kiowa County Fair and Rodeo 9 Holly Gateway Fair and Rodeo 10 Articles The Cowboys of Kirkwell Cattle Company 12 Loving Lightning 27 The Ties that Bind 28 Lessons Learned 30 Cowboy Songs of Comfort 32 The Trails that Lead Us Home 34 The Fleagle Gang and the Bank Robbery that Changed Everything 38 Painting the Plains: Some Girls and a Mural 44 KIOWA COUNTY Subscribe to the weekly Kiowa County Independent Annual Subscription $35/$40, $30 Digital kiowacountyindependent.com/contact/subscribe Publisher Betsy Barnett Kiowa County Independent Editor Priscilla Waggoner 1316 Maine Street Layout and Design William Brandt PO Box 272 Advertising Cindy McLoud Eads, Colorado 81036 Cover Photo Sheri Mabe Kiowa County Independent © July 2019 kiowacountyindependent.com July 2019 • High Plains Guide • 1 FESTIVALS, FAIRS, AND RODEOS 2 • High Plains Guide • July 2019 kiowacountyindependent.com Events Bent County Fair & Rodeo Lincoln County Fair & Rodeo Las Animas, Colorado Hugo, Colorado July 19-26 August 3-10 https://bent.extension.colostate.edu/bent-county-fair/ https://lincoln.extension.colostate.edu/lincoln-county-fair/ https://www.facebook.com/BentCountyFair/ Arkansas Valley Fair (Otero County) Crowley County Days Rocky Ford, Colorado Ordway, Colorado August 14-18 July 19-28 https://www.arkvalleyfair.com/ https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/crowleycounty/crowley-county-days https://www.facebook.com/pages/Arkansas-Valley-Fair/117437221609357 https://www.facebook.com/CrowleyCountyDay/ 2019 Downtown Custom & Classic Las Animas County Fair Trinidad, Colorado Exposition August 16-17 July 22-27 https://lasanimas.extension.colostate.edu/wp-content/uploads/ Lamar, Colorado sites/46/2019/05/2019-LAC-Fairbook-Final-1.pdf https://www.bigasscarshow.com/index.php/about-dcce/ https://www.facebook.com/LasAnimasCountyFair/ Colorado State Fair and Rodeo Kit Carson County Fair & Rodeo Aug 23 – Sept 2 Burlington, Colorado Pueblo, Colorado July 22-27 https://www.coloradostatefair.com/ https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/kitcarsoncounty/county-fair-0 https://www.facebook.com/colostatefair https://www.facebook.com/Kit-Carson-County-Fair-Pro-Ro- deo-164647266888216/ Kit Carson Day August 31 Maine Street Bash Kit Carson, Colorado July 27 Eads, Colorado Kiowa County Fair & Rodeo https://www.plainstheater.com/maine-street-bash1.html Eads, Colorado September 11-15 Cheyenne County Fair & Rodeo https://kiowa.extension.colostate.edu/kiowa-county-fair-rodeo/ https:// Cheyenne Wells, Colorado www.facebook.com/Kiowa-County-Fair-And-Rodeo-199660980566290/ July 29 – August 3 Holly Gateway Fair Baca County Fair and Rodeo Holly, Colorado Springfield, Colorado September 25-29 August 1, 2016 - August 5, 2016 https://www.facebook.com/hollycofair/ https://baca.extension.colostate.edu/2019-baca-coun- ty-fair/ https://www.facebook.com/BacaFairAndRodeoInc/ Sand & Sage Round-Up Lamar, Colorado August 3-10, 2019 https://prowers.extension.colostate.edu/2018-sand-and-sage-fair-book/ https://www.facebook.com/SandSageRoundUp kiowacountyindependent.com July 2019 • High Plains Guide • 3 4 • High Plains Guide • July 2019 kiowacountyindependent.com kiowacountyindependent.com July 2019 • High Plains Guide • 5 6 • High Plains Guide • July 2019 kiowacountyindependent.com kiowacountyindependent.com July 2019 • High Plains Guide • 7 8 • High Plains Guide • July 2019 kiowacountyindependent.com kiowacountyindependent.com July 2019 • High Plains Guide • 9 10 • High Plains Guide • July 2019 kiowacountyindependent.com kiowacountyindependent.com July 2019 • High Plains Guide • 11 By Priscilla Waggoner 12 • High Plains Guide • July 2019 kiowacountyindependent.com kiowacountyindependent.com July 2019 • High Plains Guide • 13 t’s just past noon on a Monday least, not yet. On this day, the scene The town no longer exists, but the in the last few days of June. The in all directions is one of untouched, house where he was born still stands Igravel road known as County timeless beauty as can be found in on his property just a few miles Road M stretches out ahead, going those canyonlands and plains of the away. McKinley was born in Walsh, due west and dissecting an end- Comanche National Grassland. 60 miles to the east. Both grew up in less expanse of open country. The In the distance, an old, load- farming communities but learned, spring rains have been kind; the ed down pick-up truck parked by almost straight out of the chute, prairie grass is a sea of pale green a fence line comes into view along that they were better suited to rid- punctuated by occasional cholla cac- with the sight of two cowboys ing horses than tractors and work- tus bearing deep purple blooms. Fif- who’ve already been at work, mend- ing cattle than land. These two men teen miles or more from pavement ing that fence, for hours. have known each other for most of with no house or person in sight, the Dean Ormiston and Wes McKin- their lives and been friends—good soundtrack of this land is composed ley are co-owners of the Kirkwell friends—for most of that time. Each of deep silence broken only by the Cattle Company. Born and raised man is also on the other side of sev- song of some unseen bird every in the Canyonlands of Baca County enty years old, and it doesn’t slow now and then. not far from where Colorado bor- them down in the least. There’s no doubt that, on those ders both New Mexico and Oklaho- We stand on the Ford Ranch, fif- days when a storm might roll in ma, both men are third generation teen thousand acres—“ten thousand from the southwest, this a place residents, descendants of grand- government land, five thousand pri- where nature could make herself parents who came to the region as vate”—that extend all the way to known in all her furious glory. But homesteaders. the Las Animas County line. The no such storm is on the horizon—at Ormiston was born in Kirkwell. property is owned by a man named 14 • High Plains Guide • July 2019 kiowacountyindependent.com Bob Ford out of Oklahoma. Ford clear eyed gaze and calm, slow man- grace of a man who’s spent his life comes to visit a few times a year, ner of speech, perhaps the result of on horseback. but it’s Dean who, with help from working in country where the view Behind him, a herd of several Wes, manages the ranch and has of the horizon is unobstructed, and hundred mama cows and calves have done so for twenty years. In that silence is more common than sound. stopped grazing to stare in our di- time, there’s no denying Dean’s left But to simply describe the two rection, a few shaking their horns at his mark, from the strength of the men in physical terms would do some unseen annoyance. It’s no ex- herd—“when the herd does better, them a serious injustice. Granted, aggeration to say that they are truly I do better,” he says—to one of the it’s easy to see them as the iconic beautiful with stark white and deep outbuildings he built, himself, us- cowboys portrayed in the Westerns red markings. ing rocks he quarried from the top of later years, but, as the day pro- “They’re one hundred per cent of the bluffs overlooking the ranch gresses, it becomes clear that they pure Herefords,” Dean says with a house down in the canyon. are much better captured in a novel mixture of pride and admiration. Ormiston and McKinley seem by, say, Larry McMurtry, writer of “I don’t dehorn ‘em,” he adds. “The to personify the term “cowboy.” Lonesome Dove. For, in his own way, steers, I do, but not the cows. We Dusty boots. Worn out blue jeans. each man is complicated, and full of have bear and lion and coyote out Strong, rough hands that reflect surprises and runs as deep as nearby here. There was a bear in front of the years of hard work performed in Carrizo Creek after a hard rain. ranch house just the other mornin’. harsh weather. Cowboy hats that Dean is the first to step forward. The cows need those horns to pro- have been soaked with rain and sun With long hair pulled back in a po- tect themselves and the herd.” He and sweat so many times over so nytail and a snow white mustache then scans the horizon as if figuring many years that they seem to be as that would be the envy of Wild Bill out where to start. “New Mexico is much a part of them as their hands himself, he extends his hand, mov- just eight miles away on the other or feet. And, beneath those hats, a ing with the slightly bowlegged side of those mountains.” He then kiowacountyindependent.com July 2019 • High Plains Guide • 15 halfway lifts a figure toward the to be a permanent part of who he is. much since those days when towns ridge where a butte juts up above Wes turns a bit toward the open were built twenty miles apart. There the ridge line. “We call that Tater vista to the west where the short are no other cars driving down Butte,” he says. “Its official name is prairie grasses seem to extend for- County Road M and certainly no Carrizo, but we call it Tater. Why? ever. “We’ve seen every color of trains nearby. In a land where rattle- Because that’s what it looks like.” green out here,” he says. “And we’ve snakes bite, horses stumble and fall, Ormiston is introducing himself in seen every shade of brown and gray cows can go a little crazy and severe what might be the most telling way you can imagine, too.” He pauses for summer storms suddenly appear out possible.