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Part A
Howdy Everyone,
Hope you and your's are doin' mighty well.
Some nice folks that we know were honored recently. The Oklahoma Historical Society inducted four people into their Hall of Fame on April 13. Turns out that we have know three of the four for several years.
Our congratulations to Dr. W. David Baird of Malibu, California; to Guy W. Logsdon of Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Pendleton Woods of Edmond, Oklahoma.
I first met Dr. Baird, an expert in Western (particularly Indian) history, when I was a college textbook salesman back in the early 1970's. Peggy and I first met Dr. Guy Logsdon, expert on Woody Guthrie and on Western swing music, at a convention of the Western Writers of America in the late 1980's. And we've known Pendleton Woods, German POW during World War II and a long-time collector of oral histories in Oklahoma, since the mid-1980's. Great people, one and all.
Later this year, on July 21st, the Western Swing Music Society of the Southwest will induct the late Donna Fowler into their Hall of Fame. Donna and I were co-hosts of a morning talk show on radio station KSNY in Snyder, Texas in 1988. She was a talented and creative person who wasn't hard to look at, either. She went on to become director of the Snyder Chamber of Commerce. And in that capacity she developed the successful "Western Swing Festival" held in Snyder for many years.
The movie version of author Dee Brown's nonfiction work, "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee," will be shown on HBO on May 27, 29 and 31.
This movie, made by and for HBO, stars Aidan Quinn (above, right), Adam Beach (above, left), August Schellenberg, Wes Studi and Anna Paquin.
My wife and I had the honor of having dinner with Dee Brown (now deceased; see his bio on this site) a couple of times at different conventions of the Western Writers of America. The occasion I remember most vividly was at Sheridan, Wyoming. He joked about how he had sold and re-sold the movie rights several times to Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, with none of the claimants ever getting the book anywhere near production for the silver screen. He laughed and said, "I guess I ought to write another book and title it, 'Bury My Heart in Hollywood'."
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, the book, was published in 1971 about the slaughter of many Sioux people by U.S. Army soldiers on Dec. 29, 1890. It became required reading for many college courses and sold over five million copies.Well, this issue has lots of good stuff. Happy reading.
----Cowboy Stan
Dusty Richards
As a youth, Dusty Richards spent his Saturdays watching Hoppy, Roy and Gene.
At age seven, he sat a black pony and "helped" at round up on the Peterson Ranch near Otello, Washngton. He never got over wanting to become a cowboy. If fact his mother was scared to death he'd become an old saddle bum. He remembers reading everything he could get hold of by Will James, Zane Grey, and Ernest Haycox.
Raised in Arizona, he worked on ranches and rodeoed. Even sat on the porch of Zane Grey's cabin up on the rim and told the old man's ghost, he'd join him some day – as a published writer -- on the shelf.
After college graduation, Dusty Richards moved to Arkansas to ranch in the Ozarks. Along the way he also auctioneering, announcing rodeos, worked in management for Tyson Food for 32 years, anchored a morning TV farm show for ten years.
Dusty & Pat Richards visit with Peggy Paregien during the
2006 National Cowboy Symposium
He serves on board of the Rodeo of the Ozarks, a roden there in Springdale,
Arkansas that has been choosen by the PRCA as one of the top outdoor rodeos.
He is a director on his local electric coop. He also serves on the board of Ozark
Writers League in Branson, Missouri, the board of the Ozark Creative Writers
Conference Board (this year's president) held in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. And he is on the board of Oklahoma Writers Federation Inc.
Dusty Richards has received two book of the year awards from OWFI. He has
been inducted in the Arkansas Writers Hall of Fame. In 2005 he received the
"Cowboy Culture Award" from the National Cowboy Symposium in Lubbock,
Texas. It was given for helping others and for his work in western literature.
In 2007 he was elected to the Western Writers of America board, He was recently
notified that he had won the prestigious WWA Spur for the best paperback
for his book, The Horse Creek Incident. He also won the short fiction Spur award
for the best short fiction, "Comanche Moon" an Amazon.com short. No one in
the Spur's fifty year history has ever won two spurs in one year before he did it.
Dusty Richards has published over seventy novels under his own name and
pseudonyms. He's written over a hundred short stories and many articles, plus he
writes a monthly farm column and another on how to write in Storyteller magazine.
Dusty and his wife Pat live on Beaver Lake outside of Springdale, Arkansas, when
they are not roaming the country. He researches his books alot in the west, trout
fishes and teaches fiction writing at many places.
Richards' next books are Trail to Cottonwood Falls in the Ralph Compton Trail Drive
series under the Ralph Compton name. His own series, under his own name,
continues with Montana Revenge from Jove.
You'll find Dusty Richards' web page is at dustyrichards.com.
Go Get 'Em, Stony!
You will want this 2-DVD and 2-CD set in your collection. Much of it was recorded live, during the Western Music Association festival in Tucson, Arizona in 1994. It was a special occasion honoring the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Sons of the Pioneers. The current crop of Pioneers were there, along with Dale Evans and her favorite ex-Pioneer, Roy Rogers. Rex Allen, Sr., was the Master of Ceremonies. It doesn't get any better than that.
Special guests also included Roy "Dusty" Rogers Jr., Richard Farnsworth, and Patsy Montana. As it turned out, this was the last public performance that Roy Rogers ever did. He health grew worse and he died less than four years later, in 1998.Stan Corliss, a great Western singer and songwriter himself,
was the one who wrote, produced and directed the whole
operation. Thanks, Stan , for a job well done.And my sincere thanks to Hal Spencer, son of the late and
wonderful Pioneer singer-songwriter Tim Spencer, for
graciously sending a copy to me.
If I had a fire at my house and could only grab one CD/DVD
to save, this would be the one.Jesse Mullins, Jr., editor of American Cowboy magazine, was the after-dinner speaker for the Will Rogers Writers Conference in Oklahoma City in March.
At their dinner, held at the National Cowboy Museum, he spoke about the life and writings of one of America's best stand-up comics -- the late Will Rogers.
There is a trivia question in Section B that may stump you cold.
You may not recognize the face, in the circumstance,
but if you're over 50 you will know the name
when we give the answer in the next issue.
If you're the first to answer the trivia question, by emailing
cowboydirectory@inbox.com,
we'll give you a prize.
See Part B for details.
© 2007 by Stan Paregien, Sr.
