The Big Bend Gazette – February 2022 by Bigbendgazzette

The

Big Bend Gazette FEBRUARY 2022

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Both Sides Now – an International Park By Francisco Cantú, pg. 3

Breakthrough! The Next Phase of Big Bend School, Terlingua CSD pg. 6

Complete Schedule

– Lone Star Cowboy Poetry Gathering pgs. 14-15

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About the Cover In the foothills of the Sierra del Carmen, a horseman rides through Las Norias, a communal ranching settlement located within a vast area protected by the Mexican government. Photo: Ash Ponders

The

Big Bend Gazette 2022 Vol. 22, No. 1 PUBLISHER

Mimi Smith msmith.justicetexas@gmail.com publisher.bigbendgazette@gmail.com P.O. Box 1032 • Alpine, Texas 79831 GRAPHICS

A national conservation organization, an author, and a photographer all gave permission to republish the article that is this month’s cover story. This article from Audubon magazine was so beautifully written and photographed. After reading it online, I reached out to the press relations / media department of Audubon, to ask for permission to republish it in the Big Bend Gazette. I told them that I am a new publisher, having jumped into journalism from law overnight, knowing very little about the differences between the two. I imagined that Audubon was too big to reply and that the article was too new for them to share now. When I received the email from Jennifer Bogo, Audubon VP of content, not only giving me permission but also encouragement and congratulations for taking over the Big Bend Gazette, I was gobsmacked. Audubon loves to support local journalism. She also supplied the email address for the photographer, Ash Ponders. Again I thought, no way the photographer will give me permission to use his photographs - this is how he makes his living! He is freelance and so good. With only a 24-hour turnaround, I asked. Ash Ponders got right back to me. He told me he was on location, and would it be

again in these pages. Here is the URL for the article as it appears in Audubon magazine: audubon. org/bigbend.

By MIMI SMITH

alright to send the photographs the next day and would I prefer them in black and white for this medium? Astounding. I was already a huge fan of author Francisco Cantú’s writing. Cantú, a former Border Patrol agent from these parts, wrote The Line Becomes a River in 2017. While I was reading the article that appears here, but before I saw the byline, I thought “This author can describe every facet of this region beautifully and aptly. Not only the physical details of the Chihuahuan Desert, but all the human dynamics. This author reminds me of Francisco Cantú.” Sure enough, it is Francisco Cantú, a writer unparalleled in describing this region. If words, particularly descriptors, have fallen on hard times in our Age of Inelegance, Cantú has restored them to full and glorious life. I hope we will see him

Rick Lobello is a subject of Cantú’s article and Rick has offered his writing and now his blog to the Gazette since the week after I started publishing. Rick has been pushing this dream for so many years, and hasn’t lost a drop of his enthusiasm. He is down the road in El Paso, developing future conservationists at the El Paso Zoo. Also in this issue, the organizers of the Lone Star Cowboy Poetry Gathering shared their full schedule of events for this year’s gathering, February 18-19 at Sul Ross State University campus in Alpine. The unstoppable Terlingua Community School District, AKA Big Bend Elementary, Big Bend Junior High, and Big Bend High School are bringing a dream into reality, over generations of commitment. They are building that gym, that multi-purpose gym, which they planned and saved and budgeted for, refusing to go into public debt. (See: If You Build It, Big Bend Gazette, October 2021) The Paisanos and Paisanas enter a new era. They deserve our support. There are more projects ahead.

Joni Guess graphicsbyjoni@gmail.com MUSIC EDITOR

David Kowal David Kowal spent a 30-year career as a PhD professor of Art History and a lifetime developing his eclectic tastes in music. A resident of West Texas for over a decade, he has dedicated himself to an appreciation of the musical talents of the region.

www.bigbendgazette.com The Big Bend Gazette is published the first week of each month from our office in Alpine, Texas, and printed at The Monahans News, in Monahans, Texas. The Gazette is distributed in Alpine, Big Bend National Park, Fort Davis, Lajitas, Marathon, Marfa, Terlingua. Copyright © 2022 The Big Bend Gazette This is community journalism. We want to publicize your local events: your fundraisers, causes, parades, clinics, pet adoption gatherings, fairs, and club events including our annual youth livestock shows. msmith.justicetexas@gmail.com As a community forum, the Gazette includes a wide variety of perspectives and opinions reflecting the Big Bend communities. These opinions are not necessarily those of the staff of the Gazette.

The Big Bend Gazette FEBRUARY 2022

How to Subscribe to The Big Bend Gazette in 2022 We know it’s a bit confusing. Old and new subscribers are having a heckuva time making their way through the Big Bend Gazette’s website. For anyone facing these internet gargoyles, please call, text, email, or write to Mimi Smith, the new publisher as of July, 2021. See email and telephone and address in the following paragraphs. Subscribe to The Gazette by Mail If you’d simply like a copy of The Gazette mailed to you each month, you can subscribe the old fashioned way by emailing Mimi directly (msmith. justicetexas@gmail.com) or giving her a call (432-386-5508). Print-only annual subscriptions are $60. Checks can be sent (along with a note clearly stating your Full Name, Mailing Address, Phone Number, and Email Address) to: BB Gazette Subscriptions c/o Mimi Smith, Publisher P.O. Box 1032 601 N. 7th Street Alpine, TX 79831-1032 Subscribe to The Gazette Online Get each issue of The Big Bend Gazette

digitally or in newsprint, sent directly to your inbox and/or mailbox, when you back our Patreon, which is a relatively new online fundraising/membership service that also has its own mobile app. Patreon is a brand name that calls subscribers “Patrons”, for sheer cleverness. Patrons are subscribers and “members”. But mainly Subscribers. Wherever you see the word “patron” or “membership” think “subscriber”. To subscribe via Patreon, click the “Become a Patron” button on The Big Bend Gazette page on Patreon. Choose your preferred subscription level (called “Membership Levels”) and then click the “Join” button under that level. We currently offer Digital Subscriber ($5/ month), Print & Digital Subscriber ($10/ month), and Premium Subscriber ($15/ month) subscription levels through our Patreon. Amounts above these are welcomed with profound gratitude. Once you subscribe (aka Join/Become a Patron), you’ll receive automatic updates via email and/or the mobile app with first access to the digital edition of the newspaper every month—before it hits newsstands!—along with other exclusive content from The Gazette and our advertising partners and other exciting

subscriber perks. By subscribing through Patreon, you can also pay month-tomonth and unsubscribe at any time. Of course you can cancel anytime using the old fashioned method of telephone texts and calls, emails, and regular mail. Always feel free to use direct communication. Current Subscribers If you already have a subscription to the Big Bend Gazette and have not been receiving your newspapers, please tell Mimi right away. Call, text or email. She will send you August through December 2021 issues by regular mail, by link to digital issues, or both. We love our readers. Still need more info? We know it’s all a bit confusing and clunky right now, and we apologize. We’re working with our publishing mentors and tech advisors to smooth out the process in early 2022. The best and easiest way to get started, if you don’t find the answers you need in this post, is to go old school: contact Mimi directly: email msmith.justicetexas@gmail.com, call or text 432-386-5508, or mail Mimi Smith at P.O. Box 1032 Alpine, TX 79831.

From Audubon Magazine, Winter 2021

The grand dream of an international park with Mexico meets a complicated reality Much has changed since F.D.R. called for a great transboundary conservation area spanning the Rio Grande, but the vision lives on. Is it an idea whose time has come—or come and gone? By FRANCISCO CANTÚ Contributor, Audubon Magazine This article first appeared in the Winter 2021 issue of Audubon magazine and is republished by permission. audubon.org/ bigbend.audubon.org/bigbend.

any of the most iconic images of Big Bend National Park feature the jagged outline of the Sierra del Carmen, a towering range of pine- and fir-studded mountains in the Mexican state of Coahuila. These isolated peaks possess an almost magnetic mystique— nearly everyone I’ve spoken to who has spent time in this part of West Texas talks about gazing across the border and imagining what it must be like to stand among the tall trees and cool wind, looking out in the opposite direction at the desert below. Rick LoBello first came to Big Bend in 1974 and spent the next six years working as a park ranger, looking up at the Carmens and dreaming about their secrets. Then, in 1988, he joined a delegation invited to discuss prospects for binational conservation. After the Americans crossed the river to meet the governor of Coahuila, the two groups ascended the sierra. “I got to a high point where I could look over and see the Chisos Mountains and Big Bend,” LoBello recalls, “and I said to myself, ‘Wow, this is even more beautiful than the Texas side. This has got to be a national park someday.’ ” The Mexicans and Americans camped together on a mountaintop, and LoBello watched as the governor sat with Big Bend’s superintendent over a table strewn with maps, discussing the potential for protection and collaboration. It seemed, he tells me, like witnessing history in the making. Ever since, LoBello has dedicated his career to the idea of a vast binational preserve spanning the Rio Grande, using his positions at the El Paso Zoo, Rotary International, and various wilderness coalitions to promote it. The dream is a longstanding one: When President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated Big Bend in 1944, he declared that it would be incomplete until “one great international park” reached across the border, uniting the region’s deep-cut canyons and tower-

ing sky islands, its desert grasslands and teeming forests. In recent years, talk of cross-boundary conservation has again bubbled up as a kind of hopeful antidote to the environmental devastation wrought elsewhere on the border. “Forget Trump’s Border Wall,” read a 2019 New York Times op-ed headline, “Let’s Build F.D.R.’s International Park.” The Chihuahuan ecosystems that converge here contain a wealth of endangered flora and fauna, with Big Bend alone possessing more bird diversity than almost any other national park in the United States—more, in fact, than many states. Aside from offering holistic management possibilities, LoBello believes a transboundary park would send a powerful message to the world, serving as “a permanent monument and symbol of peace,” a place where people from both nations could come to better understand and appreciate a landscape that knows no boundaries. Despite the political attention Big Bend has garnered, its remote location has long made it one of the country’s leastvisited national parks. I spent much of my childhood in another of West Texas’s rarely seen parks, the Guadalupe Mountains, where my mother worked as an interpretive park ranger and instilled in me a lifelong fascination with desert landscapes and the unique cultural terrain of the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. But even as someone relatively familiar with the region, it was only recently that I learned of the long-simmering idea to create a binational park in Big Bend. The more I discovered, the more I longed to visit the places that might someday be incorporated into a transboundary park and to understand if this nearly centuryold idea still made sense today. The binational model that has inspired conservationists in Big Bend for nearly a century was born on the opposite edge of the country. In 1932 Canada and the United States inaugurated Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park as a gesture of transborder harmony in the aftermath of World War I. This soon motivated the U.S. and Mexican governments to explore

something similar along the Rio Grande. A joint commission was formed in 1936, but days after concluding a landmark expedition through the proposed parklands, two of its most influential members died in a car crash, establishing a pattern of tragedy that has continued since. With Roosevelt’s death in 1945, the proposal lost its most powerful champion, and progress stalled for decades. In the 1990s, the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the creation of Mexico’s Santa Elena and Maderas del Carmen protected areas again raised the prospects of an international park, but 9/11 soon brought them crashing down again. Hope was briefly reignited in 2010, when a joint statement from Presidents Barack Obama and Felipe Calderón announced support for the area’s eventual designation as “a natural area of binational interest.” By the end of the year, however, Obama’s party had lost power in Congress and Mexico’s drug war had reached a new bloody peak, consuming the rest of Calderón’s agenda. The arrival of President Donald Trump in 2017 marked a new low point in crossborder collaboration, but the president’s much vaunted border wall spared Big Bend. Today, with a new administration in office, supporters have grown hopeful that the idea of a binational park might

soon be back on the table. The failure to establish a framework for binational conservation here has given rise to a patchwork of protected lands that are today managed by five different federal, state, and private entities, including a key preservation corridor established by the Mexican corporation CEMEX in 2001. Between the two countries, more than 3 million contiguous acres have been set aside for protection, comprising a binational area almost as large as Connecticut. My journey to these sprawling parklands begins in Big Bend, where I pay a $30 entrance fee to join the ranks of its more than 300,000 yearly visitors. The park’s superintendent, Bob Krumenaker, has agreed to meet me at a viewpoint perched above the Rio Grande, where the megalithic stone mouth of Santa Elena Canyon looms in the west like a gateway to an ancient kingdom. Krumenaker, wearing a broadbrimmed mesh hat, begins our conversation by gesturing at blackened mesquite trunks in the distance and explaining how, in 2019, a trash fire in Mexico grew out of control and jumped the river’s banks. It quickly engulfed the historic buildings of Castolon, a settlement that served as an Army outpost and frontier trading hub before the establishment

Bob Krumenaker outside an adobe building that burned during the Castolon fire in Big Bend. | Photo by Ash Ponders FEBRUARY 2022 The Big Bend Gazette

Viewed from Boquillas in Mexico, the Chisos Mountains loom on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. | Photo by Ash Ponders

of the park. “We had never seen anything like that before,” Krumenaker says, describing the blaze. In no time, the old adobe buildings that had for more than a century served as a place of respite for soldiers, merchants, ranchers, and countless park visitors were completely hollowed out. The help that arrived from both sides of the border included firefighters from Boquillas del Carmen, a village 40 miles east on the other side of the river. While the park had long counted on crossborder support to manage fires, in the aftermath of the Castolon blaze Krumenaker and his staff expanded agreements to deepen those ties. This proved useful when the Boquillas crew returned earlier this year to fight one of the park’s biggest fires in decades. Firefighters from both nations were able to save the habitat of the Colima Warbler, a species whose entire U.S. range is confined to a few backcountry canyons high in the Chisos Mountains. In Krumenaker’s view, these shared successes illustrate how practical partnerships can arise from day-to-day management needs, reinforcing the idea that, as he puts it, “we’re both residents of

The Big Bend Gazette FEBRUARY 2022

a common community.” The grand vision of a unified international park, he admits, is a distant consideration as he and his staff navigate the on-the-ground practicalities of conservation. He reminds me that Mexico, which had no protected land adjacent to Big Bend in the Roosevelt era, now officially protects more acres in this region than the United States does. In this sense, he says, perhaps a significant piece of the binational dream has already been achieved. But while American conservationists once assumed that protection across the border would resemble our notions of a national park, the intervening decades saw Mexico develop a conservation model all its own—one I had grown eager to see for myself. After a grueling 40 minutes on a rutted dirt road, we arrive in Las Norias, one of the many communal ranching settlements known as ejidos that dot these protected areas. Ochoa has brought me to the foothills of the Sierra del Carmen to meet Guadalupe Hernández Ureste, a woman who embodies the kind of transformation CONANP has long hoped to foster among those living here. Hernández comes to life when I ask about her involvement with the agency—

far from being evicted when this land came under federal protection, she and other community members were recruited to help protect the area’s natural resources. Hernández explains how she was hired to help monitor Golden Eagles. The first time she saw one, she says, she was so awed by its immensity that she staggered backward into a cactus, covering herself in spines. She laughs before turning serious, describing her previous life as a housewife. “I used to spend all day making tortillas,” she says. “But from that day on, I told myself I wouldn’t be ordered around the house anymore, because this is where I wanted to be.” Ochoa smiles and reminds us that the Golden Eagle is Mexico’s national symbol, the mythical bird devouring a snake on the country’s flag. Hernández nods, gazing up toward the eagle’s home in the mountains above. “I didn’t even need my binoculars,” she adds, still lost in the moment. The crown jewel of the Big Bend region lies in the highest reaches of the Sierra del Carmen, an area that has long served as a stronghold for the diverse animal and plant life that radiates outward from the mountains. The bulk of this wilderness zone lies within the El Car-

men Nature Reserve, an island inside of CONANP’s Maderas del Carmen protected area that is privately owned and managed by CEMEX, a multinational cement manufacturer headquartered in Mexico. Distinct from Big Bend, tourists are rarely permitted here, and the reserve is devoid of the settlements scattered throughout CONANP’s protected areas. In the early 2000s, CEMEX began acquiring land from local property owners who ultimately agreed to part with holdings that had been depleted by ranching, mining, fur trapping, and more than half a century of industrial logging. Whether the El Carmen reserve is part of a corporate greenwashing strategy or a meaningful attempt by CEMEX to offset its environmental degradation is a matter of debate, but for the past two decades it has served as the flagship project of the company’s worldwide conservation initiatives. With its recent acquisition of a sliver of adjoining property on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, CEMEX now oversees a transboundary conservation initiative in miniature. The reserve’s role in a potential binational park, however, remains unclear. The most apparent historical parallel is perhaps that of the Rockefellers,

In Las Norias, Javier Ochoa chats with Guadalupe Hernández Ureste, who has found a new passion in helping to monitor the area’s Golden Eagles. | Photo by Ash Ponders

whose oil wealth funded the purchase of vast swaths of land that were eventually donated to the U.S. national park system for public preservation—but CEMEX has not announced any such plans. My guide through the Carmens is Jonas A. Delgadillo Villalobos, the reserve’s soft-spoken manager, who has agreed to bring me from its desert lowlands to the densely wooded mountaintops. Driving across the rolling plains, Delgadillo explains how settlers conquered and absorbed the Lipan Apache and other groups indigenous to the area during a centuries-long genocide. As he speaks of the places where their language and traditions live on, I am struck by how our continent’s grand narratives of conservation have almost always obscured similar histories of erasure. After several minutes of silence, Delgadillo tells me that he himself is a descendent of the Northern Tepehuanos of the Sierra Madre, describing his grandmother’s move down from the mountains more than a century ago to live in the towns and villages erected by colonizers. As we continue our crawl up the mountain, Delgadillo details how he and his team have restored native grasses and

reintroduced ecosystem-regulating species like pronghorn, desert bighorn sheep, and bison. He tells me of the grasslandloving birds that are beginning to proliferate once again, including the Loggerhead Shrike and the Eastern Meadowlark, with its call that, to him, sounds like someone singing “tortilla con chile.” The recovery here has also bolstered conservation efforts in the surrounding protected areas. Delgadillo offers the example of the Mexican black bear, a species thought to have vanished from Texas before numbers began to rebound as development slowed in the Carmens, enabling the omnivores to launch tentative cross-border explorations in the late 1980s. Today, he says, “the reserve is practically theirs,” and serves as a bastion fueling the repopulation of their prior range. We travel through a seemingly endless cloud of butterflies before finally arriving in a lichen-covered relic forest of juniper, pine, and fir. We pass bear-scratched trunks oozing with sap, ford quickflowing creeks edged with mushrooms, and stop to watch as Wild Turkeys and a covey of Montezuma Quail burst from the brush and vanish again into the dark woods. In a gold-hued meadow, Delga-

dillo ushers me from the truck to an old corral where we watch a pair of Yelloweyed Juncos, a species almost never seen in Texas, silently flit onto a nearby branch. These, he whispers, are the ojito de lumbre, birds with little eyes of fire. That night Delgadillo and I sleep in the high cabins that occasionally house international researchers. Lying atop my cot listening to mice skitter across the roughhewn floors, I wonder if this is the same area where Rick LoBello stayed all those years ago, hoping he was witnessing a historic dissolution of borders. Today some see a binational park as one of the few symbols powerful enough to counter the terrifying potency of a border wall. But the reality of the borderlands has always subverted imposed bifurcations— it is a place where multiple ways of seeing, speaking, and understanding have long complemented one another, where a single way of doing things rarely endures. It is a place, too, where outside symbols are often refigured, where walls of steel are dwarfed by those of stone, where the destructive power of fire provides foundations for new forms of cooperation, and where the eagle serves as a reminder not of nation-building myths but of a woman’s

power to gaze upward and find a home in the wilderness outside her doors. The next morning, Delgadillo wakes me before daybreak and drives us through the forest to a lookout point high in the sierra. We arrive just as the day’s first light begins to grow in the sky, and gaze out together as soft-lit canyons and rippled alluvial valleys emerge from the darkness below. Delgadillo gestures to an unseen road in the distance, telling me that it leads to the ghost town of La Linda on the other end of the mountains, where a long-defunct international bridge has been decaying for decades above the Rio Grande. Then he points to the northwest. Straight down the spine of these mountains, he tells me, is Big Bend. As the sun breaks the horizon, I ask what he thinks of when he gazes in the direction of Texas, what he imagines when he looks out across the line. He smiles and answers me without pausing. “I don’t need to imagine it,” he says, “because it’s the same. It’s exactly the same as right here.” This story originally ran in the Winter 2021 issue as “A Land Beyond Borders.” To receive our print magazine, become a member by making a donation today. FEBRUARY 2022 The Big Bend Gazette

TERLINGUA CSD Building the future from the ground up

Photos by Mimi Smith L to R: Marcos Paredes, Travis Jenks, Aylynn Galindo, Gimena Garcia, Asa Reed, Ellen Quigg, Jessi Milam, Scott Watkins, Mague Garcia, Jennifer Peña, and Maira Tercero.

eople flock from around the world to visit Terlingua and the majestic Big Bend National Park, but the students living in the Big Bend region get to enjoy nature’s beauty and its harshness day-in and day-out, even when playing traditionally indoor sports such as basketball and volleyball. With the mountains creating a spectacular backdrop for the Big Bend High School’s basketball court, it is easy to look right past the court itself. The poles holding the backboards are easily overlooked in the vast landscape. Roadrunners make the court part of their habitat” the school chose the running bird as its mascot – opting for the Spanish word, Paisano for the male; and Paisana for females. Editor’s note: first school in the region to attempt accuracy in naming the girls’ teams. Hurrah! Though the students and teachers take pride in the toughness it takes to play sports outside in the desert, enticing competitors to play a game on Terlingua’s home turf (or concrete) has been a challenge. The Paisanos affec-

tionately call their sports court the Sky Dome. With no roof or walls to serve as a backstop for wayward balls and fouled players, the desert surroundings have been inhospitable for visiting teams that would have to make an hours-long journey to Big Bend High School. For this reason, the school has not had the luxury of a planned schedule of games. The Paisanos and Paisanas take on any competitor willing to make the journey to Terlingua. Many student athletes have scars to show their dedication for their sports. That is no different at Big Bend High School, but rather than friction burns from sliding on turf, the Paisanos and Paisanas have scars from falling on hot concrete and gravel. They are especially proud of how they had to learn to play sports without the advantages of walls to stop you when falling out of bounds. “Most of us learned to just slide in gravel and hopefully not eat it,” said alumnus Sierra Lowe. Perseverance is a defining trait for residents of the Big Bend region, and

has been since people started settling there in the 1800s. “Our isolated location and lack of resources will always be a challenge. Students and teachers have always taken this challenge head on as a source of motivation rather than an excuse,” said Terlingua CSD Superintendent, Reagan Reed. He also serves as principal, coach and a parent to two children in the district. Editor’s note: compare to the whining of college teams. Thanks to the vision and determination of the District, Terlingua CSD will soon have something new to be proud of – a new multi-purpose gymnasium facility, complete with restrooms and stands for spectators. Parents in more populated districts may take bleachers for granted, but for parents in Terlingua, the bleachers cannot come soon enough. Many have never seen their children play sports, because there was no place to sit without the heat, blazing sun and inescapable whirling desert sand. Reed said the new building has long been a dream of past superintendents,

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trustees, teachers, parents and students. Through the years, Terlingua CSD’s facilities have grown to include a library building, six lane track, shaded playground and remodeled classrooms – all funded through fundraising and careful financial management that resulted in a savings each year that has been applied to fund capital projects. The new high school building completed in 1996, garnered funding from donors around the country after a 1994 New York Times article highlighted the plight of high school students in the area who faced an 89 mile commute each way to school. These determined students had to leave their homes predawn to get to the school bus stop by 5:20 AM to make the long trek to Alpine High School, nearly two-hours away. The new Big Bend High School building was simple and provided students with classrooms and office space for administrators. Through the years, the building has been well cared for and as a result, still meets the most basic needs of classroom

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L to R: Zachary Eby, Gillian Lowe, Jennifer Baeza, Karime Garcia, Griffin Staib. Under the direction of Band Director, Brad Anthenat learning. Though the new building did not have a space for athletics, students were not accustomed to having the privilege of playing sports when they attended Alpine High School anyway. They had to depart immediately after school to take the 115 minute bus ride back to Terlingua. According to Reed, the Terlingua students and parents recognize education as an opportunity and a blessing taking nothing for granted. He joined the district in 1999, just three years after the high school was built. “This project is personal and emotional for me as a teacher and now a parent

A L P I N E ,

when I take off my superintendent hat. I started at Terlingua CSD the fall of 1999, and it was exactly where I wanted to teach after graduating,” Reed said. “My student teaching was at a middle school in affluent The Woodlands, Texas. The facility disparity was night and day.” High school is a pivotal time for young people. They are planning for the future and making some decisions on their own. High school has to be an attractive option for students, to entice them to continue through to graduation. Reed told the story of one former student, Maira Tercero, now a parent in the district. Tercero is also the district’s

longest-serving member of the Site-Base Committee. As a youth, she made the difficult decision to abandon the prospect of a high school diploma because she felt her schooling was too much of a burden on her family. Tercero eventually completed her coursework online and now has a diploma. Similar challenges exist for the district today. Many students stay in school for the high school experience and the opportunity to play sports and enjoy the camaraderie with fellow athletes. Tercero’s two daughters will have more reasons to stay in school and get the full high school experience when the new

multi-purpose gymnasium facility opens next fall. It will give the students a place to hold activities, sports, and participate in special career and technical learning opportunities such as robotics. Parent and former student Tercero represented the Site-Based Committee at the January 7th, 2022 groundbreaking. Note: The Big Bend Education Corporation (BBEC) is continually working toward funding major projects supporting students at San Vicente ISD and Terlingua CSD. Their address is: Big Bend Education Corporation PO Box 256 Terlingua, TX 79852

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Big Buddha Bakery, Presidio Organic food and drink 1301 Santa Cruz Avenue, Presidio (917) 539-4285 On Thursdays and Sundays, the bakery is open in the morning and early afternoon for fresh-brewed coffee, bagels, sandwiches and bakery items. On Friday they serve pizza, made from a homemade sourdough crust. 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m., Thursday and Sunday breakfast and lunch PIZZA FRIDAYS sandwiches and burgers, too 1:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Fridays Indoor and outdoor dining options; and drive through available

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What is a wine bar? The most basic definition of a wine bar is, “an establishment that specializes in serving wine and usually food.” However, owners Sharon and Tom Kelner plan Alpine Wine on 5th Street as a multi-focus place with an array of interesting and unique wines, served by knowledgeable but gracious servers, where the prices are always fair and the charcuterie board always has one last slice of cured meat on it.” When asked what inspired the two of them to open a wine bar, Sharon said: “We looked at Alpine to find a need that wasn’t being met for both locals and tourists, and decided a wine bar would be a perfect addition. Just like our bed and breakfast, we hope to create a casual, relaxing and unique experience. “Although Alpine has several restaurants that offer wine, there is no indoor location that focuses on a wine experience. Like at the Alpine Bread & Breakfast, we’ll offer unique wines from across the world, wines that have a story or aren’t commonplace. The location will feature a standing bar for tastings as well as sit-down tables where guests can enjoy curated flights as well as glasses or bottles of wine. We’ll also offer food, such as charcuterie boards, cheese plates, spiced nuts, hummus, etc. with suggested wine pairings. Craft beer and soft drinks will also be available for the non-wine drinkers. Additionally, Alpine

In Sanderson Ferguson Motors coffee shop, art and antiques, local merch 111 W. Oak St., Sanderson, TX (432) 244-4733 FFormer Ford dealership housing coffee, glassblowing, art, antiques, and other goods. Serving Big Bend Coffee Roasters. Owned and operated by and home to Zollie Glass. Jake Harper rehabbed this 6000+ sq foot building with his wife, Hannah, and they opened up in early December, 2021. From their neighbors at the Desert Air Motel in Sanderson:

Wine will be a perfect venue for private parties, meetings, and special events.” Past the wine bar in front, more spaces open up that Sharon and Tom have designed to be available for a range of uses, including the world of team building and leadership training and all of those things that the back area can host. The possibilities are endless. There are opportunities to have meetings, showers, team building, private events, and more. We even have a couple of artists who are repeat guests at the B&B who have already mentioned putting together a “Sip & Sketch.”

“A store and coffee shop is exactly what this small town needed. Ferguson has been caffeinating locals, motel guests, and people passing through on Hwy 90 since the end of November. Whether you’re staying in town or just passing through to Marathon and Marfa or beyond, this little gem is worth a stop.” And from the Big Bend Conservation Alliance: “A super cool former Ford dealership now serving coffee from Big Bend Coffee Roasters, the work of local Texan artists, and antiques. Stop by, shop local, and grab a BBCA t-shirt by Dana Falconberry, Julie Speed, or Cruz Ortiz or pick up a BBCA hat when you get your coffee.”

AVOIDANCE:

AN IMPORTANT DEFENSIVE SKILL By JIM WILSON

nother important defensive skill is developing the ability and the determination to simply avoid trouble. Too often it is our mouth or poor judgment that causes us to find ourselves in dangerous situations. One of my fellow personal defense instructors sums it up by saying, “Don’t go to stupid places with stupid people to do stupid things.” In most towns and cities there are certain neighborhoods that have a higher crime rate and the smart thing to do is simply avoid going there. In the same vein, there are certain bars and nightclubs that have a reputation of getting too rowdy. And then there are some popular music bands whose concerts always seem to attract trouble of one kind or another. Voluntarily going to such places, a person shouldn’t be surprised to wind up in the hospital, or jail, or worse. Another way to avoid violent confrontations is to consider the friends or

family members that a person chooses to hang out with. If old Charlie just happens to be the best old boy in the world, except that he likes to fight a little bit, he might not be the best person to go bar hopping with. And one needs to be alert for the family member who seems to turn family discussion into an argument. We may not be able to avoid these kinds of people entirely, especially family members, but we can certainly minimize our contact with them. In a similar vein, controlling our own temper is a really good way to avoid trouble. When we lose our temper, while dealing with a person who has already lost his, we have a case of two fools meeting. And nothing good can come from that kind of situation. It is much smarter to play the calming influence, or just get away from the problem. Losing our temper is rarely a justification for engaging in a violent confrontation and may not justify our

use of force. Just about any violent confrontation, especially if weapons are involved, is going to be closely examined by law enforcement and the judicial system. It is far better when the evidence shows that we defended ourselves while trying to get away from the trouble. Police and prosecutors generally take a different view if the person was clearly an unwilling participant. And, should it come to trial, an attorney will have a much easier job defending a person who was truly trying to avoid trouble. So, in many cases, avoiding violence

is really about our personal choices. Increased awareness allows us to spot trouble and our first thought should be, “How do I get away from this?” In other cases, we try to not let our ego, self esteem, or foul mood color our judgment. So, in short, my friend was exactly right...”Don’t go to stupid places with stupid people and do stupid things!” Jim Wilson is a retired Texas peace officer and former Texas sheriff with 30 years behind the badge. He currently makes his living as a writer and defensive firearms instructor.

FEBRUARY 2022 The Big Bend Gazette

SPOTLIGHT Alpine Animal Shelter, Alpine Humane Society and the Alpine Humane Society Cattery

Zinnia

s e s s y l U Ulysses: Grey Alpine Humane Society Cattery 706 N. 5th Street, Alpine, TX 79830 Ulysses, born in late October, 2020 is a beautiful grey tabby boy.. He’s learning to trust people; we are delighted to see him starting to trust us, enjoy our company, and play happily. Ulysses brightens up in the company of other cats. We’re enjoying watching him relax and be able to play! We’d prefer he gets adopted by a loving, patient family. He will blossom in his forever home. He’s young -- let’s get this darling shy-ish boy into a real home so he can fully enjoy his youth and mature into your hand-raised companion. Ulysses is on the shy side indeed, seemingly opting for sleeping and watching you from above but he is actually a very playful cat who can easily be summoned by tempting him a cat flirt stick or by whipping out some tuna. He is slowly coming around with us so if he lets you pet him, love on him, and likes to stick around near you then he is giving you signs that he’d love you as his new family.

Busy Bee Zinnia: Light Calico Alpine Animal Shelter Zinnia is a lovely, small female calico born June 2021. Her absolute stunning beauty along with her great, sweet personality makes her one of the better kittens at the shelter. Zinnia doesn’t know she is beautiful and just wants you to love her. That trait makes her so desirable. Her joy at your attention and her absolute purr of pleasure is her strongest trait. She can entertain herself with toys but when you are with her, she just opens up to love. Even though she craves your attention, she is secure and is simply comforted by your presence. Zinnia will be good with kids 6 and older. Her outgoing, happy temperament should do well with a child who respects her. Zinnia will play hard and snuggle hard. She is happy with other cats and has demonstrated no aversion to cats of any age. With all new cats, you should expect some adaptation time if there is a resident cat. Proper introduction is the key. Zinnia is litter box trained, neutered, and has all her age-appropriate vaccines. Although she has ridden in a carrier to the vet and there were no problems, in a home environment that will need to be tested. She is not a vocal cat but is a polite, respectful, dainty cat. We believe she will be a steady companion, growing sweeter and more beautiful each year.

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Busy Bee: Dark Calico, age 16 Alpine Humane Society Cattery It’s hard to believe that this gorgeous girl is 16 years old. Please don’t let her age put you off. Busy Bee’s owner took sick and surrendered her hoping that her cat would find a comfortable home to live out the rest of her life. Busy Bee came in with Little Misse. We know that she prefers a cat who is her size and would prefer another cat who loves to just spend gentle time with. Since Busy Bee is a “Diva” we know too, that she will ask for her personal space when she needs it. Mostly, Busy Bee is just an older cat looking for a warm window sill to spend her time. Her days of being busy are mostly behind her but she still has some wonderful companionship to give. She has extraordinary markings and would love to grace your home with her presence. Let’s get this girl out of the shelter so she can live her best life.

Roadie

Ollie Ollie and Roadie - Friends Alpine Humane Society Cattery Ollie (orange) and Roadie (grey) are best friends and about the same age. They are at Alpine Humane Society Cattery, part of the Thrift Store on 5th Street in Alpine.

Roadie - Grey Was found on Highway 17 between Balmorhea and Pecos on a rainy morning. He was small and huddled between the solid yellow lines on the highway. Roadie was about the same size as Ollie (red cat) and they both went to their Alpine foster (Nancy Dominguez) during the daytime and came home with me to Fort Davis each night. We “job shared” the fostering and Roadie and Ollie became best friends.

Ollie - Orange cat Ollie came to Jethro Homeward Bound Pets in the Big Bend as a bottle feeder at about 2 weeks old. Ollie was bottle fed and handled quite a bit by volunteers and fosters. While he was quite young, I found Roadie on the way to Pecos and he was about the same age, so they grew up together. At about 4 months of age, Ollie developed a middle ear infection which threw off his balance a bit. He recovered from the infection just fine, but sometimes holds his head to one side like he is curious about what you are saying to him. Ollie is very friendly and enjoys being held. He and Roadie have loads of personality.

There are many wonderful cats and dogs at the shelter awaiting good homes. Visit www.petfinder.com and put in Alpine’s zip code 79830. Follow the Alpine Humane Society on Facebook Alpine Humane Society Thrift Store, 706 N. 5th Street in Alpine Open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm All proceeds help animals of Brewster County. We can help you defray the cost of spaying/neutering your pet.

Call us: 432.837.2532 www.alpinehumanesociety.org FEBRUARY 2022 The Big Bend Gazette

Dogs at the City of Alpine Animal Shelter 2900 Old Marathon Highway • Alpine, TX 79830 • (432) 837-9030 Dog play groups are made possible by the Alpine Humane Society’s funding of “Enrichment Teams” who encourage the dogs to play with each other in the large exercise areas at the shelter. The enrichment staff promote socialization among the dogs, while giving extra encouragement to the shyer dogs, like Tres, the white and black dog.

Ariel & Peanut

Tres Peanut is a Doberman Pinscher, approximately two years old, who loves people and dogs. Peanut must have exercise and lots of it. Not little slow walks around the block, but big walks and hikes at a high energy pace. Peanut is extremely intelligent and good natured, very physical, but not a bully at all. Knowing Dobermans would be a bonus to someone who wants to adopt Peanut. Ariel, like Peanut, needs lots of exercise every day. Ariel is about 2 years old and, as the photo shows, Ariel loves to run and play with other dogs. She is confident with people as well.

Ida Tres is pretty shy and fearful, although she plays with other dogs. She is devoted to the enrichment staff and to the Alpine Animal Services staff. Observers of Tres suggest that anyone interested in adopting her should commit to visiting Tres at the shelter several times, walking her, seeing her with other dogs, earning her trust, and learning her special personality. Tres has made great progress with people but this progress would be lost if she were suddenly moved to a home with people she didn’t know at all. As much as the enrichment staff and volunteers want Tres to have a home, they all want her to have a gentle transition. This view is not necessarily the position of the City of Alpine Animal Shelter. There are other, smaller dogs, and one Pyrenees mix at the Alpine Animal Shelter. You can see their photographs and bios on Petfinders. Just search Alpine Animal Shelter dogs. https://www.petfinder.com/member/us/tx/alpine/alpine-humane-society-tx1202/ Or google Petfinder Alpine Humane Society

The City of Alpine Animal Shelter is at 2900 Old Marathon Hwy, just east of Alpine. It’s easy to miss the turnoff. Call for an appointment: (432) 837-9030

The Big Bend Gazette FEBRUARY 2022

Ida looks very black labby and loves to climb into the wading pools, even in cold weather. Once Ida gets to know a person, she is very affectionate. She prefers calm people and is easily spooked into shyness with too much hyperactivity among humans. She plays well with Peanut and Ariel and other dogs.

RAISING THE BAR

inning isn’t normal. You have to do things differently from other people, if you want to win consistently at a high level. These are two of the tips for success that Coach Clint (C.J.) Aragon shares with each new member of the Rodeo Program at Sul Ross State University. It’s plain to see that these principles guide any pursuit in life. He has the students apply it to their academic performances. He requires that the students set their own individual goals, write down their goals, and track their own progress in reaching each goal. The academic results are an extraordinary 82% graduation rate for his kids, compared to much lower graduation rates for the rest of the college. The rodeo team’s graduation rate is much higher than the overall graduation rate of most rural and small colleges in Texas right now. Of the 42 students who are part of the rodeo team, 17 majors are represented. Aragon needs no notes to describe his team’s academic achievement stats: “I had three academic all Americans last year, 2020 2021. This fall I had 38 students [out of 42] with 3.0 or higher grade point averages.” Some of his students are graduating with simultaneous bachelors and masters degrees, having carried heavy class loads throughout. Aragon ties winning with applying oneself to studies, frequently telling the students that “Smart people win.” Coach Aragon has shown the students how to turn studying into a team effort. Students tutor one another. If a student excels in chemistry, for example, and another struggles with that subject, the first tutors the second. But it’s never just one way, because most students have strengths and at least one subject needing some help. Thanks to Dr. Warnock installing wifi in the arena, the students can study and work on scholastics during practice while waiting their turns in the arena for their respective events. They use that time and technology to help one another. Aragon says that when teammates start investing in tutoring, they give mutual assistance to one another. It’s a team investment and it adds to the sense of being part of the team, at every level. The Coach sets out his expectations for the students at the outset, and sticks with those expectations, which include the highest standards of performance as a student, as a community member, as a team member, and at practices. He tells the students on day one of the semester: If you can’t meet these expectations, you won’t do well on this team. He continues, “I expect them to attend class and to sit up front in class. To leave their cell phones alone at practice. To show up early for practice and see what they can contribute.” Next, the coach has the team set their own team standards. He stays out of that and leaves it entirely to the students: “They all come up with their own team standards. And how they are going to handle those standards.” And they do, establishing the ways the students will hold one another accountable for meeting or failing to meet team standards throughout the year.

By MIMI SMITH

Because the university does not categorize the rodeo team as a sport, the record breaking, championship winning, academic and athletic triumphs of the rodeo team go unnoticed or at least unrecognized by the university. Usually, when a sports team brings home a championship, the school makes big announcements and hangs congratulatory banners from the walls. When it comes to the rodeo team . . . crickets. Randy Jackson, lifelong Sul Ross booster who recently passed away, was intent on remedying the woeful absence of recognition for the team’s wins. For starters, Jackson wanted banners hanging from the halls celebrating the team that has won nine national team championships, and 25 individual championships. “We are the winningest team in the nation,” says Aragon. Being part of a rodeo program requires buying, maintaining, feeding and caring for livestock. This, and travel, equipment and ranch supplies are expensive. The university gives the rodeo program very little funding, which is why the students themselves are frequently raising money. The rodeo team receives approximately 7% of the funding that the university allocates for the football team. This comparison is noted, not to take anything away from the sports teams, but only to illustrate the institutional disparity. Learning fundraising has become part of the program, where Aragon firmly believes and teaches that all obstacles are met with positive attitudes and action. The students raise five times the money that the university gives the program. Still, the funding disparity is slow to turn around, and the team lost a mighty booster when Jackson died. Coach Aragon lost a good friend. Jackson was among the first people Aragon met when he arrived in Alpine to see the school and, from then on out, Jackson pitched in to reconnect any rodeo exes who may have lost contact, and introducing Aragon to people in the community, and even checking in to see the team any day that members practiced. The rodeo exes group and the Ranch Rodeo Asso-

ciation raise over $50,000 a year for scholarships for current and future rodeo team students. The recent Apache Adams Memorial Rodeo back in November raised money for scholarships. Two of Aragon’s event planning students organized that rodeo down to every detail, from publicity to schedules and brochures. Another student was the announcer, and team members supplied and managed the livestock for the event. When asked what the community can do to support the BarSRBar team, Aragon says: “Come watch practices.” The team practices their many events at the S.A.L.E. arena almost daily. Editor’s Note: This is the first part of a 3-part feature on the Sul Ross University Rodeo Team.

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FEBRUARY 2022 The Big Bend Gazette

2022 Lone Star Cowboy Poetry Gathering Schedule Friday

Saturday

February 18

February 19 7:30 – 8:30 am Chuckwagon Breakfast at Poet’s Grove

7:30 – 8:30 am Chuckwagon Breakfast at Poet’s Grove, Kokernot Park

9:00 am The Mercantile Opens in University Center second floor

9:00 – 9:45 am Let’s Talk Cowboy Poetry and Songwriting with Joel Nelson and Andy Hedges Marshall Auditorium

9:30 – 10:00 am Welcome Marshall Auditorium 10:00 – 10:30 am Keynote Address – Vess Quinlan Marshall Auditorium 10:30 – 10:45 am Break 10:45 – 11:45 am “A Taste of the Gathering” Marshall Auditorium Gail Steiger, Rod Taylor, Mary Abbott, Brenn Hill, Andy Hedges, Ross Knox, Daron Little, Andy Nelson, Brigid and Johnny Reedy, Randy Rieman, Randy Huston, and Kristyn Harris 12:00 – 1:00 pm Grub up! Lunch on your own 1:00 – 1:45 pm Friday Afternoon Show: Weaving Words hosted by Randy Rieman Marshall Auditorium (ticket required) Featuring Daron Little, Jay Snider, and Andy Wilkinson 2:00 – 3:15 pm Free daytime sessions Marshall Auditorium Tribute to Larry McWhorter Andy Hedges (host), Chris Isaacs, Jean Prescott, Ross Knox and Vess Quinlan UC Open Sagebrush Rock and Cowboy Folk

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LoneStarCowboyPoetry.com Brenn Hill (host), Doug Figgs, Daron Little, and Rod Taylor

UC Open The Cowboy’s Canon Randy Rieman (host), Ross Knox, Andy Hedges, and Jay Snider

Fine Arts Theater Songs of the Trail Pipp Gillette (host), Bob Campbell, Glenn Moreland, and Fine Arts Theater A Michael Stevens Cowboy’s Life Dale Burson (host), Craig Museum of the Big Bend, Carter, Chris Isaacs, and Amy Education Room Vaqueros, Hale Cowboys and Punchers Gary Prescott (host), Craig Museum of the Big Bend, Carter, Don Cadden, and Jay Education Room In Cahoots Snider Deanna McCall (host), Don Cadden, Brigid and Johnny Museum of the Big Bend, Reedy, and Pipp Gillette Gallery Songs from True Stories Museum of the Big Bend, Gail Steiger (host), Allan Gallery Ridin’ Drag Chapman and Rodeo Kate, Michael Stevens (host), Mary Andy Wilkinson, Dale Burson Abbott, Glenn Moreland, and Jim Jones Lawrence 300 Mandolin Question and Answer Lawrence 300 Open Mic Hosted by Jim Wilson Workshop with John Moore 3:30 – 4:45 pm Free daytime sessions Marshall Auditorium Twilight on the Trail Randy Huston (host), Kristyn Harris, Jill Jones and the Jingle Bobs, and The Prescotts

7:30 – 9:45 pm with intermission Friday Night Show Marshall Auditorium (ticket required) Jack George, Pipp Gillette, Andy Nelson, and Brenn Hill Gene Nowell -- MC

10:00 – 10:45 am Free daytime sessions Marshall Auditorium Brewster County Cowboys Don Cadden (host), Joel Nelson, and Craig Carter UC Open Muleskinner Blues Ross Knox (host), Chris Isaacs, and Jim Wilson Fine Arts Theater Keeping the Tradition Alive Reunion Rod Taylor (host), Randy Huston, and Dale Burson Museum of the Big Bend, Education Room Rattlin’ Rocks Andy Wilkinson (host), Amy Hale and Gail Steiger Museum of the Big Bend, Gallery Ride for the Brand Doug Figgs (host), Mary Abbott, and Michael Stevens Lawrence 300 Rope Burns Jim Jones (host), Allan Chapman and Rodeo Kate, and Andy Nelson 11:00 – 11:45 am Free daytime sessions Marshall Auditorium Sun and Saddle Leather Vess Quinlan (host), Joel Nelson, and Andy Hedges

UC Open Cowboy Girls Kristyn Harris (host), Mary Abbott, and Amy Hale Fine Arts Theater Caught in the Wire Glenn Moreland (host), Jim Jones, and Deanna McCall Museum of the Big Bend, Education Room Top Hands Jay Snider (host), Randy Rieman, and Brenn Hill Museum of the Big Bend, Gallery Around the Campfire Chris Isaacs (host), Jack George, and Doug Figgs Lawrence 309 Spurs That Jingle Brigid and Johnny Reedy (host), Allan Chapman and Rodeo Kate, and Bob Campbell Lawrence 300 Youth Poetry Contest Hosted by Elizabeth Baize and Karen McGuire 12:00 – 1:00 pm Grub up! Lunch on your own 1:00 – 1:45 pm Saturday Afternoon Show: Swing It ! hosted by Gene Nowell Marshall Auditorium (ticket required) Featuring Kristyn Harris and Brigid and Johnny Reedy

2:00 – 3:15 pm Free daytime sessions Marshall Auditorium More Illustrated Letters from Charles M. Russell With Randy Rieman UC Open Some Days the Song Writes You Craig Carter (host), Gail Steiger, Daron Little, Rod Taylor Fine Arts Theater Hands from the Land of Enchantment Jill Jones and the Jingle Bobs (host), Deanna McCall, Randy Huston, Jim Jones Museum of the Big Bend, Education Room Hang and Rattle! The Prescotts (host), Jack George, Pipp Gillette, and Brigid and Johnny Reedy Museum of the Big Bend, Gallery Night Hawks Andy Nelson (host), Allan Chapman and Rodeo Kate, Glenn Moreland, and Bob Campbell

Marshall Auditorium Banjos in the Cow Camp Michael Stevens (host), Dale Burson, Allan Chapman, Pipp Gillette, and Brigid Reedy UC Open Western Prose Authors – Vess Quinlan (host), Amy Hale, Deanna McCall, and Andy Wilkinson Fine Arts Theater Stampede! Bob Campbell (host), Doug Figgs, Rod Taylor, Jill Jones and the Jingle Bobs Museum of the Big Bend, Education Room Hold Yer Horses! Mary Abbott (host), Jack George, Randy Huston, and Kristyn Harris Museum of the Big Bend, Gallery Northern Cowboys Daron Little (host), Andy Nelson, Ross Knox, and Brenn Hill Lawrence 309 Mavericks Don Cadden (host), Gail Steiger, Gary Prescott, and Jean Prescott

Lawrence 300 Open Mic Hosted by Jim Wilson 7:30 – 9:45 pm with intermission Saturday Night Show Marshall Auditorium (ticket required) Randy Rieman, Rod Taylor, Joel Nelson and Jill Jones and the Jingle Bobs Joel Nelson -- MC

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Lawrence 300 Guitar Question and Answer Workshop with John Moore 3:30 – 4:45 pm Free daytime sessions

FEBRUARY 2022 The Big Bend Gazette

ast month’s column discussed Stylle Read’s mural celebrating a selection of the greatest Texasborn or based musicians. That mural got me thinking about who, of the many past and present music makers here in the Big Bend, would best merit a spot on a hypothetical mural of regional musical notables. This is risky territory to tread, as there are so many talented musicians to choose from. And there is little doubt that the choices made (many based on consultation with others in the community who are in the know) will raise questions – like the Stylle Read mural itself did – about who is included or not. So, at the onset, I must respectfully concede that the selections put forth here are far from definitive or exhaustive, and subject to both later addition or subtraction. But first, let me set the basic parameters of my choices. I have focused on those musicians, singers, and songwriters who have resided at some point here in the Big Bend, on those whose talents are such that they have had an enduring impact, and those who have achieved a high level of local, and in some instances national, recognition for their musicianship. This has been something of a challenge for bygone days; while it is obvious that music-making in the Big Bend goes back generations, we know little to nothing about its historical details and cannot concretely note names. The photo that accompanies this column, purportedly of an Alpinebased band from around 1905, depicts a fiddler, harp player, trombonist, guitar player, a rifle toting “bouncer,” and seated on the ground, a fellow holding a threatening-looking object in his right hand and extending a hat outward to the viewer with his left,…. soliciting tips perhaps? Unfortunately we know little more about the earliest years of musical performance in the Big Bend until the mid-sixties, when Randy Jackson, onetime music promoter and Alpine resident, penned an article for a Sul Ross University newsletter entitled “Music of Alpine and Big Bend, 1965-1975”, which highlighted the names of players and performance venues in the area at that time. In turn, a more recent tome, “On the Porch, Life and Music in Terlingua, Texas” by W. Chase Peeler (University of Texas Press, 2021) offers insights on the characters who sparked and still maintain the unique music scene in South Brewster County. From these two published sources – combined with many conversations with local music aficionados and my own personal experience -- we can begin a selection of the most notable musicians and groups deserving of a place on our hypothetical

The Big Bend Gazette FEBRUARY 2022

from Around the Bend

By DAVID M. KOWAL

Photo courtesy of the Big Bend Archives, Sul Ross University

mural. Be forewarned that most are purveyors of country music or what’s come to be called Americana, and almost all are male. Among those cited by Jackson -- many of whom are associated with Sul Ross -is John Schweers, who, in the ‘60s was a guitarist and vocalist for both the country-western SR Brands band and the rock and rollin’ Believers. Schweers ultimately moved to Nashville, establishing himself as a prolific songwriter who has penned well-known hits (“Day Dreams About Night Things,” for instance) for the likes of Charley Pride, Steve Wariner, Alabama, Ronnie Milsap, and many others. Also mentioned by Jackson, is Gil Prather -- known to his fellow musicians as the “Man from the Rio Grande” -- an American Hall of Fame singer and songwriter, first active in Alpine in the ‘60s, then later in Nashville, and ultimately back in Terlingua, where he still sometimes performs. A tribute album produced last year and dedicated to the highly talented Prather has regrettably never been commercially released. The Terlingua music scene is directly related to the reinhabitation of the Ghost Town in the late 1970’s and the establishment of Far Flung Adventures, for whom several of the most prominent musicians and songwriters worked as

boatmen on the Rio. The rafting company was founded in 1977 by Steve Davis and Mike Davidson, the latter of whom also formed and played guitar for one of Terlingua’s first established bands, the Terlingua All Stars, and later, Los Pinche Gringos. Also, at one point residing in Terlingua and working in the ‘80s as a Far Flung river guide (and the first singing cowboy for the Lajitas Stables!) was the late, great songwriter Steve Fromholz, and the equally great singer-songwriter Butch Hancock, who presently resides back in Terlingua and is a frequent performer on the Porch and in the Starlight Theater. A former founding member of the Flatlanders (together with Jimmy Dale Gilmore and Joe Ely) Hancock has, for years, hosted a traditional New Year’s tribute at the Starlight in honor of Townes van Zandt. Also among Terlingua’s notables is Ted Arbogast, performer of Americana border music and founding member of Los Pinche Gringos, whose music encompassed norteno and cumbia with country and classic rock. Arbogast, who is the owner and engineer of Studio Butte, South County’s original recording studio founded in 1995, often performs border-inflected originals with the talented singer and songwriter Charlie Maxwell, who additionally deserves his

place in our mural. Also to be celebrated among the South County hall of musical fame is the legendary Uh Clem, the incomparable fiddler Mark Lewis, the musical virtuoso Marc Utter, and the singer-songwriter Jeff Haislip, who arrived in the Big Bend in 2010 and has since spearheaded the cross-border musical festival, “Voices from Both Sides,” first held in Lajitas in 2013. Jeff and Marc, together with Moses Martinez, have recently been playing as a group dubbed the Texas Studs, making their debut at this year’s Alpine Art Walk. There are many more proficient musicians active in South County – some of whom I hope to profile in future columns -- than can be accommodated here while still leaving room on our hypothetical mural for those active up North, that is, in Alpine, Marfa, Marathon, and Fort Davis, where the music scene (and might we dare say, the way of life) is somewhat distinctive from that of Terlingua, though in its way just as vibrant and accomplished. The musical artists of the North will be the subject of next month’s column, Part II of the wall of fame, as we seek to fill out the limited spaces on our hypothetical mural. It should already be apparent, however, and to paraphrase a famous line from Spielberg’s movie Jaws, “we are gonna need a bigger wall!” Part 2 The music makers of Alpine, Marfa, Marathon, Fort Davis, and Presidio are the subject of this month’s column, Part II, of those who deserve a place on the hypothetical wall of fame celebrating Big Bend musicians and songwriters (Part I for January’s Gazette focused on Terlingua’s musical scene). Again, I must emphasize the delicacy of choosing these nominees, reminding the reader that there is very limited space on the wall and that the criteria for inclusion, at least at this point, requires a prolonged residence in the Big Bend, and a musical talent that has had, over time, an enduring impact. There are many additional musicians and songwriters I would love to include in the future as the wall expands, some of whom are noted at the end of this column. The music scene beyond the environs of Terlingua is every bit as vital as in South county, but, as the lifestyle in other areas of the Bend differs from the former, so, too, in some ways, does the music. In the larger Big Bend we often find more firmly established musical groups – as opposed to individuals who might regularly jam together – who play more traditional gigs, Although still predominantly country and Americana in nature, these groups often feature Latino and specifically Mexican border

roots. As well, these music makers also generally feature more female performers. While Bob Wills is the king of Stylle Read’s mural featuring Texas widemusicians, the holder of that title here in the Big Bend is Neil Trammell, singer, songwriter, founder, and bandleader of the honky-tonking Doodlin’ Hogwallops, who have been making music together since around 2004. Neil originally came to the Big Bend as a Sul Ross student, thus following a pattern of musicmaking by preceding Lobos, some of whom were highlighted in the previous column. The Hogwallops band -- which has consistently featured superb musicians like harmonica player Todd Elrod, guitarist Chris McWilliams, and banjo virtuoso John Ray – has graced many a stage throughout the Bend thanks to Neil’s musicianship, songwriting abilities (his tune “Ramblin’ Man,” for instance, is destined to be a classic!) and deadpan delivery of outrageously bad jokes. Playing together since 2015 are the accomplished Alpine musicians and vocalists who comprise the Swifts (Amelie Urbanczyk, Eden Hinshaw, Chris Ruggia, and Tony Curry). Offering an Americana repertoire that includes their own

tunes, sonorous harmonies, and superb musical and vocal arrangements they are an absolute listening delight with a deservedly large following extending beyond the Big Bend. And again by way of Alpine, is the popular and talented house band at the Old Gringo (they play almost every Thursday night), A Few Too Many, led by Rick Ruiz, and featuring the harmonica of Donnie Bason and the guitar licks of Tony Lujan; their sound is enhanced by the addition of a Latin beat in much of their repertoire. Also deserving of a place on the wall is one of Alpine’s favorite sons, Anthony Ray Wright, whose boot-scooting country style, particularly his take on traditional country classics, evokes the good ole days before “murder was committed down on music row”! Looking to Fort Davis, native-born fiddler, guitar player and songwriter, Doug Moreland – who has a statewide following for both his foot stomping music and his chain-sawing sculpture – also belts out a host of traditional tunes. From Marathon stems cowboy-ranchermusician and songwriter, Craig Carter, who leads the popular country-western dance band, the Spur of the Moment Band. And without doubt, deserving of a place on the wall is the legendary

5-string banjo player, a guiding force of the New York folk music revival of the 1940s and ‘50s, Billy Faier. Originally from Brooklyn, Faier settled in Marathon in 1995, passing away at 85 years in 2016. While Marfa is most celebrated for its visual arts, one can’t ignore its many musical talents, the top among them being Remijio Primo Carrasco and David Beebe, a dynamic duo who have joined forces over the past years to make border infused music. They have their second compact disc coming out on April 7. Perhaps of lesser renown among the general public, but also deserving a place on the wall is the extraordinarily talented Marfa-based blues and rock guitarist and record producer, Scrappy Jed Newcomb. Over the last 33 years, he has played as an accompanist for Ian McLagan, Patti Griffin, Ray Wylie Hubbard, and Johnny Nichols, among others, and, of course, in his own right. There have been several Mariachi groups who have graced the Big Bend with their music, but none better, in my opinion, than Mariachi Santa Cruz. Based in Presidio and comprised of the highly versatile trumpeters John and Lucy Ferguson, their daughter, vocal-

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ist and ukulele player, Molly Glenn Rodriquez (winner of the 2017 “Tejano Idol” award from the Austin Tejano Music Coalition), and guitarrón player Michael Hernandez, their roots lie in the Norteño and Tejano music of their border home. Blaring horns, Molly’s soaring vocals, and superb arrangements make this group a Big Bend standout. There are, of course, many more talented music makers waiting in the wings who should have their place on an expanded stage. They are far too numerous to list, of course, but here are a few old and new timers whose future placement on the wall will surely come: Tom Griffith, Tom Curry, Ross Fleming, Jon Hogan and Maria Moss, Roland and Deb-o Rollins, Allyson Santucci and Pete Westfall of Texas Sage, Hall’s Last Call Band, Scott Walker and the Edge of Texas band, Just Us Girls, Alex and Marti Whitmore, Jim Keaveny, Laird Considine, Paul Sprawl, Chet O’Keefe, Hank Woji, Moses Martinez, George Gross, Pat O’Bryan and Sarah Burton. Finally, I want to conclude this month’s column in remembrance of two individuals – Pablo Menudo and Nikki Haas – who, each in their unique way, lent their talent and spirit to the thriving music scene of the Big Bend. RIP.

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Live Music Events Compiled by DAVID KOWAL, Gazette Music Editor

Holland Hotel Courtyard, Alpine Sat, Feb 5, Allyson Santucci, 7-10 Sat, Feb 12, The Swifts, 7-10 Sun, Feb 13. Tom Griffith, 6-8 Fri, Feb 25, Hall’s Last Call Band, 7-10 Sat, Feb 26, Darrin Kobertich, 7-10 Fri, Mar 11, Hall’s Last Call Band, 7-10 Sat, Mar 12, The Swifts, 7-10 Sat, Mar 19, Tom Griffith, 7-10 Old Gringo Coffee and Cocktails, Alpine Every Sunday, ”Pickers Circle” Open Mike, 4-7 pm Every Tuesday, ”Tuesday Tunes” Open Mike, 6–10 pm Every Thurs, Rick Ruiz and a Few Too Many, 8-11 pm Big Bend Bluegrass Jam - Kokernot Park, Alpine SECOND SATURDAY OF EACH MONTH, WEATHER PERMITTING Saturday, Feb 12, 2-4:30

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The Big Bend Gazette FEBRUARY 2022

Railroad Blues, Alpine Every Wednesday, Karbach Karaoke 8-11 Neil Trammell - Streaming Live from Facebook Neil Trammel Music Chuck Turvey

The

Tuesdays at 9 pm Cactus Farm and Jackass Flats (separate places but close together) Highway 118,North of Study Butte a Every Sunday, “Gospel Music” with Tara and Robert Mann, 3 pm Every Tuesday, “Blues Tuesday” with Chet O’Keefe, 7 pm Every Friday, ”Acoustic Open Music Circle” with Jim Boynes, 7 pm Gage Hotel, Marathon Fri, Feb 12, Lane Smith, 6 pm Lone Star Cowboy Poetry Gathering at Sul Ross State University Feb. 18-19 See LSCPG’s full schedule in this issue of the Gazette for music performances and workshops on songwriting, guitar, and mandolin Venues that regularly host live music performances: check their listings online Terlingua Ghost Town Starlight Theatre Marfa Planet Marfa Lost Horse Saloon

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Telling the ranching story to a changing audience By SUE HANCOCK JONES

ohn Erickson was speaking to a group of students in a Houston school when he took a break between sessions and spent time in the library looking for books about ranching. The ranching section wasn’t very large, and he began to notice that the books were not only published in New York and Chicago, but they also were written by writers in New York, Connecticut and Vermont. “Why should these kids in Houston be learning about the ranching industry from someone in New York?” he thought. “Why can’t we tell our own story?” By that time Erickson was already wellknown in the ranching heartland and parts of urban America. Families were rearing their children on his books about a cowdog named Hank who thinks he’s in charge of ranching security at a fictional M Cross Ranch. Erickson had sold millions of his children’s books and had a fan base of several generations growing up on Hank books, but they were all fiction adventures (or in Hank’s case, misadventures). Why couldn’t Hank tell the story like it really is—real ranching with real cowboys in a real world where grass turns into beef? Without knowing who would read them or how they would ever be seen, Erickson wrote three non-fiction books narrated by the famous cowdog. The books humorously teach readers about ranch life and include livestock basics, ranch wildlife, ranch hands, horses, weather and ranching as a business. For five years those books stayed in Erickson’s computer files until he met Julie Hodges, Helen DeVitt Jones Endowed Director of Education at the National Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock. Hodges invited Erickson and his wife Kris to give a performance and book reading on the NRHC patio in 2015. The center would send emails, write a news release, post the event on Facebook and set up a few hundred chairs. The result was not a few hundred people but nearly a thousand—

and not enough chairs. That’s when Julie knew that Hank the Cowdog connected with children and their parents at a level that shouldn’t be taken for

granted. Could Hank be the one to tell the ranching story—the larger story? Big plans sometimes have small beginnings. For 50 years the NRHC has continually

worked to keep the history and heritage of ranching in front of a mainstream audience, but the audience has changed. A high percentage of Americans are at least three to five generations removed from agriculture and most don’t have a basic understanding of food or agriculture. Reaching out to a new audience isn’t an idea that just floated through the NRHC during a pandemic. The center actually began reaching out to a new audience five years ago when John Erickson offered the NRHC an opportunity to publish and distribute a different kind of Hank the Cowdog book, one solely aimed at educating the reader about ranching. The three non-fiction books that sat in Erickson’s computer files for five years grew into a five-book collection titled the “Ranch Life Learning Series.” The NRHC has published four of the five books—one a year for four years—with a final book coming out in the near future. As each book has been published, generous funders have helped give away 5,000 copies to Lubbock area fourth graders. Curriculum specialists worked with Julie Hodges to create lesson plans and an activity guide for each book. More than 20,000 books have been given to Lubbock area schools since 2015, and Hodges is aware of at least 60 other school districts teaching the book series. In addition to the books distributed by the NRHC, school districts or individual consumers have purchased at least 45,000 books in the non-fiction series. More than 600 teachers have attended Ranch Life workshops to learn how to incorporate the books into their social studies and science curriculums. Lesson plans and activity guides can be downloaded for free from the Ranch Life Learning series (ranchlifelearning.com). In addition, the website explains how to make this book series part of your classroom/ homeschooling curriculum or a part of your quality time with the children in your life.

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The Big Bend Gazette FEBRUARY 2022

The Big Bend Gazette – February 2022

Articles inside

By Francisco Cantú