Baker Audiology

Corriente cattle at Boote Hill Ranch. Photo by Katie Boote.

SECOND YEAR WINNER

important since I’ve got a job that gets in the way of my life.” Joking aside, he enjoys driving truck for Van Zee Enterprises of Rock Valley. “Up north here, our Corriente cattle have to be tough. They’ve got to have some bone and meat for them to make the winter. I sell mine at about 10 months. But you get down south, they might be 18 months old before they rope them because they’re down in that desert and they just don’t grow.” Demand is good – all of his calves for next spring are sold already. The animals aren’t sold on weight, but rather on quality horns for roping. “If you start out with 20 fresh calves in the spring, you’ll probably end up with 15 of them that are nice roping cattle.” Every fall, Dennis heads for the annual gathering of the North American Corriente Association in Gillette, Wyo. “Going to a Corriente show, it’s like going to a family reunion, except you like everyone. They’re just a whole lot of fun.” Dennis’ brother, Alan, was also active in rodeo and he roped Dennis into another adventure. Kevin Costner filmed a portion of his 1994 film “Wyatt Earp” at the Spanish Five Ranch located in the southern Black Hills. “They needed a couple guys to work all these buffalo because Wyatt Earp was a buffalo hunter for awhile. My brother called me and I said ‘Sure, why not?’ It turned out to be pretty fun.” What did Dennis know about herding 1,500 head of buffalo? “Not a damn thing until I got there,” he said. HEARING THE SOUNDS OF LIFE

21-22 WINNER

Melissa Baker, M.A., CCC-A, FAAA

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Dennis’ wife, Jean, and their daughters, Taylor and Katie. Dennis Boote on the cover of the magazine of the North American Corriente Association. His wife, Jean, took the photo while Dennis watered his horse, Sage, in the nearby Big Sioux River. This was the winner in the association’s photo contest one year.

Buffalo run faster than horses so a faceoff with the shaggy beasts requires nerves of steel by the wrangler and his steed. “This is absolutely 100 percent true: If you’re on a horse and a buffalo charges you, you only have one option. Charge them right back. They will turn tail,” he said. Over the course of filming, he got charged by buffalo about 15 times. “You know how hard it is to round all those buffalo up and get them going down this valley, and then to stampede them for the camera? First you want to keep them quiet and then you wanted them to run. By the time we got to the last couple of days, the buffalo were sick of us pushing them down the pasture.” Working on a film on location was a strange experience. “A movie is one of those deals where you’re supposed to be ready at 10:00 in the morning, but then it’s 3:00 before you saddle your horse.” Dennis said every meal was catered. “You went to eat in a great big tent – they might have some seaweed or kale for you. The guy who was Kevin Costner’s stand-in was real down-to-earth. He’d say: ‘Where the hell are the barbecues and potato chips?’” About a decade after the movie madness, he was roping steers at the Corriente show in October 2003 and got off-roaded onto his head when the steer tripped. When the hospital was doing a CT scan to see if he had head trauma, they found a brain tumor. He had more tests done in Sioux Falls and at Mayo Clinic. The Mayo neurosurgeon wasn’t optimistic because the tumor was the size of a fist and it was deep in his brain. Surgery would have left his brain severely damaged. And there was no beating around the bush about the situation: Dennis’ wife, Jean, has worked as a histologist in Sioux Falls hospitals since she was 17. She prepares tissue samples for a pathologist to study. His options were radiation or chemo or both at the same time. When they found out the cancer was stage 3, he said: “Hey, it’s wide open now. The guns are loaded, the hammer’s cocked. I want them both at the same time. We’re going at this thing as hard as we can.’” He had 32 radiation treatments and took a high dose of a new chemotherapy drug every day for nine months. “I kind of got along with the chemo all right. I took the anti-puke pills. I never missed a day of work. I was moving grain bins and shoeing horses back then.”