country music duo Brooks & Dunn, and His single biggest challenge was plenty of less famous folks — have one when he sold his Phoenix photography thing in common, regardless of price. studio in 1989 and purchased the old “They are never boring,” Snortum Pershing Movie Theatre, repurposing says. the building into a photography stuEach pair, which takes about 250 dio, boot company and living space — hours to complete, has as many as 200 all at the same time. Today, the theater pieces of leather, all intricately placed, also houses 18 vintage travel trailers glued, stitched and assembled. Work and crazy collections of tikis and includes hand-measuring each cusephemera from times gone by. The tomer’s feet, designing and creating patbuilding was featured on HGTV’s terns, hand-cutting the leather, hand“Home, Strange Home” in November. Marty Snortum with his wife Nevena Christi and stitching and hand-welting. “We do weird stuff because it’s imtheir son, Trip, in front of the old Pershing Movie Snortum claims to have the best boot Theatre, which houses a photography studio, portant and fun,” Snortum says. In cutter, or “Top Man,” in the world — a Rocketbuster Boots and the family home. 1998, Snortum and the Rocketbuster second-generation builder who is only 29 years old — and gang built the Guinness Book of World Record’s “World’s the best “Bottom Man,” the comLargest Boots” — a whopping pany’s laster, who just turned 64. size 328D that are 5 feet tall “We are one of a handful of and 8 feet long, heel to heel. To see a photo gallery of companies that still produces a Snortum fondly remembers traditional American product in his years at Roanoke, the “ex- Marty Snortum and Rocketbuster America,” Snortum says. “If you cellent instruction, with small Boots, link to the Web and iPad buy a cool pair of boots at age intimate classes that seemed versions of Roanoke magazine at 35, you won’t wear them out, more like family.” “Roanoke didn’t educate me http://tinyurl.com/afyr3ot. Watch but you can pass them down. It’s for my career, it educated me the complete boot-making process important to produce legacy in for my life,” he says. “I think on Rocketbuster’s Facebook page. this modern age of throwaway. people forget that education is No one will ever toss out a pair the basis or springboard to life, not necessarily exact training of Rocketbusters.” for a specific career. I absolutely loved the small size in Snortum, who opened his first photography studio in El comparison of the mega universities that churn out thousands Paso in 1981, is still a busy commercial photographer and of students.” produces all of Rocketbuster’s advertising. He has traveled “Roanoke has history and legacy, the same stuff I try to throughout Mexico and Europe for clients, shot scores of put into my businesses here in west Texas.” catalogs, is credited with more than two dozen books and As for what’s next for Rocketbuster, Snortum wants to has been published nationally for 30 years. create a line of vegan cowboy boots. Snortum says his photography business takes a new diThat way, “Sir Paul McCartney can buy a pair. He can’t rection about every eight to 10 years. “In the past four years, now, but maybe in 2013,” Snortum says. RC publishing has taken a severe economic hit, and my business is now more niche oriented,” he says.
“ROANOKE HAS HISTORY AND LEGACY, THE SAME STUFF I TRY TO PUT INTO MY BUSINESSES HERE IN WEST TEXAS.”
A view of the “yard” at the Snortum-Christi compound, which Snortum lovingly refers to as the “turtle shell.” 28
Roanoke College Magazine