Oakdale Wins Cowboy Capital
Challenge
On behalf of the Oakdale Cowboy Museum board of directors and staff, we would like to thank everyone for supporting the Cowboy Capital of the World Challenge against Stephenville, TX, and the good natured rivalry that has ensued. We also would especially like to thank Tom Connelly (South Dakota Beef Man) for sponsoring the side of beef as our grand prize raffle item, which was won by Robby Robinson of Oakdale. The Historic Hotel Jefferies in Coulterville, awarded the grand 2nd prize, which was won by Oakdale’s Mayor Ferrell Jackson. Actually this is not a rivalry at all. It has brought a lot of attention to our respective towns and nationwide to the American Cowboy, The National Day of the American Cowboy celebration, and the lifestyle that many have thought is gone. It is not gone. There
are rodeo cowboys that get headlines, standings are published
in the news, and they are on television. Trophy buckles and
road miles. They pay their own way, no guaranteed paycheck,
have no signing bonuses, and no disabled lists. Stephenville
has them and Oakdale does too. Nobody has the corner on the
cowboy market, towns like Salinas, Kaycee, Belle Fourche, Emporia,
and Wickieup and a lot of others have them too. We have others that have grown up on local ranches generations deep in cattle. There are cowboys who will never see the inside of a rodeo arena, and there’s a lot of them. They don’t get publicity or worry about bull-stats, but they are out there. Their belt buckle has the brand their grandfather registered. They go to work everyday with two saddled horses in the gooseneck trailer. They’ll come home tired that night - horses and cowboys. We’ve got them here in Oakdale, and I am sure that Stephenville does too. We’ve got the older generation, ranch owners and ranch cowboys. People like Phil Stadtler that are well-known in cattle trading and raising circles. Local ranches with hundred year histories; Places that still neighbor with each other. I’ll help with your branding, and you help with mine. We are raising the next generation and that is what this celebration really is all about - the future cowboys and cowgirls. We have young men and women going to college on rodeo scholarships. We have young people that are working on and off the ranch trying to piece together a set of cattle and some land to carry them. They are working at pack stations, in practice pens, cow camps, and auction yards honing skills to get ahead. Young people that may or may not ever be household names - Hodge, Smith, Murray, Grohl, Gatzman, Bacigalupi, Santos, Johnson, Ardis and others. They are out there, they are our future, and we can all call them "cowboy". One of the greatest cowboy writers, Will James, grew up in a Canadian city, started cowboying late in his teens, and preserved that era in words and amazing illustrations. He closed his last book, The American Cowboy, with this statement “ The cowboy will never die”. In his vernacular I can only respond, “Thanks Will, we’re proud of the past ones, and we got a whole crop of new ones ready to crack out….” Bruce Johnson, President Oakdale Cowboy Museum, Board President
“Ask any of the boys on the trail right now to ask their
dads or granddads, who is the Cowboy Capital and they’ll
tell you.” “Oakdale is the
Cowboy Capital.” “Oakdale
was known for the cowboys that lived here. Not just rodeo cowboys – real
cowboys that worked on ranches. To me, Oakdale was the first
Cowboy Capital of the World.” “Saying Oakdale isn’t the Cowboy
Capital is like saying Cheyenne isn’t the Daddy of em’ All.” “Oakdale
was a Mecca for cowboys when I arrived here in 1963, where
it was known for ranching and rodeo cowboys. It was already
called the Cowboy Capital of the World long before that.” “Cowboys have always
had a presence in Oakdale and the community has carried this
slogan for as long as I can remember. We’re proud to
be known as the Cowboy Capital of the World.” |
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