Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Annual event marks old-fashioned way of life
Katie Howell-Chapman, aka Rodeo Kate, plays "Ashokan Farewell" on her fiddle Saturday while accompanied by, from left, Randy Houston, Dale Burson and Allan Chapman during the Nara Visa Cowboy Gathering.
Susie Cauble of Clayton cuts up potatoes at an 1880s chuckwagon. She and her husband, Rhett, were preparing supper Saturday for the annual Nara Visa Cowboy Gathering.
NARA VISA — The annual Nara Visa Cowboy Gathering over the weekend served as a tribute to a changing or disappearing way of life — not just cowboy culture, but Nara Visa itself.
About 15 poets or musicians traded prose or songs Saturday afternoon in the auditorium of the Nara Visa Community Center, formerly the town’s school. Proceeds from the event help maintain the 1921 building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.
A few poems or tunes brimmed with humor or silliness (including a tale about flatulence that had performers and audience members tittering). But most came with stories of sadness or nostalgia — a hat once worn by a deceased father, a ranch that went bust, finding buffalo bones in the soil and recalling dusty cowboy roads that now are paved.
The melancholy was pounded home when fiddler Rodeo Kate performed “Ashokan Farewell,” best known as being the mournful theme song for Ken Burns’ “The Civil War” television miniseries.
Katie Howell-Chapman of Decatur, Texas, who performs as Rodeo Kate, said she became enamored with the area more than 20 years ago when she lived in the gas fields of Rosebud, New Mexico.
“I fell in love with the countryside,” she said, “and when I heard about this gathering, I know I had to go. Coming back here gives me a chance to step back in time.”
Howell-Chapman noted when she first began to attend the Cowboy Gathering in the late 1990s, Nara Visa still was a busy U.S. 54 town near the Texas border. But as nearby Logan grew, Nara Visa and its businesses withered.
“As our society changes — and it has to — it’s sad to see everything go down,” she said of the town. “I remember when there used to be three big truck stops over here, and each one had its own restaurant. There also were a couple of bars in town. There used to be this vibrant community here. But as cars and trucks get better, they don’t have to stop as often.”
Rhett Cauble of Clayton, who brought his restored 1880s chuckwagon to cook up steak dinners, grew up on a ranch outside of Nara Visa. He holds his own memories.
“Ralph’s Diner and the Red-X were both open and hopping little joints about 1987,” he recalled. “There was a mini-mart down here; the bar and two truck stops still were open back then.”
Ultimately, Howell-Chapman said the Cowboy Gathering honors the ranching lifestyle.
“That way of life is still there in pockets,” she said. “The bigger ranches, you still have to go out on horseback to fix fences and take care of the cows. But technology has taken over, and you have to have a really big spread to make it.
“It’s also become a lifestyle, much like when the Cowboy Code was during the Roy Rogers era,” she added. “It’s been reinvented with the Cowboy Gathering. People still can have the cowboy spirit even if they don’t live on a ranch. The purpose is to not forget that way of life.”