1406C - C.O.W.B.O.Y. Culture: Jim Gray & Drover's Mercantile, Ellsworth

JIM GRAY - FOUNDER OF THE C.O.W.B.O.Y. SOCIETY: I guess we have people from all walks of life that are interested in the traditional cowboy way of looking at things and enjoy the camaraderie that goes with that.So that's the draw of the whole thing is feeling a sense of community

EVERY FALL, FOLKS FROM ACROSS KANSAS AND NEIGHBORING STATES GATHER IN ELLSWORTH TO CELEBRATE THE AMERICAN COWBOY. THEY ARE MEMBERS OF AN ORGANIZATION THAT IS CALLED, APPROPRIATELY ENOUGH, THE COWBOY SOCIETY.

JIM GRAY: And of course the cowboys stands for COCKEYED OLD WEST BAND OF YAHOOS SOCIETY. It's an organization that was started a number of years back to promote the cowboy history of Kansas and to preserve the cowboy heritage.

JIM GRAY FORMED THE COWBOY SOCIETY SHORTLY AFTER OPENING DROVERS MERCANTILE IN ELLSWORTH, WHERE HE SELLS AUTHENTIC CLOTHING FROM THE ERA OF THE GREAT CATTLE DRIVES. IN 1996, JIM BEGAN PUBLISHING, "THE KANSAS COWBOY", WHICH COVERS VARIOUS COWBOY EVENTS ACROSS THE STATE. AND IN THE FALL OF THAT SAME YEAR, JIM ORGANIZED HIS OWN EVENTS, THE COWBOY "SPRING GATHER" AND THE COWBOY "FALL ROUNDUP".

JIM GRAY: There's a little bit different focus for each one. The Fall Roundup is more oriented towards re-enacting and the Spring Gather tends to be more towards more the actual working cowboy.
For this Fall Roundup, we basically had the old chuck wagon camp - we spent the first evening around the campfire, which kind of tends to recreate the old cowcamp atmosphere that the cowboys had when they came into the cattle towns with their Texas herds and they waited to ship their cattle and they waited outside of town. Along with that then the cowboy mounted shooting has gotten really popular. And that is new with this Fall of 2000 is the Kansas Cowboy's Mounted Shooters held their state finals here over the weekend. On Saturday night, we do a Cowboy Ball that's based on the dance styles of the 1870's. String instruments and , grand march, ? polka,Virginia reel and all that nice socially event, fun time.

THE FALL ROUNDUP ALSO INCLUDES A LOCAL HISTORY PROGRAM CALLED "GRAVE CONVERSATIONS"

JIM GRAY: And in that program we resurrect some of the old pioneer people that were here in the early days of Ellsworth that re enactors of course play the parts of these people and tell their stories. There is something about that that is very unique and is educational for people to watch. More so than someone just getting upon stage and telling some history.

THIS YEAR'S FALL ROUNDUP ATTRACTED OVER 150 PARTICIPANTS. PEOPLE WHO FOR THE MOST PART, HAVE LITTLE IN COMMON EXCEPT THEIR INTENSE DEVOTION TO THE AMERICAN COWBOY.

GREG HELLER, C.O.W.B.O.Y SOCIETY: Well, it's history. It's heritage. It's our heritage. The American cattle industry started basically here in Kansas with the railheads. You've got the Cowtowns of Wichita, Abilene, Newton, Dodge City, Ellsworth - all right here in Kansas. It's our history and heritage.

JIM HOY: It's really interesting that the cattle drive era lasted about 25 to 30 years, but the cowboy image has prevailed for a century or more. Partly because mythically the cowboy represents much more than it did in real life. Why should the cowboy who was an ordinary laboring man, nothing really special about him, except he did his work horseback. I think that's one reason that did it. In the Old World, in Europe and Asia both, the ruling class were mounted. And in fact the term for gentleman in most of the European countries is synonymous with horseman. Enquirer in England. Cavalier in France; caballero in Spain; reiter in Germany. All those terms mean rider or horseman. And what made the new world different in North and South America and Australia to as far as that goes, is that ordinary people in a common place rode horses.

ALTHOUGH THE PARTICIPANTS ARE HERE TO HAVE A GOOD TIME, THEY ARE VERY SERIOUS ABOUT AUTHENTICITY. EVERYTHING FROM THE CLOTHING THEY WHERE TO THE WEAPONS THEY CARRY.

GREG HELLER: Yea, it's very important. You know it's probably one of the interesting things about it is doing the research on the clothing and the weaponry. You try to make everything apply to the 1870's, the age of the cattle towns.

JIM GRAY: It's all a matter of the closer that you can get to the reality of that time period the better you can understand that period. And to a large extent these people are not just doing this for their own entertainment . They're doing it for their own education, they're kind of historians.

THE COWBOY HAS BEEN AN AMERICAN ICON FOR OVER 100 YEARS. AND EVENTS LIKE THE "COWBOY FALL ROUNDUP" HELP TO KEEP THAT IMAGE ALIVE. BUT AS WE SETTLE INTO THE NEW MILLENNIUM, WILL THE AMERICAN COWBOY BE ABLE TO MAINTAIN HIS POPULARITY?

JIM HOY: The cowboy is pretty adaptable, has been from the beginning. He's adapted to railroad trains, he's adapted to barb wire, he's adapted to windmills, he's adapted to automobiles, and trailers and everything else.

JIM GREY: Often Americans are refereed to as cowboys. We go to the Olympics in cowboy hats. We represent ourselves that way even if we are born in New York State, its very interesting association that America has with the cowboy and the rest of the world sees us that way. I don't believe it will ever die and I would like to say that the cowboy will never die. Long live the cowboy.