Roger Ringer
Columnist
“I THINK OF MYSELF AS A TROUBADOUR, A VILLAGE STORYTELLER’ THE GUY IN THE SHADOW OF THE CAMPFIRE.”
Louis L’Amour
I have been going to the Cowboy Storytellers of the Western Plains meetings since the mid 1990’s. I have been on the board of directors for several years. I have been producing the groups newsletter for years now. Every so often (especially when I was on stage) I would have someone call and want to hire my group of storytellers for some show. Well the name may be misleading.
Around 1993 a group of ranchers, farmers, cowboys, and old timers were at a cafe in Waynoka Oklahoma. As most coffee drinkers do they told stories of the old days. Then someone said, “you know as we die off, our stories die with us.” On the spot the Cowboy Storytellers Association of the Western Plains was formed. The point being to go around to the smallest places in northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas and record the stories of the pioneers to save in a book. The point being that once the folks are gone their kids and grandkids will never hear of how hard it was to settle this land.
So this group comes to places, some only wide spots in the road, and have the locals get up and tell their stories, video them, and someday publish the stories. This is not a group of entertainers, it is a group that comes to your community and get those stories as close to first hand as possible. We try to get local musicians to come and sing a song or two (all of our music makers died off).
Here is what I am trying to get across. YOU ALL ARE WELCOME TO COME!
Yes you can be a member for $15 per year but you will not be charged for coming. The Storytellers are meeting at The Heritage Center just east of Medicine Lodge on US 160 highway on October 8, 2022. The Board always meets at 10:30 am but the storytelling starts at 1PM. Come early this weekend is the Chambers Fall Festival. There is a city wide garage sale, food truck row, car and motorcycle show and several places to eat. Go to the Stockade Museum and Carry Nation’s house. Tour the museum at the Heritage Center.
If you have some good early day stories just pipe up and tell us. There will probably be some cookies and tea mid afternoon.
If you would like a newsletter email me at [email protected] and give me your address.
How important is it to you to have the stories of your grandparents, uncles, aunts, old neighbors recorded so that your grand children can know what stories you have heard while growing up? Just think that your grandparents to you will be five generations by the time your grandchildren hear them. Will you tell them? Will they listen? Bet you have a hard time remembering stories from your youth because the old folks talking bored you? Would you not want to be able to pass the stories along when your kids and grandkids are old enough to care?
Bring your younguns along to hear stories of the area. It will be a nice fall day and there is nothing on the tube that is worth wasting a good day trip for.
HERITAGE CENTER-MEDICINE LODGE, KANSAS-SATURDAY-OCTOBER 8-1PM-ALL-YA-ALL COME!
