Poetry Gatherings draw on rich legacy

They are all longtime members of the Gathering's governing committee, and all have been with the Gathering since it started in 1986.

The three represent diverse parts of the community: Betty is from a ranching family, Nelson is a former dean at Sul Ross, Bill is a former owner of the Avalanche and now the public relations specialist for the Marfa Sector of the Border Patrol.

The all bring different points of view to the table. That said, they are united in their feelings for the Gathering, for its mission. And all are dedicated to maintaining the purity of the Gathering experience.

"I got on the committee when I was a dean at the university," Sager says. "Here was a literary tradition that's part of our vocation and atmosphere. It speaks to what's meaningful."

Sager is modest to the extreme. It took Tanksley and Brooks to point out the vital role Sager played in guiding Sul Ross's initial participation back in 1986.

You see, in that faraway time (or at least it seems so today), Joel and Barnie Nelson, then married, had just returned from Elko, Nev., where one of the first cowboy poetry gatherings had taken place. Their thoughts were: "We need to do this in Alpine." Looking back, that attitude is the proverbial no-brainer; but at the time, they were talking about something new and different, something that would take a lot of time, work and money to pull off.

The way I hear the story, they approached Sager, then a Sul Ross dean, with the idea. Sager bought into their excitement and approached university President Vic Morgan. From that simple idea - the kind that we all have, although most of us fail to follow through - came a partnership with the university that meant so much for the city, the region, the school and, maybe most importantly, to the heritage of working cowboys and cowboy poetry.

Looking back, Tanksley says, "That first year, I remember that a lot of poets brought tents and camped out on the O6 flat. It was very basic: tents, bedrolls, outdoor cooking."

Nelson picked up on that, adding, "You'd drive by Poet's Grove and there would be a chuckwagon and a bunch of tents. At one time, we even had a bunch of cows down there."

Today, the invited poets are furnished a room, a daily per diem and travel expenses "up to a point," Brooks says.

Also, he says, the local organization has just recently been able to start paying a small stipend - $100 - to each of the participants. "After all," he said, "these are working cowboys; they are taking off from their job to come and perform for us."

Maybe the Gathering isn't quite as rough around the edges as it was 22 years ago, but it still retains the atmosphere and comfortable mystique of a reunion. The atmosphere - very noncommercial, very welcoming, very Western - is intended.

Maybe it was Brooks, or Tanksley, or Sager, but all agreed, "If [the Gathering] ever gets overly commercial, it will be over our dead bodies." I can assure you, that was not idle talk on their part.

"We believe it needs to be a reunion event for the working cowboy," Brooks says, "so [cowboys, the poets] can come and be with each other, display their talents and visit with everyone." In other words, the Gathering is as much for the performers as it is for the people who queue up to see and listen to them.

The committee members acknowledge they could make a lot of money with corporate sponsorships, beverage vendors, food vendors - funnel cakes, anyone? - but they are adamant in their opposition to such commercialization.

What we have in Alpine, they all say, is unique. No other cowboy gathering stays as close to its roots, its heritage. And honoring those roots, keeping the heritage alive is, after all, the sole mission of the Texas Cowboy Poets Gathering.

Brooks says it will take about $40,000 to put on this year's event. All that comes from donations, he says; there is not a huge corporate sponsor, there are none of the commercial (and money-making) trappings you'll find at other events. Those things dilute the purity of an event that speaks to the roots of this region.

Oh, and another thing: The Gathering is about as affordable as anything you can find, maybe the most affordable big event in Texas. That's a strong statement, but consider:

Presentations are free, which is incredible when you think about it. You can hear and see and often talk to people who are the very best at what they do, and all you have to do is get off you butt and scoot on over to the Sul Ross campus. (By the way, a full schedule of offerings, times and locations will be in a special souvenir program published by the Avalanche.)

Extraordinary stage shows each night cost a mere 10 bucks. TEN BUCKS. Man, that's cheap. That's about 3 1/2 gallons of gas (at least today, it is).

But back to Bill and Betty and Nelson and some of the things they remember:

€ Best one I heard involved the flying French fries. You know, just the thought of flying French fries (don't even need the details) is funny. But here are the details: "We used to have a barbecue on Friday night," Brooks says, "And it was a really good time. But one year, we had some windy, wet weather come through. I remember the wind was so strong, that we had French fries blowing off our plates." I'm sorry, but to my 8th-grade sense of humor, that's funny.

€ "We've had couples get married," Tanksley said. "I remember Steve Rafters, a poet and working cowboy back then and a cop in Arizona now, got married down in Poet's Grove."

€ "And Jean Prescott (Jean Beck then) met Gary Prescott at the barbecue," Tanksley said. "They raise horses; they raise horses up near Ovalo. That year, she wasn't invited but she was out there picking and playing; we heard her that year and we invited her the next year." That was all before Prescott became a nationally known singer/songwriter. "I heard her by accident that night," Brooks says, "and I told everyone, 'You have to hear this woman.'" They did and immediately decided to invite her to the next Gathering. She's been a Gathering icon since.

€ "We don't do it anymore, but the thing I enjoyed most was picking up the poets at the airports," Brooks says. Back in the day, most of the poets flew to Odessa International Airport (I'm from Odessa; I refuse to call it Midland International) and needed a ride to Alpine. "That was fun, not work," Brooks says. "picking up these extraordinary people and getting to listen to them talk for a couple of hours on way back to Alpine."

€ "We were honoring J.B. Allen, one of our longtime poets who had died recently. In fact, his wife, Margaret Allen, came to the Gathering," Tanksley said. "Now, every year, we raffle off a set of beautiful, hand-made spurs. That year, a young man, Ray Fitzgerald's son, won the raffle. And he took the spurs over to Margaret and gave them to her."

I doubt there was a dry eye within 50 miles of Alpine that night. (This year, a set of custom spurs crafted by Cotton Elliot will be raffled off at $10 per ticket.)

According to at least one scientific survey, the Gathering attracts at 2,500 people to Alpine. My own unscientific analysis says the numbers are far larger. All local hotels/motels are full; a bunch of other people are staying with friends; motels in Fort Stockton and other surrounding towns report increased occupancy.

Brooks says the hardest part of putting on the Gathering is finding ways to pay for the event.

"We've had to reach out more than we used to because of the increased costs," Brooks says, "and we've had pretty good success."

Brooks quickly adds that local support has been extraordinary and the Gathering is in no way strapped financially, although every year provides a new challenge. For instance, this year, money the Gathering normally picked up from the chambers of commerce and development organizations dried up because of state mandates that such money be spent only for advertising events.

Brooks says that meant a loss of about $11,000, which is more than 25 percent of the Gathering's annual budget. However, donors stepped forward, particularly the Alpine City Council, which just last week authorized a donation of $10,000.

Brooks and Tanksley then ticked off a lengthy list of major contributors and supporters. "We've had many, many people - Sul Ross comes to mind - assisting us from the very beginning, Vic Morgan (president of Sul Ross) has been there from the beginning. And First National Bank (now West Texas National) and Ray Hendryx at the radio station and the Avalanche. We've been very fortunate."

The governing committee includes Michael Stevens, Joel Nelson, Ida Hoelscher, Mark Pollock, Don Cadden, and Tanksley, Brooks and Sager.

These people are not on the committee for personal gain or for ego gratification. They all are very self-effacing about their participation. And all of them have been working with the Gathering for years. They work on the committee - and work is the operative word - because the mission means so much to them.

"We all have the same basic idea of what the event should be," Brooks says. "And we think we put on the best cowboy poetry gathering because of the atmosphere. We try to make it as valuable to [the participants] as it is for the spectators. And they love that. They know they'll have time to visit with their friends."