Today’s guest blogger is Bethany Braley, Executive Director and Publisher of the National Day of the Cowboy program. This year the Day of the Cowboy will be July 24, 2010.
I think this is an important day and a good opportunity to let the public know more about the western lifestyle. If your community doesn’t have an event please think about creating one.
You can get more information at their website by clicking HERE.
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It was devastating to receive the news that Dusty Rogers found it necessary to permanently close the Roy Rogers – Dale Evans Museum. He locked the gates on December 12, 2009 and auctioned off parts of the family collection at the High Noon Show and Auction in January and more will be sold in July. More of the collection will be auctioned at Brian Lebel’s auction in Denver, Colorado never again to be viewed or enjoyed in its entirety.
This tragic loss should be a wake up call to all who believe the current cowboy culture and its rich history need to be protected for current and future generations. It’s heartbreaking evidence that preservation cannot be taken lightly, nor can it be viewed as a hobby or simply an engaging way to pass the time.
The closing of such a significant American museum was disturbing in itself, but consider this recent piece of alarming information gleaned from the USDA – The first year I gathered statistics for Senator Thomas for the Cowboy resolution was 2004. That year, the USDA stated there were 800,000 ranches contributing to the economy of every county in the country.
Checking on the data for the 2008 resolution for Enzi and Giffords, the USDA told me there were then 727,000 ranches. When I called for numbers for the 2010 resolution, the woman I spoke with told me we were down to 656,000 ranches in America.
This drastic decline is shocking to me. Something has happened to nearly 150,000 cattle ranches in only six years. Have they been absorbed by other ranches? Sold off to developers? I don’t know the answer, but I do know I hear many stories about ranchers fighting for (and losing) their water rights or losing their land and their grazing rights.
If we continue to lose 30,000 ranches per year (and remember this is just ranches, it does not take into account how many farms we’re losing), that means we’re on track to see all ranches vanish from the American landscape in less than 25 years, and we’ll be importing virtually all of our beef from other countries.