A Brief Remembrance of Elmer Kelton

Born: April 29, 1926, Andrews County, Texas, TX * Died: August 22, 2009, San Angelo, TX * Spouse: Anna Kelton
  • Slatta remembrance of Kelton published in Roundup Magazine (Western Writers of America), December 2009, Volume XVII, Number 2, p. 21.

    Elmer Kelton had attended all but one meeting of the National Cowboy Symposium & Celebration, held in Lubbock, Texas, since 1989. On that one year, he and Ann attended her family reunion in Austria. Thus Elmer seemed the ideal person to write a welcome to my social and cultural history of the Symposium, which he penned in November 2008. [This is one of the last things he wrote before his death on August 22, 2009.] I had looked forward to sitting by his side, signing copies of the book at future symposia.

    Obviously, that dream cannot be realized, but I did read his precious 735 words to an audience at the 2009 celebration. [See full text below.] He eloquently recounted the people and activities that made the first event in 1989 so special to him. And he concluded with some typical Western wisdom: "The cowboy has become an icon, a symbol of what has been and still is best about America.... In these times of fast and often bewildering change, we need an anchor to hold to. Our cowboy heritage is such an anchor." Thanks from us all, Elmer.
    —Richard W. Slatta
  • Here's Elmer's full welcome to my history of the cowboy symposium. You may purchase the book here . Scroll toward the bottom of the Store page.

    Welcome by Elmer Kelton

    There have been moments in our lives that we would give almost anything to relive. I have had many. One I would love to do over would be the first National Cowboy Symposium in Lubbock in 1989. Though few probably realized it at the time, it marked the beginning of a tradition that would live on and grow in size and stature as the years went by. It was also, in terms Hollywood publicists like to use, a “shower of stars.” Some of the best, if not the best-known, poets, musicians, and story tellers were there, contributing their individual best to honor the traditions of the working cowboy.

    There was, for instance, my old friend Ace Reid. He was the best of the cowboy cartoonists of his time, and if you doubted that, you had only to ask him. Ace knew the real cowboy in and out. He portrayed him accurately, and sometimes painfully, for he had been down all those long, dusty roads himself. He had been thrown from his share of bad broncs and trampled by his share of snuffy cattle.

    Not so well known except in his own bailiwick was story-teller P. O. “Slim” Vines, who in his younger years worked with my father on the McElroy Ranch at Crane, Texas. He spent his later life in the oilfields, but he never sold his saddle. He became a painter and sculptor, preserving in his own way his memories of the cowboy years. What I would give to see his shy grin and hear that soft voice of his again, telling of some horseback “wreck” from the past. The venerable Tom Blasingame told stories, as did Apache Adams and others. Baxter Black, fresh from acclaim at the first Elko, Nevada, cowboy gathering, was there with his stinging wit and his hilarious routine about the vegetarian guilt-ridden over having slaughtered a head of lettuce and several tomatoes.

    Carlos Ashley, at 85 giving what he termed his valedictory public appearance, recited a poem about Aunt Cordy, who “contested the devil and rode him plumb over the hill.” Max Evans and Hank the Cowdog creator John Erickson made up part of a writers' panel.

    There were rodeo greats such as Toots Mansfield, several times world champion calf roper, a gentle man and a gentleman in every sense of that word. He was sided by such notables as Harry Tompkins, Larry Mahan, and Jim Shoulders, who reminisced about the “owl-headed, feather-legged” big Northern broncs he used to ride. Don Edwards, just reaching stardom as a cowboy singer, did Streets of Laredo in delta blues style. Yes, it was an event to remember.

    The symposium's chuckwagon cook-offs are welcome excursions into nostalgia, reminding me of the twice-annual roundups of my boyhood, the pleasant outdoor aroma of mesquite-wood cookfires, boiled coffee, and sourdough biscuits, the sound of steaks sizzling in deep fat.

    Through the years I have made a strong effort to attend every cowboy symposium and so far have missed but two. They have become like eagerly-awaited family gatherings, providing a chance to visit with friends we may see but once a year. And each reminds us of old friends we used to see who are with us now only in memory. For more than a hundred years, some people have declared the cowboy dead, a relic of the past. It is true that compared to his counterparts of earlier times, he has become in the words of oldtime cowboy Pecos Higgins “few and thin on the ground.” Yet he is still out there, carrying on the traditions of his forebears. As John Erickson has said, you just can't see him from the highway.

    It is evident that there are not nearly so many of them anymore, and in many ways the nature of their work has changed. They may spend more hours in a pickup than on a horse. Still, there are times and places where nothing can replace the man on horseback.

    The cowboy has become an icon, a symbol of what has been and still is best about America. In championing his story, his music, his art, and his spirit, the National Cowboy Symposium under the leadership of Alvin G. Davis is contributing to the preservation of our Western culture. In these times of fast and often bewildering change, we need an anchor to hold to. Our cowboy heritage is such an anchor.

    Elmer Kelton
    San Angelo, Texas
    November 2008