Help, Hope and Healing is what the Child and Family Guidance Center has tried to do ever since it was founded in 1966 by Mrs. Alma Howell, pediatricians Dr. Max Woodard and Dr. Don Freeman, and members of the Grayson County Mental Health Association.
The alarm sounds at 4am. In a dimly lighted barn the horses are fed and saddled, the stalls cleaned, all before the light of day, all before the real work can begin. The mornings may be routine, but the rest of the day is far from it.
Photographer Erwin Smith of Bonham, Texas was to the American cowboy what Matthew Brady was to the Civil War. Smith captured the life of the cowboys of West Texas and New Mexico in a time when the West was changing forever.
The way north was an old trace that lay along the great wrinkle in the earth that separated the Blackland Prairie to the east from the Southern Plains to the west. The trail ran from Southwest Texas north to present day St. Louis, Missouri, and for centuries it served as a conduit for trade and war and migration by peoples ancient and modern. It went by many names. Most referred to it as the Shawnee Trail, for the ancient Indian village of Shawneetown near present day Denison.
Cowboy Churches usually don’t have gymnasiums or ceramics classes. Rather than basketball or skate night cowboy churches host team roping, bull riding, barrel racing and other rodeo sports. The youngsters enjoy “mutton bustin” (sheep riding) until they are big enough to sit a saddle on their own. According to those who attend, Cowboy Church most often appeals because dress codes don’t exist, and the music is worshipful but it is country. With common decency applied, you really can “come as you are.”
“I don’t make a pretty bit. I don’t make a high shiny show bit. I make a working bit. Some say a bit is a bit. No, it’s not. It’s like any other working tool. You got to have different things for different horses,” Kirby said.
If you are looking for a Texas symbol as big as the state itself, consider the longhorns. They evolved from cattle brought to the Americas from the Canary Islands by Spanish explorers in the late 1400s and early 1500s. By the early 1800s wild longhorn cattle were common throughout Texas.
“What you’re looking for is a partnership when you train them,” he said. “The horse responds to what you ask freely and without resentment, willingly. When you break horses, you’re breaking their will. They do the job but they don’t do it willingly. He [the horse] needs to be part of it. You need to be able to express what you want in a way the horse understands.”
“With so much trauma and stress over our country’s situation, it’s nice to have a little happy, and you’ve got to be happy around goats and Western music,” said Waynetta Ausmus. “Goats will make you laugh, and Western music will make you tap your feet.”
Folks like the Horns (Jeannie and Arthur) and the other volunteers are God-sent to touch people’s lives and give them a hand up. It is so easy to let this part of our community stay invisible, tucked away on the back streets and alleys. Imagine the courage it takes to be in that room on one of those nights, and admit to all that you are a flawed human being and that you are asking both God and neighbor for help.