THERE COMES A TIME
There comes a time in everyone’s life when changes are made that affect one’s lifestyle. In fact, from infancy, our lives are affected by change. It’s easy to reflect on our own trips around the sun and how different things are from what we envisioned in the past. As children, we were all asked multiple times, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” How many of us have ended up doing anything remotely similar to what we once wanted to do. Not only through my work, I enjoyed a lot of hobbies along the way and one was writing poetry, a craft I believe I inherited from my grandparents.
I wrote poetry since early childhood but was considered a “closet poet.” In the early 1980s, I took a photography class from a well-known freelance writer and photographer, Marianne Beel of Valentine. Through a conversation with Marianne, it slipped out that I wrote poetry. She asked to see some of my poems, so I found a couple that I had filed away. She asked if she could have copies of them and I agreed, thinking nothing of it. Lo and behold, sometime later, Ginny Lee, a Sandhills ranch lady, approached me in a grocery store, stating, “Yvonne, I really liked your poem.” I asked, “What poem?” She said, “That funny poem about your roping husband in the Stockgrowers Magazine.” That darned Marianne had wrote an article and included the poem and now the cat was out of the bag, so to speak. About that time, cowboy poetry was getting quite popular and the first National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada was off and running.
Suddenly, cowboy poetry gatherings were popping up all across the country when the late Willard Hollopeter approached me about trying to organize a gathering in the Valentine area. Thinking it might work, I suggested we get some friends together and suggested that I would call Howard Parker at Gordon, Nebraska, who was a very popular cowboy poet and entertainer and who had been featured at that big gathering at Elko. Howard was eager to help us and came to Valentine every month for several years to help with the formation of Old West Days and the Nebraska Cowboy Poetry Gathering held annually in Valentine. Because I had twisted the arms of many folks to help produce this event, it was demanded of me to do some of my poetry. Unfortunately, I was the first poet on the first session and was scared to death. Several of Howard’s entertainment friends from Texas to North Dakota attended to help with the first production and were all very encouraging to me, including Bill Lowman, head of the gathering at Medora, North Dakota, who asked me to come present poetry at that gathering. From then on, I was getting invitations all over and soon was invited to be a feature performer at that National Gathering in Elko. I have been honored to have been invited back 23 times as well as invited to perform at every major cowboy poetry event in the USA and Canada, but there comes a time when I feel it is time to step aside and let some young aspiring poet have my spot. Although I will continue writing, and will continue performing at local events, traveling long distances is no longer on my radar. In fact, two other popular entertainers announced their retirement this past week at the Elko Gathering, they being Juni Fisher and Waddie Mitchell. We all three feel that we have had a great run, were influenced by the best in the business, but the time has come to step aside.
You will still see my weekly articles; I will still write poems about my life on a ranch; and still hope to share my poetry on a local level, but there comes a time to leave the big stage.
