02/11/08 Going Cowboy!

Going Cowboy! I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Every year in festivals around the U.S. the old west comes alive. Music, food, art & crafts all are a part of a cowboy gathering. It began around the campfires with storytelling and someone playing a guitar and singing a few songs but along about 1985 in Elko, Nevada a bunch of folks got together for the first modern cowboy gathering. Since then a number of events have sprung up including the Spirit of the West: Cowboy Gathering this weekend in Ellensburg. Diana Tasker heads up the Gatherings organization. TASKER: This is our 4th year that we're putting it on. It was about 5 ½ years ago that a group got together a talked about putting it together based similar to the Elko Gathering. Our agricultural  ranching history right here in the valley just seemed like it was a great place to have this event. It seems that these events just keep growing and growing. Tasker says it's a way to connect with the past. TASKER: Well I think everybody you know that mystique of the cowboy and everybody wanted to be a cowboy when they're growing up whether they lived in the city or out in the country. Part of it from those of us who are involved in it, it's preserving the heritage and the history of how the west was. Interestingly someone I was talking to mentioned they didn't care for country & western music. This is pure traditional western music. Tasker says there will be plenty to do for two days. TASKER: The concerts are $30, the dinner show which we started last year and they get a Dutch oven cooked meal and then a show and that's at the fairgrounds and that's $40. Downtown venues  we have 4 different venues both Friday and Saturday from noon to 5 and it's $20 for both days and it gets you into all 4 venues and then the gear and art show is no charge and the workshops are no charge and then the dances which are like concerts in themselves are $20. I've tried my hand at cowboy poetry and while it's not bad&it's not all that good so actually hearing someone who is really good at it is exciting. There seems to be a core group of performers that do these events and Tasker says she could do a month of weekend shows. TASKER: Don Edwards, Waddie Mitchell, Wiley and the Wild West, Brenn Hill, Doris Daly is a poet  she comes down from Canada, Jack Gladstone from Montana, Rockin HW. And there are plenty more in store as well. For more information visit www.ellensburgcowboygathering.com. Hope to see you there. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.