HSU's Western Heritage Day Brings Another Age to Life
Western Heritage Tradition in 27th Year
"What are you going to do when you're on the open range and there's no microwave or a McDonald's around," challenges Dr. Jacob Brewer. Four-year-old Michael, of the Woodson Early Childhood Center, leaned a little closer, hoping to hear an answer.
Michael is one of about 200 students from Woodson who loaded onto yellow school buses to come to the Hardin-Simmons University campus for Western Heritage Day.
Overall, the campus sees about 4,500 students from schools in Abilene and surrounding cities. This is the day that HSU gets a chance to educate some younger students on what it was like to live in West Texas even before the town of Abilene existed.
Dr. Brewer, an Assistant Professor of Physical Therapy, went on tell the students how cowboys would dig a deep pit, with the dirt higher on one side, to stop the cinders from blowing out. Considering how windy it was, students could clearly see that the pit was working.
"This is how the cowboys would cook their meals and even keep their coffee warm," he explains to the students, as he points to a shallow shelf in the pit. Alejandro and Jacqueline, in Miss Andie's class at Woodson, were clearly excited when they were handed fresh pioneer biscuits to try.
Brewer says he learned a lot of his pioneer information when he was growing up in the ranching town of Water Valley, just 20 miles north of San Angelo. Little did he know, a few decades later, he would be sharing that info with a new generation, who today, may have heard about pioneers for the first time.
School bus, after school bus pulled into the parking lot on the west end of the campus with small noses pressed close to the glass windows. Excited children, anticipating the field trip, were each pinned with a yellow star designating them as an official member of the "HSU Sheriff's Posse".
Hundreds of HSU students, faculty, staff and ranching professionals manned stations ranging from steer roping to showing the children how horses are shoed.
Austin and Evan from Pioneer Drive Day Care got a chance to bob their heads to the old country sounds of the Catclaw Boys with Greg Young on the string bass.
Western Heritage day has been going on each year in the heart of the campus around the refection pond since 1981. That's after a handful of professors came up with the idea of showing children the rich heritage the West has to offer. Hardin-Simmons has a lot of tradition and history itself, so why not teach it!
NoNow, four-year old Michael from Woodson has an answer to the question, "What do you do when there's not any golden arches in sight."
Photos: Dr. Jacob Brewer (gold shirt); Michael (green shirt);
Western Heritage Day is made possible by the Guy Caldwell Endowment for Western Heritage and the Lee and Lou C. Evans Western Heritage Endowment.
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