| Maureen
has been a featured evening performer at the Lubbock Gathering,
performed at
the Wickenburg Christmas Gathering, Southwest Stock Show Gathering, and
many
other venues in the rural west. Because of her academic
credentials in Southwest history, Maureen has often partipated in
events with
a more academic/historical slant. At Lubbock,
she was featured reader, academic presenter, and moderated the Texas
Tech panel, Cowgirls in the American West. Keeping livestock limits acceptance of invitations
such as to speak at the (Buffalo Bill) Cody
Museum in Cody,
Wyoming, and the Museum of the
American West
(formerly the Autry Museum of Western Heritage) in Los Angeles,
but Neil and Maureen still love to reenact, present historical lectures
in costume, and
share the occasional cowgirl poem.. |
|
How did an "English rider"
become a cowgirl poet? When
she and husband Neil went to their very first cowboy poetry gathering
that
freezing-cold January in Elko, Nevada, they acquired two surprising
interests: Neil in poetry (like a lot of
guys, cowboy or not, he thought poetry was fine for a Mother’s day card
but to
attend a weekend full of it….no way) and Maureen for trying her hand at
writing
a cowgirl poem.
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| The
result, Jake, melds
traditional cowboy values with roping a tapir. Neither Maureen nor her poetry are routine or
predictible. From a self-described
intolerance for anything not connected with English riding, she evolved
into a renaissance equestrian, expanding her interest to
all aspects of the equestrian world, became the better professional for it, and wrote a poem about it.
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| Over
the past thirty years, Maureen and Neil have been involved in many
aspects
of the equestrian business, from huge cattle ranches to 200+ stall show
barns, backyard
riders to aspiring team members, until retiring to Mountainair,
NM, with their longears (donkeys
and mules). |
