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Thursday, June 19, 2008

Event Celebrates Thorp Centennial

By Laura Nesbitt
Mountain View Telegraph
      Estancia may be the birthplace of cowboy songs and poetry.
    Susan Gervasi, who will introduce her film, “On the Trail of Jack Thorp,” believes that's true.
    The biographical documentary film will be shown at 3 p.m. this Saturday at the Jack Thorp Centennial celebration in Estancia at the Torrance County Fairgrounds.
    The event is sponsored by the Estancia Valley Cowboy Poetry Gatherin' and general admission is free.
    Thorp who was born Nathan Howard Thorp in New York City ventured west in the late 19th century.
    “He came out to spend the summer with his brother in Kansas and he didn't want to go back to the life he knew in New York,” said President Bobby Neeley.
    In 1908 Thorp wandered into the Estancia office of P.A. Speckmann and gave him 6 cents each to print 2,000 copies of 23 collected and self-written cowboy songs, according to the 2005 introduction to Thorp's book.
    “To the Ranchmen of the West this little volume is dedicated as a reminder of the trail days and round-ups of the past,” states Thorp in the preface to his 1908 book.
    “I have gathered these songs from the cow camps of different states and territories. They embrace most of the songs as sung by the oldtime cow punchers,” Thorp wrote.
    Speckmann's granddaughter, Carolyn Elizabeth Wells of Claunch, had just completed a quilt designed especially for the centennial celebration before she died on May 12.
    The quilt will be given back to Wells' family and Gervasi will dedicate the documentary to Wells, Neeley said.
    The idea for a Jack Thorp Centennial began in November at a cowboy poetry meeting.
    Thorp was the first to put together a compilation of songs that nineteenth century cowboys sang to their herds to “calm them,” said Babbi Baker, a member of the poetry Gatherin'.
    Thorp was an adventuresome cowboy who went to Peru as an engineer and only found out after he had arrived that the company had gone out of business.
    But Thorp was not one to waste time and he responded by coming back to the New Mexico and going on a cattle drive.
    “This was the day when the silver screen cowboy was coming into being. Thorp could differentiate between the real life cowboy and the cowboy on the silver screen, because he was a real cowboy,” Neeley said.
    The reality of life on horseback under an open sky, sleeping on the ground and dealing with a herd of cattle shaped a “real” cowboy, Baker said.
    “His poetry is sad to the point of despair. But there's always hope. It's a life of extremes, that's the life of the working cowboy, and that's why I understand Jack Thorp,” Baker said.
    One of Saturday's highlights will be at 1:45 on June 21 when a handful of present-day cowboys plan to recite their own poetry.
    “It's a way to tell our story about the settling of the West. The silver screen cowboy distorted the view. It's the story of conquering, the subduing of the West,” Neeley said.
    Saturday's events include a silent auction of western items at 4 p.m., an $8 barbecue lunch, and $5 for the evening dance which begins at 7 p.m.
    At 9 p.m. Junior Daugherty and his band will play until 11 p.m.
    Proceeds will help sponsor next year's Estancia Valley Cowboy Poetry Gatherin' event.
    There is a cowboy church at 11 a.m. the following morning at Immanuel Baptist Church in Estancia.
    For more information call Neeley at 384-5232 or Baker at 384-1858.
   

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