August 30, 2023 Issue, Page 14 of 28

Page Text

PG6 AT THE RODEO, Wednesday, August 30, 2023 Slash-O-Ranch Longharns Travel the Country Randy Hughes, and his wife Jill horn steers in Texas in 1997. We Sander. drove them in the town of Bailey, “I have been in the cattle busi- Oklahoma, and it put them on the ness all my life. I grew up in Dewey front page of the newspaper. Chan- County and moved to Woodward in nel Nine brought the news helicop- 1976. I was on the rodeo committee ters out and showed them on the up here (in Woodward), I always did evening news that night. It just like Longhorns. When I grew up in took off from there. We haul them Dewey County, we always drove our all over America since then,” he ex- cattle. We didn't have a lot of load- plained. ing shoots or anything, so we drove Sander was going to sell them the cattle a long way. I grew up lik- because he didn’t raise longhorns ing cattle drives and always watched on the ranch and didn’t really need ‘Gunsmoke’ and ‘Rawhide,” Sander them. But they found a way to make said. them pay for themselves and decid- While on the Woodward Rodeo ed to keep them. Committee, he wanted to improve their Elk’s Rodeo. He tried driving “It's just kind of been very good steers in the parades on Saturday for the family, and we've got to By Sheryl Ponce seems to be unthinkable, but the as well as the size of the beast. Wes mornings on the last day of the ro- meet a lot of great people all over Slash-O-Ranch cowboys keep a Sander of Woodward hauls his long- deo. He said that they were getting the United States. It has been a real cattle from his ranch or wherever blessing. Of course, we're not with Watching a herd of Texas Long- steady eye on spectators as much horns across the country for special he could find them, They were not the same steers, this is about five horns wondering down Main as the animals. The crowds stop events, rodeos, and parades, with as successful as he would have liked. Streets in rodeo parades or rodeos and stare at the size of the horns, the help of his son Cody Sander, “{ bought 50 head of big Long- See Longhorns page 7. MOMENTS YOU CAN’T PUT INTO.WORDS”