Growing Up In Small Town America Part 9

 SANTA ROSA ROUNDUP

Because of E. Paul Waggoner's love of the western ranch life and his desire to preserve the history and color of the early West, he built the Santa Rosa Roundup on 160 acres, just south of Vernon in 1946, holding the first roundup rodeo that year. The historic facility still uses the same wooden chutes to release bulls and bucking broncs. Kicking off the historic rodeo is the massive mile long downtown parade consisting of floats, bands, riding clubs, local celebrities and misc. entries. This was huge in my life.  School was turned out early for the parade and people from all over that part of the country would participate in this grand parade. My pappy rode his quarter horse, Ginger, in the Santa Rosa parade, and later when Bryan was old enough, he would ride alongside Pappy on a horse called Paint.        

                                         

Bryan’s square-dancing group also participated in the parade, performing in front of the courthouse.

Bryan is just beyond the girl in the blue dress coming around the circle.

Bryan's back is to the camera, holding hands with the girl in the navy dress.

The Santa Rosa Roundup was a huge Rodeo, drawing from some of the nation’s best as participants and performers. Daddy sometimes had a hand in getting the entertainment lined up. I have a picture of Daddy with Festus, and when I went off to college, I brought home friends one year to see Tanya Tucker perform. Daddy always purchased a box, front and center. Mimi and Pappy would come, and we would all go to the rodeo together. Daddy was in charge of the rodeo programs, printing them from his print shop that was connected to the Newspaper office. Each night after the rodeo ended, Daddy would bring home bags of change from the sales of the program. It was a thrill to help him separate all the coins, so that he could account for the profits from the sales of the program.

                              

Carolita Quillin with her parents, Ava and J.C.Jones                    Nancy and Paula Quillin 

                            Bryan selling the programs.

As with any large inheritance, it’s that third generation that cannot hold it together. In the late 1990s, the adult Waggoner kids couldn’t agree on what to do with the estate. In January 2004, a story in Texas Monthly covered "The Showdown at the Waggoner Ranch." The story concerns the saga of Texas’s second largest ranch and its shambles of an inheritance left by W.T Waggoner to his descendants. It’s a history of a sliver of Texas’s elite, how they made their money and how they, often scandalously, spent their time. The Waggoner Ranch was eventually sold to Stan Kroenke from Montana, husband of Ann Walton, heir to Walmart. Thank goodness they have kept the Ranch as a working ranch. It was during this time period that Bryan’s daughter married a working Waggoner Ranch cowboy.