The community is invited to “mosey on down” to the Florida Museum of Natural History tomorrow evening for a fundraising event called “Passport to Cowboy Florida.” Coordinators hope folks will dress in blue jeans and bandanas and plan to kick up their heels and pony up some dollars to support the museum’s year long activities. WUFT-FM’s Donna Green-Townsend talked with coordinators Chris Machen and Eileen Silverman about how the fundraiser is in conjunction with the current exhibit “Five Centuries of Cracker Cattlemen.”
Justin Gopher with cracker horse. Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation, July 2007.
“Keepers of the Last Frontier,” that’s one way to describe Florida’s cowboys. Maintaining the five century old tradition of cattle ranching in the Sunshine State is challenging as rapid growth continues to encroach on what used to be sprawling cattle ranches. Donna Green-Townsend talks with two people involved in the effort to save this longtime industry for future generations. In “Cattle Ranching: Keepers of the Last Frontier,” she talked with Bob Stone, the Outreach Coordinator for the Florida Department of State’s Folklife Program which has had a travelling exhibit dedicated to the lifestyle of Florida’s cowboys. She also spoke with the Executive Director of the Conservation Trust for Florida, Busy Shires-Byerly, who is reaching out to cattle ranching families with information about how to conserve their family land through various creative conservation strategies.(From Donna’s audio archives November 22, 2009)
