Cue the 4H Mom mode....

I should really feel a little guilty sitting inside writing this in the "coolness", well sort of, of my home while my daughter and husband deal with flies, poop and 1,200 pound beasts at the Bent County fair.
Well, not so much.
Later, I will be busy enough in my own mom sorta way.

I just had to sit down and write something because I was so full of enormous happiness, and I'm so proud of my kiddo.  She not only handled a very difficult to deal with steer but tamed him enough that he is going to fair.  He was a real booger.  I think I yelled many times at him and nicknamed him "Chicken Fried Steak."  I'm become attached to others in the past because these bovine beauties really do become gentle and sweet and a lot like a giant pet, but ...they are not.  They are a project.  Kids must care of them, tame them, feed them, wash them, brush them, walk them etc.  They also must keep a record book of their work with the cattle.  They record how much they feed them, how much they bought them for and how much is spent on all of the things related to their care up until the night of the livestock auction where they sell them.  Even though much of this depends on the beef market that night,  some of this is backed with the community's support as they buy the animal the 4H student shows.  They then load them on a truck and the experience is over, until they're paid the check.  This is when expenses that are due must be paid in full, then and only then does the 4Her get to pocket the rest which usually goes into a college fund.  Some is left out for fun money to spend.  So I wrap my part of this up to share with you how very proud I am of not only the job she did, the tasks and chores she labored through but also her take or story about it.   Her account of her year is so beautiful that you really must read it as it expresses gargantuan gratitude.  My heart is swelling!  And I would post all of  it here but I'm not....except for the last part because, it says it all so in summation, here's her wrap up of the year:

              

                ~There have been many helpful people and I don’t know what I would have done without them. The Reyher family has been a huge part of my beef project this year and years past. The Stokers at the La Junta Mill have supported me as if I’m part of their family. My grandpa, my uncle Travis Taylor, and my mom and step dad have always been there when I was having problems. Without them, I would have never gotten this wonderful opportunity which many kids and teens don’t get to have. Being a 4H member is a great privilege and I’m very grateful I get to be a part of the Blue Ribbon Winners club.   ~Hannah

~Anne Boswell Taylor, 2017

In 3-2-1....

You never really LEAVE radio and it doesn't leave you!  I have heard so many of my friends say that, that it sort of gets in your blood.

Hello, I'm Anne and yes, I have an on-air addiction issue.  Actually, it's just that I really love to write and I love a good story to tell. 

So, I'm back!  I'm back on-the-air with Southeast Colorado's Best Country KVAY 105.7.  It's a small station with big dreams and big plans and I'm so excited that I will be covering news for them, although part time. 

My love of wearing headphones started in Tulsa, Oklahoma but my love of radio stems from my childhood obsession of toting around my Panasonic cassette tape recorder and talking to friends.  Oh, how they would start running when they saw me coming.  I actually perfected almost eliminating that clunking sound when you would mash down on the play and record button and very gracefully and ever so softly push down the pause button.


Oh the early days of my career you would find me on a July day in home sewn shorts (compliments of my Aunt Twila) with my then short legs dangling from a splinter giving wooden porch swing rocking back and forth as I "interviewed" my Grandma Tressie Weems Boswell Branson Boothe.  She, like many Ozark pioneer type women had lost husbands to farming accidents and sickness and at nearly 80 years old she remembered the stories well.  This human interest story about my own family got me interested in recording more.  "Wait Grandma, I need to flip the tape over!" I would tell her.  She carried on as if the memory was just yesterday with details of a one room house with a dirt floor where she raised my dad and my aunt, alone nearly as Grandpa Andy Brooks Boswell died of a farming accident.  That cabin was on the property of a more well-to-do Ozark citizen, they had a horse they would allow my dad and Aunt to ride to school.  When they arrived at school, they just patted the horse on the behind and said, "go home," and he did. 

"The water so so clear and so cold and felt so good on our hot feet in the summer!"  Grandma mentioned,  later I would grow up to appreciate this cold clear beautiful stream as rare and a real gem of the Ozarks.  My aunt sat on the other side of me and kept time with my swinging to join in as if she was still a girl running through those hills.  I am named for that Aunt.  Aunt Twila Jewel Boswell Perkins Richardson.  Aunt Twila tells of Sunday picnics and Watermelon placed in those creeks to keep it cold until everyone was finished with the fried chicken and cornbread that Grandma packed for lunch. 

They are both gone but oh, how I wish I had kept those recordings and not recorded over them.  Those were my stories and my history. 

They say that news is just a current recounting of future history. 

I'm happy my parents gave me that recorder,  I'm happy that Grandma patiently dealt with my questions and being recorded. 
And I will never forget the smell of newly opened cassette tapes waiting to capture something amazing.

I hope that I can find amazing news of the Arkansas Valley and cannot wait for this exciting opportunity!

~Twila "Anne"