PRESS RELEASE — Monday, May 10, 2010
For Information Call Anne Peterson at 208-373-7368
or Bob Evancho at 373-7369
New OUTDOOR IDAHO Seeks Out Cowboy Lifestyle In Today’s Idaho in New Show, “Home on the Range”
— Airs Thursday, May 20, at 8:00/7:00 p.m. MT/PT
— Repeats Sunday, May 23, at 7:00 p.m. MT/PT
— See it in HD Thursday, May 20, at 9:00/8:00 p.m. MT/PT and Sunday, May 23, at 8:00/7:00 p.m. MT/PT
The American cowboy icon rides the range of our imaginations, but in many ways the traditional range worker could still feel at home even today working livestock in the Idaho landscape.
A new OUTDOOR IDAHO episode, “Home on the Range,” seeks out the cowboy lifestyle in contemporary Idaho — riding the range on roundups, joining sharpshooters at western-style contests and listening to cowboy poetry.
“The real heyday of the American Cowboy — from after the Civil War until the 1880s — lasted less than a generation, due in part to western settlement, barbed wire and poor range management,” says Bruce Reichert, executive producer and host of OUTDOOR IDAHO. “But even today, thanks to the West’s many acres of public lands, you can still find those hardworking solitary figures on horseback, riding the range.”
Cameras join rancher Wallace Reid and his family in eastern Idaho as they round up cattle from the countryside. “You have time to think about a lot of things but mostly you think about badger holes and that cow going up over the hill, why doesn’t she come the right direction so I don’t have to go over there and get her,” says Reid, who at 80 is still gathering cows by horseback.
Wranglers work wild horses toward BLM holding pens near Challis where the animals are vaccinated, given other medical treatment and readied for adoption or returned to the range. “The thing about the wild horses is they’re extremely tough and resilient and they have a lot of heart,” says Kevin Lloyd of the BLM.
“I like the way different horses are to work with,” says horse trainer Mario Johnson, who begins socializing a wild horse to the human presence. “If you’re not respectful of them, what they’re doing, what’s going on, you can get into a lot of trouble.” For Johnson, the first contact is successful when he feels a light touch of the horse’s muzzle brush his hand.
Historic mining town Idaho City is host to the National Cowboy Fast Draw Competition bringing contestants in western period clothing and historic-style guns and equipment. “We’re trying to portray the era somewhere between 1873, which was the era that the Colt Peace Maker came out … and about 1900,” says Marshall Cooper of Idaho City. “This gives us a chance to play that game that we played when we were kids only with wax bullets and really be competitive with one another.”
Shooters up the ante at Twin Butte Cowboy Shooting Range west of Rexburg where contests take place on a Western movie-style set. Participants dress in character as they take aim at the different scenarios, and there can be do-overs for missed opportunities. “There’s a little bit of cowboy in everybody and we like to bring that out,” says Deon Davenport, creator of the facility. Davenport describes the typical cowboy at the site as someone “who likes to get together (with friends) and shoot their firearms, fantasize about being in the Old West, and feel like you’re in a John Wayne movie.”