Cowboy music and poetry were featured activities at the Bannock County Fair this year.  Organized by Downey rancher Cory Webster, himself an excellent cowboy song composer, performer, and poet, the August 7 program featured The Bunkhouse Band performing several well-known cowboy songs, including “The Cowboy Waltz.”  Members of the band, all from Marsh Valley, brought their guitars, fiddles, banjos, zithers, harmonicas, and string basses to entertain the crowd.

Interspersed with the songs was poetry, including original poems by Malad natives Blaine Scott and Dotty Evanson. Blaine, the 2023 Bard of the Malad Valley Welsh Festival, wrote several poems just for this occasion, including “Pitching Chevys” and “Smells on the Farm.” Dotty Evanson, the 2018 Bard, read her winning poem “It’s a Good Tree” and another composed for this program.  Entitled “Tom and Dot,” the poem was about Dotty’s grandparents who lived on “The Flat” south of Downey so were natives of Marsh Valley.  Several attendees said they remembered the Bloxhams, the parents of Dotty’s mother.

At Cory’s request, Jean Thomas also read two poems on the program.  One was “Hey! Hey! Cowboy!” by LaVerne Voeltzel of Inkom, and the other was “Still They Fly” by Candice Lemmon, the 2024 Bard of the Welsh Festival.  Since this poem was about dragons, Jean had to mention that when Malad plays Marsh Valley, Dragons still fly as they compete with the Eagles.

IT’S A GOOD TREE

by Dotty Thorpe Evanson

Mother’s eyes and Daddy’s chin,

Grandpa’s ears and Granny’s grin,

All these things make up me,

Got them off the family tree.

Aunt Rachael’s curls and
Heber’s toes,

Great-grandma’s dimples,
Richard’s nose,

I always thought I looked like me,

But all I’ve got has been on that tree.

I guess that’s why,
come rain or shine,

What’s mine is theirs and
theirs is mine,

I am unique – there’s just one me

But it all came off that family tree!

SMELLS ON THE FARM

by Blaine Scott

The scents around the farm

Bring surprises every day--

From the sileage for the cattle

Or the fresh cut fields of hay.

The odors around the barn

Are different smells, of course--

From the feed for the pigs

Or the output from the horse.

The smells in the farmhouse

Will always drift your way--

From the fresh fried eggs and ham

That are cooked most every day.

Not all smells are good;

Don’t mistake the things I say--

But I would take the farming smells

And enjoy them every day.