About
Jim Hoy
James F. (Jim) Hoy is Professor
of English at Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas. Reared on a stock
ranch near Cassoday, he has lived in the Flint Hills area all his life, except
for graduate school in Missouri and a teaching stint in Idaho.
Hoy holds a B.S. degree (1961) from Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS; an
M.A. (1965) from Emporia State University; and a Ph.D. (1970) from the
University of Missouri-Columbia. After a couple of years of itinerancy
following undergraduate school, he taught two years at El Dorado (Kansas) Junior High (1963-65) before moving into college teaching. He served as Chair
of English at ESU for ten years, returning happily to the ranks of full-time
teaching and research in 1990.
Hoy's academic interests include medieval English literature, Western American
literature, Australian Outback folklife and literature, and Great Plains
folklore. He has published over a hundred articles, both scholarly and
journalistic, and is the author or co-author of nine books, including COWBOYS
AND KANSAS: STORIES FROM THE TALLGRASS PRAIRIE, published by the University of
Oklahoma Press.
His chief interest is the folklife of ranching, both historical and
contemporary, in various parts of the world, with special emphasis on the
Great Plains and particularly the Flint Hills of Kansas. He explores this
interest in frequent lectures and programs for school, community, and
professional groups throughout the region. Since 1983 he has written (with Tom
Isern) a weekly newspaper column, PLAINS
FOLK. In 1996 he was appointed to the
Board of Trustees of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
Hoy's research has taken him onto the backroads of the American West, the
tracks of the Australian bush, and the lanes of the English countryside,
seeking, among other things, to discover cattle guards, hay barracks, folk
songs, and old-timers willing to talk about the way things were.
As a folklorist and a native plainsman, Hoy is committed to documenting and
celebrating the lives of his fellow plains folk, seeking out the extraordinary
in the ordinary while encouraging pride of region in those fortunate few who
dwell in the Great Plains and understanding of region in those who must live
elsewhere.
Jim Hoy wrote the following
about the plains, and we thought they probably say as much "about"
Jim Hoy as any biography does:
Plains folk take space and
openness for granted. It seems that most of the things we think of as
typical of the plains -- barbed-wire fences, windmills, wheat fields,
grass-- are things we can see through. In fact, if we can't see
through something (whether a physical object of somebody's scheme), we get
nervous. Most people from outside the plains, if they seek privacy
when they are out-of-doors, will look for a tree or a big rock to hide
behind. Most plainsmen, on the other hand, will look for the barest,
highest spot they can find. That way they can see whether or not
anyone is sneaking up on them.
Coronado, we are told, was never more frightened than when he looked through
the legs of a bison and could see nothing but horizon. The plains must
have looked as endless to him as Interstate 70 does to a westbound easterner
-- four lanes into eternity. Buffalo Bill Cody, on the other hand,
thought the plains anything but monotonous. He never got lost, he
said, because the plains were so beautiful that every landscape he ever saw
was forever emblazoned into his memory.
Mountains and trees have their attractions, but to a true plainsmen,
nothing is prettier, or more reassuring, than a big sky and some wide-open
spaces.
By Jim Hoy, reprinted with permission.
From Plains Folk, A Commonplace of the Great Plains, by Jim Hoy and
Tom Isern, University of Oklahoma Press, 1987
Some Poems
In the
Days of Granville and John
Good Help
In the Days of Granville
and John
Oh the days of Granville and John have passed
Never to come again,
And we won't see the likes of times like theirs
In the current affairs of men.
Now Granville and John were bachelor brothers
Who lived high up Middle Creek,
Where the grass grows tall and the steers get fat
And the streams run clear and deep.
Their daddy had helped to fence the Flint Hills
At the end of the open range
When cattle that once trod the Old Chisholm Trail
Now arrived on the Santa Fe trains.
Shipped up from Texas or New Mexico
Or the swamps of Louisianne.
Lean, five year old steers as tall as a horse,
But no wider than your hand.
Tail up the sick ones out of the cars,
Get them out in the pastures and sun,
By the Fourth of July they'd be fat as a pup
On the grass of the Hundred and One.
John rode the pastures and looked out for strays
While Granville hauled salt and kept house
And cooked in a skillet of cold bacon grease
All filled with the tracks of a mouse.
"Nothing at all to worry about,"
He'd say in a slow kind of way.
"Just turn on the fire and let her get warm
And those tracks will soon go away."
No, fine dining was not what you'd get at their house
And to them their work was their fun
With no call to spend much of the hundred a month
They were paid by the Hundred and One.
For what better life than a cowboy's life,
Plain, without any frills?
And what better life for a single man
Than a horse and a song in the Hills?
Squeeze chutes were unknown to Granville and John;
They worked with a horse and a rope.
It was a pleasure to see them drag calves to the fire,
Or ride along home at a lope.
Shipping time was when Granville and John
Were at their peak and their prime.
They could round up a pasture of the spookiest steers
And never leave one behind.
They could ride across pastures on the darkest of nights
And always come out at the gate,
And if you helped ship, I'll tell you for sure,
You sure didn't get to sleep late.
On shipping mornings they'd gather a crew
And start for the pasture at three,
Then sit on their horses and hour, or two,
'Til there was enough light to see.
Now why they didn't just wait at the barn
Or stay a bit longer in bed
Is a question you might as well not even ask;
They'd be jogging too far ahead.
They'd round up the cattle on top of a hill
And cut out five loads of the best,
Then head 'em for Hymer with John in the lead
While Granville counted the rest.
Their horses weren't fancy; their saddles were plain,
But they always got the job done,
And owner or buyer, you got a fair count
In the days of Granville and John.
Now the trains no longer haul cattle to grass
And the stockyards have all been torn down,
Replaced by goosenecks and portable pens
That would have made Granville frown.
For how can you train a horse to watch cows
If he rides in a trailer all day?
And how can you have any worth to your life
If you use a machine to load hay?
If your work is your life, then what better life
Than to ride the Flint Hills in the dawn?
And what better time to have lived in the Hills
Than the days of Granville and John.
But the days of Granville and John have passed
Never to come again,
And seldom today will anyone see
The likes of these good men.
© Jim Hoy
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted
without the author's written permission.
Good Help
Sorry help, without a doubt,
Is the working cowboy's curse,
And every year at shipping time
It seems to just get worse.
Now just last week we finished shipping
Steers off summer grass,
But if I'm asked to help next year
I might just have to pass.
It's not that I don't like to ship
If you've got some decent hands,
But the sorry help they've got these days
Is more than I can stand.
I know good help is hard to get,
And getting scarcer every day,
But why the boss puts up with these,
Well, it's not for me to say.
His nephew's got a reining horse
That's damn good, I'll allow,
At running, turning, sliding stops-
But he sure can't see a cow.
You get inside the loading pen
To draft cattle on the scales,
He'll cut in front and spin around
And scatter steers like quail.
His cousin's girlfriend has a friend
That has a barrel horse
She managed to hand onto
When she went through her divorce.
That horse sure needs some exercise;
He might be good on cows
If only she could hold him in
And slow him down somehow.
Then there's his whooping, hollering brother-in-law
With all his fancy gear.
Lord, I wish I had a dollar
For every time he spooked a steer.
You know, I wouldn't mind it half so much
If they knew how bad they were,
But they all think that they're the best
That ever buckled on a spur.
Why, they'll leave cattle in the pasture
Ride between you and the herd.
Be too far back to do much good,
Or ride too close and keep them stirred.
They don't know how to watch a cow
To see if she will break,
Or how to push, but not too hard,
When you're going through a gate.
Oh, they're mounted well enough,
Their horses have the speed,
And they'll run and stop and spin around,
But it's cow sense that they need.
But there's not much hope of getting that
When the rider doesn't know
Which end of a steer to holler at
Or punch to make him go.
Good riders who think they're cowboys
Are a dozen to a dime,
But gathering steers with help like that
Is a waste of horses-and my time.
So a word of advice to all the would-be hands
Who all think that they know how:
You know, you've got that horse part down real good-
But you sure don't know the cow.
© Jim Hoy
This poem may not be reprinted or reposted
without the author's written permission.
Books
and More
Jim
Hoy's immediate project is "a book on frontier photographer F. M.
Steele, whose photos of cowboys at work in the central plains are widely
known, although he isn't. He often isn't even credited when the photos are
published, as they often are. His work ranks with that of Erwin E.
Smith in the southwestern plains and L.A. Huffman in the northern
plains." He is also at work on a book about F. H. Maynard (see
our feature on Maynard and "The Cowboy's Lament"
with commentary by Jim Hoy).
The book, The Winning of the Wild: the Adventures, in Prose and Poetry,
of F. H. Maynard, An Old-time Cowboy, is based on the memoirs of
Maynard's ten years on the open range during the 1870s.
Jim Hoy's most recent book is Flint
Hills Cowboys: Tales of the Tallgrass Prairie. In the
introduction, he writes, "The Flint Hills are my home country, the
land that nurtured my life and nourished my soul. My roots here are as
deep as those of bluestem grass in black-soil bottomland.... I was
reared among cattle and horses, ranchers and cowboys, pasture work and
rodeos, and that is the Hills that I know and these are the stories I've
heard."
The book is reviewed in
the January, 2007 issue of
Western
Horseman by managing
editor Fran D. Smith, who lauds the content of the book as well as its
style, which she describes as, "...akin to sitting at a nearby
restaurant and listening to the locals introduce an out-of-town guest to
their community in the most amusing, appealing way possible."
(Read more about what's in the January issue of Western Horseman
here.) You can read more about the book at the The
University of Kansas Press web site.
Flint Hills
Cowboys: Tales of the Tallgrass Prairie is available directly
from Jim Hoy ($32.50 postpaid, autograph and inscription requests are
welcome, jhoy@emporia.edu, 620 343
3192, 938 Road 130, Emporia, KS 66801"); from The
University of Kansas Press; Amazon;
and other booksellers.
Vaqueros, Cowboys, and Buckaroos, coauthored with
Lawrence Clayton and Jerald Underwood, is published by the University of
Texas You can read an excerpt, a detailed description of the book,
and see the table of contents, and order the book at the University of Texas site
here.
Here's a bit of the description from Amazon.com:
... In this book, three long-time
students of the American West describe the history, working practices, and
folk culture of vaqueros, cowboys, and buckaroos. They draw on historical
records, contemporary interviews, and numerous photographs to show what
makes each group of mounted herders distinctive in terms of working
methods, gear, dress, customs, and speech. They also highlight the many
common traits of all three groups.
This comparative look at vaqueros,
cowboys, and buckaroos brings the mythical image of the American cowboy
into focus and detail and honors the regional and national variations. It
will be an essential resource for anyone who would know or portray the
cowboy—readers, writers, songwriters, and actors among them.
The late Lawrence Clayton's books,
articles, and reviews focused largely on the contemporary cowboy and ranch
life. Jim Hoy, of Emporia, Kansas, writes about the folklife of ranching,
from the Australian Outback to the Flint Hills of Kansas. Jerald
Underwood, of Uvalde, Texas, is a published authority on the vaquero.
Other books
include:
COWBOYS AND KANSAS: Stories from the Tallgrass Prairie
University of Oklahoma Press, 1995
PLAINS
FOLK: A Commonplace of the Great Plains
University of Oklahoma Press, 1987
PLAINS FOLK II: The Romance of the Landscape
University of Oklahoma Press, 1990.
(You can read the Amazon review of this book here)
(The above three books can be ordered from your local bookstore or directly
from
the University of Oklahoma Press by calling 1-800-627-7377 or by calling
BOOK KANSAS! at 1-800-790-2665.)
PRAIRIE POETRY: Cowboy Verse of Kansas
Wichita Eagle Beacon Publishing Company, 1995.
(This book can be ordered from your local bookstore or by calling BOOK
KANSAS! At 1-800-790-2665.)
RIDING POINT: A Centennial History of the Kansas Livestock Association
North Dakota State University Center for Regional Studies, 1994.
(This book can be ordered from the Kansas Livestock Association at
913-273-5115.)
THE FLINT HILLS OF KANSAS
Kaw Valley Films, 1987
(This video can be ordered from Kaw Valley Films at 913-631-3040.)
Contacting Jim
Hoy
For contact
information and to learn more about Jim Hoy, his writings, and his
performances, visit his web
site.
