Marfa Rodeo, Still Kickin'?

I didn't even know that Marfa had a rodeo until I came across this beautiful belt buckle that the 1982 "HI MONEY WINNER" received. This picqued my interest about the event and I thought I'd learn all about it with a simple internet search. Think again. There's almost no mention of the Marfa Rodeo online. I did find a couple of nice tidbits; one being this fabulous action shot of the Stephens brothers bulldogging a calf at the rodeo (date unknown.) It was taken by June Redford Van Cleef. (For more Big Bend images by Van Cleef, click here.)

The other factoid of interest is that the High School has a rodeo team, or at least did at one time. Apparently there was a rodeo in conjunction with the Marfa Lights festival in years past. If anyone can shed some more light on this for us, please post a comment below. By the way, for those of you wannabe cowboys that want the pride without the ride, the buckle is on the auction block and is currently up to $147.50 with about 7 hours to go. Wow.

The Marfa.Org ®@ŋd¤m‡zЄ®

Ban the Bars! (?)
At the recent City Council meeting, Marfa resident Barry Fretz Reese expressed concern about two new "bars" (one is the Blue Javelina restaurant) to be located near Edinburg and San Antonio streets. He penned his comments in this letter to the Editor of the BBS. “Neighbors feel that they’ve been treated with disrespect. We are worried that our city government is not thinking about our welfare... We’re not opposed to low impact businesses that serve the neighborhood and city but we do not want any business to benefit at our expense in which neighbors would bear the hidden costs of dealing with any business-related nuisances, e.g., noise, foul odors, litter, on-street parking (given that the Blue Javelina has very little onsite parking), and there’s the possibility of illegal activity – all of which threaten our individual safety and our neighborhood’s peacefulness." full letter

Fort Stockton airport receives new forecasts
Marfa Airport may be next.
"Pilots will soon have a better idea what to expect from the skies near Pecos County-Fort Stockton Airport.The airport will begin receiving Terminal Aerodrome Forecasts from the National Weather Service’s Midland office Dec. 5. The 24-hour forecasts give pilots information on winds, cloud ceilings, visibility, precipitation and other possible weather... Pilots can access the information through flight service when they file flight plans or via the Internet, Cain said.The next airport to receive the forecasts could be in Presidio or Marfa, if traffic amounts grow, Cain said. But, for now, Fort Stockton is a good choice."

Davis wins Lannan Award for 'extraordinary novels'

Little Marfa's Giant Courthouse (thanks Marge)
"So why would a remote county with just over 7,000 citizens have such a large courthouse? It's because the citizens of Marfa who built the courthouse thought big — really big — says Stan Graves, director of the Texas Historic Courthouse preservation program for the Texas Historical Commission. "That's the unbounded optimism of the founding fathers at the time. They thought they were going to be as big as El Paso," Graves says. That growth never happened. Regardless, some politically savvy Marfans were involved in building the $60,000 courthouse — a fortune in..."

The Marfa.Org ®@ŋd¤m‡zЄ®

Several rare postcards just popped up on eBay for some reason. I appears it is all coincidence since each card is from a different seller:
Postcard: "Churches of Marfa, Texas", 1916-1918
Rare Postcard: Sunset Park, Marfa, Texas, 1947
Postcard: Big Bend Country, Air Force, Marfa, Texas, 1944

El Cosmico to Redefine Meaning of 'Hotel' in Marfa
Presidio County Courthouse T-Shirt
Exploration Co. Tallies Record Third-quarter Revenues

Singer-songwriter Tift Merrit is interviewed about her work and mentions her show on MPR,
"...and then I’m interviewing the poet C.K. Williams and then I’ll interview lots of music people. I’ll interview anyone who’ll talk to me (laughs). But [my show is on] a small station in Marfa, Texas (National Public Radio affiliate KRTS), and hopefully they would really like to push it, so it may end up on other stations. … They’re a new station, and they would like to expand and make a name for themselves, so hopefully this will be one of their higher-profile programs. "

Allison V. Smith @ Barry Whistler Gallery

If you are fan of this site, you are probably familiar by now with Allison V. Smith because I just won't shut up about her amazing photography. Smith never fails to stun the viewer with captivating images that are modern and minimal in composition, but somehow embeded with tranquility and nostalgia. In her new show Giant at Barry Whistler Gallery in Dallas, Smith shows a select group of twelve Marfa photographs. Each print is 30"x30" square and produced in a edition of 7.

Smith's clients and collectors include Esquire, US Weekly, The New Yorker, New York Times, ESPN Magazine, Kiplinger's, Los Angeles Times, Corbis, Getty, and grandfather Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus.

If you find yourself in Dallas, or just need an excuse to go to Big D, this show is not to be missed. It will be up until November 25, 2006. Barry Whistler Gallery is located at 2909B Canton Street.

Allison V. Smith's official website is here, and a large collection of her images are on flickr here. Other Marfa.Org posts about Smith are here and here.