Choctaw Code Talkers

People are probably more familiar with the Navajo Code Talkers of World War II, but the Choctaw Tribe is proud to acknowledge the United States military service of its members.  As early as the Spanish-American War and in every conflict since, members of the Choctaw tribe have served as American soldiers.

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West Texas Cowboy Revivals

The old cowboy camp meetings were started by a Presbyterian minister by the name of William Benjamin Bloys.  Bloys was born in 1847 in Tennessee.  Around  the time of the  Civil War, his Unionist family moved  to Illinois.  Bloys was educated there in Salem Academy, after which he graduated in 1879 from Lane Theological Seminary for the purpose of becoming a Presbyterian minister.  He was married the same year to Catherine Yeck.

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Sheriff Pat Garrett’s Life in Texas

Sheriff Pat Garrett is best known for having killed the outlaw Billy the Kid in Fort Sumner, New Mexico.  He was born in Alabama in 1850 and moved with his family to Louisiana where they owned a plantation but their business was destroyed by the Civil War and his father died a few years after the war’s end.  Fewer people probably know that when he was younger, he spent some time working as a cowboy in the vicinity of Dallas, Texas.  He then went on to work on the LS Ranch out in the Panhandle area (now Oldham and Hartley counties).

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William Orville “Lefty” Frizzell

leftyfrizzell

(Image credit: Country Music Hall of Fame)

Lefty Frizzell was born in Corsicana, Texas in 1928 to Naaman Orville and Ades D. Cox Frizzell.  His father was an oilfield worker who followed the drilling rigs.  Lefty was the oldest of eight children and his family moved around as the oil exploration business required.  There are several explanations of how he came by the nickname of Lefty.  The one seeming told most often (and perhaps a legend) was that his classmates began calling him this after a schoolyard fight.  He was called Sonny when he was growing up, but he was left handed, which is possibly also the source of his nickname.

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