Posted on 09/04/2006 8:00:01 PM PDT by CedarDave
SILVER CITY— Wearing a button-down, blue Polo shirt, pleated khaki slacks, ostrich-skin boots, and peering at a computer screen inside a local bank, Ty Bays doesn't look much like his childhood hero, John Wayne.
But make no mistake: Bays is a cowboy. It's not his clothes or his office that give him away; it's his two-toned face. From the bridge of his nose to his Adam's apple, Bays is sunburned. His forehead is white as a bleached bone.
Sure enough, resting on a cabinet behind him is a straw hat. But it's a going-to-town hat, with a feather in it.
Bays, 37, works in an entry-level management position at Silver City's Western Bank because he needs to. He wants to own his own ranch someday, and this job is the only way he can get there.
Bays' wife, Sherri, also works, as an accountant, over at Western New Mexico University. He'd rather she were at home raising their two small sons. But Sherri Bays isn't at home because she wants the ranch as badly as her husband.
"This isn't where I thought we'd be," Ty Bays says. "We want to be in the ranching business full time, but right now this is what we have to do."
It's what more and more cowboys have to do to hold onto a ranch or fantasize about owning one, says Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association.
"If you don't inherit something, you're out of luck because it's such a huge financial investment to get started," says Cowan. "If you do inherit, you're facing a big tax disadvantage."
Says the Bell Ranch's manager, Bert Ancell: "A young man today who wants to ranch better find himself a rich girlfriend."
(Excerpt) Read more at abqjournal.com ...
This is the second in a three-day series examining cowboy life and how it has changed. The first part can be found here:
The West Ain't What It Used to Be, but a Few Tough Men Continue An Honored Tradition
The Albuquerque Journal is free; you just have to watch a thirty second Flash commercial and then you will be allowed entry to read the article.
Cowboy ping!
Cowboy Bump!
For your Ping lists.
No pics?
That's my favorite, hehe.
Mine too. ;-)
Yer neck o' the woods PING.
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