Rawhide still rollin'

It was like Tucumcari Rawhide Days never went away.

The annual festival that pays tribute to western lifestyles and the "Rawhide" television drama of the 1960s (starring a young Clint Eastwood) shot near Tucumcari was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Despite the long break, crowds flocked back to Tucumcari over the weekend to see the traditional Texas longhorn cattle drive on Route 66 and view cowboy demonstrationsm, hear live music and eat vittles from chuckwagons at the Quay County Fairgrounds. The festival added a few new twists, including activities at the Tucumcari Historic Railroad Plaza, a film festival and official Texas longhorn livestock show.

Karen Alarcon, the chief Tucumcari Rawhide Days organizer, had just finished taking down the festival's banners Sunday afternoon.

"It went wonderful," she said of the event. "I heard nothing but compliments.

"I just left the craft fair, and everyone there was so thankful ... thanking me and our group," Alarcon added. "I think they had a good show after not having one since the pandemic.

"The longhorn show, those people want to come back. They would love for it to be an annual event. It was a success for them."

Alarcon also said 70 people ate at the chuckwagon pancake breakfast Sunday morning, and the cowboy church service hosted by Forrest Community Church that concluded the festival saw good-sized crowds, as well.

Alarcon had planned to use counters to measure attendance during the festival. That didn't materialize, but she said Rawhide crowds were similar to previous years.

"I think this was comparable because we did have people flying in to attend it," she said. "I know we had a lady from Maryland fly in just for this. We had people from Tombstone, Arizona, come check it out, and they enjoyed it."

The festival began Friday at the Tucumcari Historical Museum with presentations and a free feed of biscuits and gravy for breakfast and cornbread and beans for lunch, cooked near a century-old chuckwagon.

Alan Daugherty, president of the Tucumcari Historical Research Institute that operates the museum, said he counted more than 100 people that morning.

The museum was supposed to dedicate a new re-creation of the Dempster No. 9 windmill on its grounds. That didn't happen because it awaited a part to finish its assembly. An unusually windy spring also foiled other plans for building the windmill.

"Every time we set aside a day to finish it, the wind was blowing 40 miles an hour," Daugherty said. "We didn't want it to end up in Amarillo."

People and vehicles on Saturday morning lined several miles of Route 66 to view the festival's traditional Texas longhorn cattle drive, with an accompanying parade of horse-drawn carriages, gunfighters, pioneer women and vaqueros.

Rawhide Days started its first official Texas longhorn show at the fairgrounds shortly after noon Saturday. About 20 animals, ranging in age from suckling young to an ill-tempered steer with 108-inch-wide set of horns, were part of the show. Organizers had hoped for more than 50 entries but later found out it conflicted with another longhorn livestock show in Texas that same weekend.

More than 100 people crowded near the arena to observe the judging or gaze at the animals in their pens. Many festival-goers appreciated seeing longhorns up close, including Reyna Rivera of Tucumcari.

"I always wanted a cow," she said after taking a photo of a particularly wide-horned steer. She admitted she was a city-dweller. "If I had the chance, I would."

Nearby, chuckwagons set up campfires to serve cinnamon rolls, cobbler, beans, spicy sloppy joes and chicken-fried steak.

Hundreds more people crowded inside the fairgrounds' Exposition Center to check out the C.R.A.F.T. Fair and watch Ryedale Largo and his Dine Dance Group and other western-flavored acts perform.

At the railroad plaza, hundreds lined up at food trucks or booths and watched the New Mexico Gunfighters troupe do their mix of comedy and melodrama amid clouds of gunsmoke.

Connie Loveland, executive director of Tucumcari MainStreet that owns the railroad museum at the depot, said crowds were bigger than she anticipated after the coronavirus-related break.

"It has surpassed expectations," she said.

Locally based bands Limited Edition, Ghost Runners and Bakersfield Twang capped the evening with free music and dancing.

"To end the night with our three local bands at our historic depot, it was amazing," Alarcon said.

The inaugural Tucumcari Rawhide Days Film Festival screened 28 short films, mostly at the Mesalands Community College wind-energy center. The festival was going to be centered at the historic Odeon Theatre, but technical problems and other hurdles barred that.

Film fest organizer Bobby Hockaday said 45 tickets were sold for the screenings.

"We had the usual fumbles for a beginning film festival. But, on the whole, we rolled with the punches," he said Sunday. "With any event, there's always operational things you can refine. Hopefully, we can aim higher on an operational and marketing scale.

"Fingers crossed, we'll also screen at the Odeon Theatre in the future."

Hockaday couldn't complain about the entries, which came from several foreign countries in addition to the United States.

"We had a lot of high-quality filmmakers and material submitted to us," he said.

During the awards ceremony Saturday night, the short film "On the Edge" by French director Giles Daubeuf took home the People's Choice Award. "On the Edge" told the tale of a widowed pioneer woman alone during a western journey.

Emily Fraser's "Ghost Town," a documentary about the defunct coal-mining town of Dawson, New Mexico, won Best of Show and Best Historical or Short Documentary.

Whether Tucumcari Rawhide Days happens in 2023 remains uncertain. Alarcon said she wants someone else to take over organizing the event.

"We're still working on that," she said, though she acknowledged this year's success might make it an easier sell to find such a volunteer.