Our friend, artist Veryl Goodnight, did a sculpture last year using one of our big steers as a model for "Old Blue".  She sold the original at a TLBAA sale in Oklahoma last fall (and yes, they questioned the horns and how skinny the steer was!) but here is another casting that was placed in the Haley Library in Midland.  Read the press info below.

She got some grief from Stan Searle when she did the sculpture, but she stuck by her guns because she wanted an animal that would look like the old original Longhorns that Charles Goodnight might have driven up the trails.  It was great fun to watch her sculpt the piece standing in our front yard with our big old steer "Gordie".  I told her the real Old Blue would probably been even skinner since he was on the trail for so long.  You can't see it in the photo, but she put a leater collar with a bell around it's neck.  Her research said that Old Blue had a bell.

Linda Mannix

Coordinator

Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering

www.durangocowboypoetrygathering.org

970-749-2995

Veryl's first monumental sculpture was of a longhorn cow and calf, "Old Maude."  It was installed at the Haley Memorial Library in Midland, Texas in 1982.  J. Evetts Haley, Sr. was the author of "Charles Goodnight - Cowman and Plainsman" and he descibes Old Maude as having had "27 calves by actual count."  Veryl has long wished to sculpt Colonel Goodnight's famous lead steer, Old Blue, and that desire came to fruition in the fall of 2010.  The Haley Library added Old Blue to their collection.  The working model of Old Maude and the new sculpture of Old Blue  are shown here at the Haley Library with a painting by Tom Browning.  

Veryl Goodnight

44255 Road L

Mancos, Colorado 81328

970-533-1172

http://www.verylgoodnight.com/