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Students experience older way of life
Published May 15, 2004
Like any other day, the seventh-grade students sprawled across their desks in the Texas history classroom of Ingram Middle School.
Instead of napping, however, these kids were paying avid attention as the history that they’ve spent the past nine months learning came alive in front of their eyes.
It was Ranching Heritage Day at the middle school on Friday and 100 seventh-graders, under the direction of teacher Amy Brice, had an opportunity to step into the 1800s and learn about frontier life in Texas.
In this Texas history classroom — decorated with cowboy-themed curtains and Texas flags — a group of students listened appreciatively to cowboy music by “The Old Timers.”
The four men — three sporting white cowboy hats and all wearing boots — strummed their instruments as they introduced the kids to traditional songs like “Rose of San Antone.”
“This is awesome,” said D’Lynne Carlile as she and her friends poured out of the classroom and on to the next exhibit.
Standing beside her, Dawn Fisher — pretty in a red frontier dress and matching cowboy hat — agreed.
“This is so much better than reading it in a book,” she said, with a sparkle in her vivid blue eyes. “That’s boring. This — this is coming to life for us.”
The girls hurried along to a flint-knapping exhibit put on by jeweler Jim Morris and watched as he demonstrated how to turn a hunk of stone into usable weapons.
“Hey — have you ever broken your thumb doing that?” one boy asked with a cheeky grin as his friends snorted and giggled.
Morris said no, he hadn’t, but if a knapper isn’t careful, he could.
Inside, Texas Ranger Jim Ryan showed another kind of weaponry — period rifles, pistolas and knives used by the rough men who upheld Texas law.
His rapt audience, mostly boys, listened avidly as Ryan — dressed in period costume of tall leather boots, brown vest and felt hat — talked about justice on the Texas frontier.
He showed them a Ranger’s “Book of Fugitives,” which held names and descriptions of as many as 3,000 wanted lawbreakers. The state issued the books to the Rangers, who roamed the counties looking for these men. It didn’t matter how they were brought to justice, so long as they were. So very often Rangers would shoot first, then bring the men in, Ryan said.
“If you weren’t the wanted man — say, if you had the same name and matched the general description — that was just too bad,” Ryan said, as the staghorn-handled gun in his holster gleamed under the ceiling lights. “If your name was in the Rangers’ book, they’d come after you.”
Other exhibits included a cowboy storyteller — “That was awesome!” one boy cried as he came out of the room — lessons on trapping, hunting and other “Mountain Man” activities and an exhibit of Native American artifacts.
At the end of the morning, kids got a real Chuck Wagon lunch — something the girls were really looking forward to.
“Food. Food food food,” said Katrina Flanery as her friends, Fisher and Carlile, laughed. “I’m hungry.”
Jennine Zeleznik can be reached at jennine.zeleznik(at)dailytimes.com.
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