Baxter Black DVM
By Betty Jo Gigot Publisher
For thousands and thousands of movement. I tried several times Edge of Common Sense column, and admirers, the news that Baxter during that interview to have Baxter through the years we featured his trip Black had passed away brought discuss the influence he had in the to London to see the Queen and to BY BETTY JO GIGOT PUBLISHER back cherished memories of the best cowboy poet of all time. Everyone who met him remembers the time and the place and the feeling of one- on-one attention that Baxter gave to each and every person he met. People fascinated him. The world fascinated him. And he always managed to put a touch of humor on it when he put the experience on paper or on film.
I met Baxter in South Dakota’s Black Hills in the early ‘80s where we discovered we both had ties to Las Cruses, N.M. I was born there, and Baxter was raised in the university town on the border. It was on his suggestion that I contact CALF News initially and was one of my best supporters through my years with the magazine. Totally unexpected calls from Saskatchewan or wherever came from Baxter on one or another story I had written. I always heard from him on New Year’s Day with a thank you call for the beef I always sent to him and the rest of the staff for Christmas. One year, he was especially thankful for the beef. His story was that Cindy Lou had bought a pig at the country fair that had filled up their freezer, and then a chicken truck had turned over on the highway, so he hadn’t had any beef for weeks.
I had the honor of doing a TV interview for Superior Auction with Baxter in his Colorado home just as he came out with “A Vegetarian’s Nightmare,” taking on the vegetarian business of agriculture. He refused to go there, always saying he was just a cowboy poet. He was wrong. In his own humorous and insightful way, he humbly and quietly presented our world to the masses.
Starting in 1984, every issue of CALF News has featured Baxter’s On the Washington, D.C., to see the Senate and his gathering of the most famous cowboy cartoonists. His cadre of friends was eclectic and treasured. I was proud to be one of them. We at CALF News send our condolences to Cindy Lou and the family, and can’t say how much we will miss him. RIP Baxter.
Photos Courtesy of Coyote Cowboy Company and CALF News
