How the Decker Gang was started?
Photo: a poster of the movie called City Slickers
In 1991 after Richard Kendall ’69 saw the movie, “City Slickers,” contacted Mont Richardson, ’71 about the possibility of going on one of the cattle drives.
Greg Decker, ’71 joined them inquiring about authentic cattle drives and they finally chose a working cattle drive at High Island Ranch in Wyoming.
Photo: a covered wagon with letterings saying High Island Guest Ranch on the pasture by the highway
From the road, we saw the covered wagon out in the field telling us where to turn to the ranch.
We 3 amigos went there in 1992 along with 25 paid customers from all parts of the states and 2 from Australia. Our mission was to drive about 100 heads of cattle from 4,000 feet to 9,000 feet for better feed during the summer. It rained almost every day.
Photo: cowboys herding cattle up the mountains.
Three photos: 1) Richard in cowboy gear standing by a fence 2) Greg in cowboy gear pointing his rifle across 3) Mont in cowboy gear pointing a gun in his right hand and rife in his left hand pointing toward a window of the building; We were practicing with our guns/rifles prior to going to the cattle drive.
Two photos: 1) Greg, Mont and Richard on their horses behind a log cabin. 2) Standing Greg with gun, Richard with rifle and Mont with gun behind other log cabin.
Photo: One of the wranglers had the snake in his sandwich
A rattesnake was spotted and after killing it, one of the wranglers had it for lunch.
Two photos: 1) Greg, one of the wranglers and Richard on their horses looking at the camera. 2) Mont on his horse looking at the camera.
Two photos: 1) looking down the road while the cattle was walking up the hill with the tips of the horse’s ears showing on the bottom edge of the photo 2) 3 canvas tent houses with a campfire smoke coming out from the behind of the middle tent;
Nice ears, Some nights we slept in tent camps.
Two photos: 1) 5 cowboys among the cattle 2) cowboys wearing weatherproof caps going up the mountain with heavy fog beyond the hill and some snow caps on the mountain ahead;
We were standing on the cliff on the mountains. It was chilly up there. See some snow up in the high mountains.
Photo: the pasture was dry and the sky showed some storm warnings;
One late afternoon we saw a storm coming so we had to hurry and bring the cattle to the next camp before it started to rain.
Photo: a horse between Greg and Mont and Richard at the far right;
It was sad when the cattle drive came to the end. Richard flew home and Greg’s and Mont’s wives picked and took them home.
(in Italic print) Happy Trails Until We Meet Again
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Note: Shirley Egbert indicated that she and Barbara Hong Richardson worked together in preparing this post with information from Gregory Decker...