Western Heritage Day Celebrates 40 Years

Hardin-Simmons University’s history is steeped in western heritage. Our founders were frontiers-people and ranchers; our mascot is a Cowboy; we have an active horse barn and riding program; our school song cries, “Fair daughter of the WEST, we love and honor thee. Hardin-Simmons’ fighting cowboys! Yeee-haw!”

Every April the campus hosts thousands of local school children to explore this western heritage. On April 21, 2022, HSU is expected to host over 2,000 students from the Big Country for its 40th annual Western Heritage Day.

Kiddos spend the day immersed in western heritage. They walk the campus, taking turns to wash clothes with a washboard; watch a farrier shoe a horse; see a sheep sheared and feel the freshly cut wool; practice trick roping; play a game of washers; dote on the animals at the petting-zoo; explore how food was cooked by campfire and from a chuckwagon; watch performances by the Six White Horses, Cowboy Band, Ballet Folklorico; and more!

This visit may possibly be the first time any of these children step foot on Hardin-Simmons’ campus. We hope that this will not be their last. Western Heritage Day not only acts as a form of community engagement, it is also a recruitment tool. One day these kindergarteners will grow up. The hope is that their wonderful memory and experience of Western Heritage Day will push them to apply and attend HSU once they turn 18.

Cassie Mattern, Director of University Events, shared, “It’s special because our student volunteers can say ‘I was here when I was that small!’ This 40-year tradition has been consistent over the years, so the memories of our current students are consistent with the new memories created by the young visitors.”

Now that you know what Western Heritage Day is, you may wonder where did this campus tradition come from?

Western heritage has always been celebrated on the campus. As noted above, the school’s founders were ranchers. Students came from ranching backgrounds. Abilene was and is a western town. The culture of the school and area is western.

These early rodeos took place at the Abilene Fair Grounds. It took a few years until the rodeo moved to the Rodeo Grounds at HSU (located on Grape Street, near the Six White Horse Barn).

This western heritage fully manifested in the 1940s with the introduction of the Hardin-Simmons Rodeo.

The first intercollegiate rodeo, hosted by Hardin-Simmons, took place in April 1947. Each year after, HSU’s rodeo and the western-themed events surrounding the rodeo grew larger and more intricate.

To amp up the community, downtown parades with creative floats and radio spots (blasted on HSU’s own station KHSU) became synonymous with the yearly rodeo. On campus, students were strongly encouraged to wear western wear, participate in the parade, attend rodeo events, and embody western culture.

The fun atmosphere around the rodeo quickly morphed into a week-long event. In the 1950s, this week was called Fracas Week. (Fracas means, “a noisy disturbance or quarrel.”) Beard growing competitions, tobacco spitting events, parade-float competitions, pie eating contest and more took place across the campus, all leading up to the rodeo.

Fracas Week morphed into Rodeo Week, Ranch Week, and Western Week, different names, with the same outcome: a week of western themed merriment built around the intercollegiate rodeo in April.

Fracas Week, Western Week, Rodeo Week, whatever you want to call it, was geared towards HSU students and the HSU family. Western Heritage Day expanded its audience to off-campus—the local school children.

The creation of HSU faculty Dr. Lawrence Clayton, B.W. Aston, Bill Curtis, Dr. Randy Armstrong, and Dr. George Newman, the first official Western Heritage Day took place in April 1982. It should come as no surprise that Western Heritage Day continued the tradition of western celebrations and was tacked on to the existing rodeo week in April.

A pilot of Western Heritage Day took place one-year prior in 1981, as a day to celebrate Abilene’s Centennial and to pay tribute to Dr. Rupert Richardson And Ms. Tommie Clack. A campfire was built in front of Sid Richardson, and a good time was had by all. That event was the jumping-off point, and the rest you can say is history.

Now, to say Western Heritage Day came about from the goodness of those men’s hearts would not be 100% true. A driving motivator was competition! Yes, they saw the possibilities of the 1981 event and saw the future engagement such an event would bring to campus, but there was another driving force…

From a 2007 Range Rider, Dr. Newman shared:

We were talking about how much fun we had at the outdoor ceremony honoring Ms. Clack and Dr. Richardson. Lawrence and I were the only ones of the group who had children at the time, and we bemoaned the fact that our kids would come home once a year wearing a McMurry Indian headband. With the centennial ceremony fresh in our minds, we started discussing the fact HSU had a heritage just as rich as any other university in the land.

I dare say, many HSU families felt similarly when their children came home with McMurry branded merchandise.

Western Heritage Day is a fun, energetic day that the whole campus looks forward to each year. While the events are geared toward the town’s youngsters, you will find students cooing over the little goats at the petting zoo and faculty enjoying a cup of “cowboy coffee” at the chuckwagon…that’s coffee with jalapeno in it.

Do you have any western heritage memories? We would love to hear them.