Tim Murphy Oregon

Best of Tim Woodward: Town rounds up a crowd for cowboy's 80th birthday

Tim Woodward has retired, but we’re continuing to publish the best of his columns. If you’ve got a favorite, send a date of publication and a headline or brief summary to Niki Forbing-Orr at nforbing-orr@idahostatesman.com

Tom Hall, the southern Idaho cowboy whom Tim Woodward wrote about in 2003, died June 28 in Bruneau. Read his obituary online at IdahoStatesman.com/Obituaries and search for Thomas Hall.

This column, originally published on Oct. 3, 2003, was requested by reader Mary Hall-Bailey.

BRUNEAU — Tom Hall’s 80th birthday celebration Sunday was inaccurately billed as an open house. It was actually much bigger — an open town.

The crowd at Bruneau’s American Legion Hall filled 18 tables for eight. More people lined the walls, hovered around a mountain of food and told tales in the bar. By most estimates, the crowd exceeded 200.

Bruneau’s population is about half of that.

They came from Boise; Mountain Home; King Hill; Grand View; Wendell; Twin Falls; Murphy; Elko, Nev.; Jordan Valley, Ore.; and farms and ranches all over.

Not to mention Bruneau — in its entirety.

“The whole town is here,” said Margaret Gillespie of Mountain Home. “Bruneau is like family. And the whole family loves Tom.”

Tom Hall — rancher, farmer, historian, public servant, storyteller, Idaho character. A cowboy’s cowboy.

Many of those who came to wish him well Sunday were cowboys themselves. Real cowboys — third- and fourth-generation Idaho ranchers. There were more boots, scarves and saucer-size belt buckles than at a cowboy poetry reading. And everyone had a Tom Hall story.

Fern Graham, Bruneau’s former postmaster, reminisced about the times Hall would ride to her home on his horse and entertain her children, now long grown.

Bruneau artist Don Collins shared memories of Hall as his Cub Scoutmaster when Collins was 8 years old — 52 years ago.

Jordan Valley rancher Mike Hanley gave thanks for the broken covered-wagon wheel that kept Hall’s family in Bruneau rather than continuing on the Oregon Trail to the Willamette Valley. But it was Grand View cowboy Dennis Jayo who told the quintessential Tom Hall tale.

“We were having a drink in a bar when a woman asked Tom how long he’d been riding a horse, “ Jayo said. “Tom said his folks came out here from Missouri when his mother was still pregnant with him. Their mare was expecting a colt, and Tom and the colt were born the same night. His father was in a hurry, so he went on ahead and left Tom and his mother there. It took Tom three days to break that colt, and he’s been riding ever since.

Irate Emails From Allen West: A Continuing Series | Mother Jones

On Wednesday, Florida GOP Rep. Allen West dashed off an unhinged email rant to Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.), in which he called her "vile" and "not a lady." That was kind of standard operating procedure for West, who has previously called President Obama a "low-level socialist agitator." And it reminded me of another Allen West email incident in June, in which the congressman trashed his local alt-weekly, the Broward-Palm Beach New Times Liberals looking for anything to criticize when it comes to me. Well, doggone sorry, perhaps next time I will put on a tie-dyed shirt and jeans, dance around singing anti-war, anti-American songs, and burn a flag. Perhaps that would endear me to the delusional dummies out there who are probably just jealous because they cannot dive to 80 ft into a hard current and proudly carry an American flag. What a bunch of losers!