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Dusty Richards: A Black Hat and a Golden Heart
Dusty Richards: A Black Hat and a Golden Heart
story by VELDA BROTHERTON
Dusty Richards was no more than a toddler when he looked up from play and said to his mom in no uncertain terms, “I want to be a cowboy.” With visions of her first son growing up to be an old cowboy bum, she continued to tell herself that all little boys had this dream at one time. He’d surely outgrow it. When is it we know who we are and who we want to be? Maybe he would outgrow this wish. But he didn’t….
THROUGH THE YEARS , Dusty clearly remembered his mom’s worry, but he continued to voice the hope of becoming a cowboy. e early years are ours when shared through our parents’ remembrances. Photographs passed around, stories told and retold at family reunions.
Born Ronald Lee Richards in Chicago in 1937, as he grew older, he attended every Saturday Matinee to see Hoppy, Roy, and Gene, then he’d go home and repeat, “I’m going to be a cowboy when I grow up.”
At seven years old, he sat on a real horse at a real roundup and watched calves being branded on the Peterson Ranch in Othello, Washington. e experience might as well have branded him for life. Despite doing her best not to raise a cowboy, it seemed Mom wasn’t having much luck. She spoke often of his desire as well as her fear. When he told the story, he always quoted what she’d said about how he would grow up to become an old cowboy bum.
Unlike many youngsters who discarded their broomstick horses for other careers as they reached adulthood, his desire to remain in pursuit of the cowboy dream did not let go. Ever.
Being born in Chicago didn’t exactly help much, but his family unknowingly did him a favor by moving west to Arizona when he was thirteen. His mother’s fear that he might become a cowboy stepped closer to reality. He had discovered Heaven.
THE QUINTISSENTIAL DUSTY RICHARDS, DURING THE NWAWW FREE CONFERENCE AT MOUNT SEQUOYAH IN 1984.
Barbara Clouse
One of his favorite stories to tell on himself touches on the writer he would become. When he was in high school, the English teacher assigned students to write a western story, and many of his pals complained. Said they didn’t know how to write. And certainly not about cowboys. Here he saw an opportunity to make some cash. He could tell stories, and he could write them as well.
Each student eagerly paid him a dollar to write them a western, and the teacher never caught on. Happy classmates all came away with a good grade. A satis ed young Dusty would repeat the business several years in a row. e teacher didn’t know the di erence, for she’d never read a western. Could he claim to be a published writer? Perhaps not. Yet it was a story he loved to tell.
After graduating college, he partnered up with two friends, and in 1960 they bought a ranch in Arkansas. His childhood dream nudged much closer to a reality. And that carried him toward another accomplishment he did not yet expect—one linked in an odd way to his early story—writing. It seems that the small nearby town of Winslow supported a school, and it had lost one of its teachers mid-term. After moving to Arkansas, Dusty had taught one year in a nearby town.
The teacher in Winslow asked if he could handle a room lled with rough, trouble-making country boys. His reply was a chuckle. I have to wonder if he had any brief thoughts of that younger Dusty and what he pulled on his teacher. He never mentioned it. Being, by this time, a muscular, well-built man, he could handle those students. Of course, he could. And he did. ere was no more trouble from that classroom the remainder of the year. He went on to teach for two years there. And he never revealed exactly how he tamed down those rowdy boys. Obviously a story he intended to keep to himself.
After he met and married his wife, Pat, in 1961, the couple bought a home and settled down near Beaver Lake in Northwest Arkansas, another step closer to his childhood goal. Nearby Springdale attracts cowboys galore with its annual rodeo. What young man wanting to be a cowboy wouldn’t appreciate that? Horses. Steers. Bucking Broncs, Bulldogging. Cowboys.
DUSTY IN THE SADDLE FOR THE ANNUAL RODEO OF THE OZARKS 4TH OF JULY PARADE, WHICH HE RODE IN FOR MANY YEARS.
Dusty Richards
Well, it wasn’t long until Dusty was involved. No, he didn’t enter the bronc busting or bull dogging. His involvement was on the board of directors where he served for twenty years. Much of that time he announced the rodeo. For most of those years, he also rode horseback in the annual parade, seated in a welltooled leather saddle, wearing a ne black Stetson and Justin boots. Once he drove a wagon from Springdale to Ft. Smith in a promotional event for the country’s bicentennial celebration. For years he DJ’d a television show and reported ranch and farm news. He was living his dream amid the country life.
DUSTY ABOARD THE BUCKBOARD WAGON HE HELPED DRIVE FROM SPRINGDALE TO FORT SMITH, ARKANSAS, AS PART OF THE U.S. BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION IN 1976.
Dusty Richards
He spent his working hours with Tyson Food. He was what he jokingly called a chicken doctor. is meant he was on the road most of the time visiting poultry farms to see that the chickens remained healthy. He never rode a bucking bronc, was certainly not a bulldogger, but he lived the life of a true cowboy taking part in the functions of the rodeo and his ranch.
It’s possible that without the in uence of his two daughters, Rhonda and Anna, he might not have become a writer. Who knows? But he continued to tell stories to everyone who enjoyed listening to them. And he talked to his family about how he’d really like to write some of them. Yet he felt embarrassed continuing to dream of what might be unreal. Who’d want to read what he could write? Finally, his daughters talked him into putting his stories down on paper.
After several years of their urging, he ful lled the lifelong dream by writing and submitting three Western books to a little-known publisher who never replied to the submission. When he contacted the company he was told they would not be published. ough disappointed, it was too late. He was hooked on writing. And so, he wrote the book that would become his rst truly published work with a reputable publisher but not until he hooked up with a few women writers who would soon become known as Dusty’s Girls. It was a life that truly brought him to living the life of a cowboy and western writer.
Judy Ballard, one of the rst “gals” to join up with him in his desire to gather some local writers into a support group, shared her memories of working with Dusty.
“Dusty was generous to a fault. One of my earliest recollections was him taking a crate of food to one of the group’s early members when he learned she was out of groceries and had no money. He would not only give you the shirt o his back, but his jeans too if you needed them more than he did.”
is brings my mind to one of my earliest dealings with Dusty. Judy and I and one other member took on the “task” of editing his early manuscript of Noble’s Way, his rst published novel.
After Dusty chopped o the beginning of the book by 100 pages per an interested editor’s recommendation, it still desperately needed some grammatical help. What really had to be done was cull the overuse of the word “that”—one of Dusty’s bad habits. I think we scrubbed more than 100 “thats.” Dusty sold that book, and I’m proud of his dedication to us in the front of the book. at night, after we nished our work, he took us downtown to a nice Mexican Restaurant and fed us. Dusty never failed to express his gratitude for whatever help he received from other authors.
Since he devoted most of his life to writing and writers, these became the stories that de ned him. Here’s an example from Judy that bears out his bottomless generosity with all those in the profession. “He had arranged for a book editor—I think from Missouri—to be his personal guest at his lovely home in the Ozarks, the purpose to critique pre-submitted manuscripts. ose of us who took advantage of that offer received valuable input. ough mine didn’t turn out so sterling, ultimately, I appreciated his comments. Of course, Dusty absorbed the total cost of that editor’s expertise.” Judy paused for a moment before going on, her tone emotional.
“Dusty thrived on participating in countless regional writing contests and conferences. He soon became a frequent and sought-after guest speaker and contest judge. I can picture him now, bringing his knowledge and love of his subject right up to the microphone at the podium. His ‘down-home’ style of talking was mesmerizing and his discussions always lively and spirited. He had an unmatched zeal for the genre of western writing, and he wanted to share it, though there were times I wanted to remind him to swallow his saliva!” With a smile she went on.
“I remember fondly our get-togethers at the Lodge in Red River, New Mexico. Dusty was a born storytell- er, and when he spoke, you couldn’t help but stop and listen. Once when I arrived at the Lodge without a rm room reservation, he made sure I had a spot to crash— turned out to be USA Today Bestselling Author Jodi omas’s personal apartment, and she provided an air mattress and plenty of blankets.
Judy nished her remembrances. “Dusty and Pat Richards were just plain folks that other people were lucky to know. I shall miss them both, desperately. I still grapple with the knowledge that I will never enjoy another down-home conversation with them.”
In the ensuing years he literally devoted his life to that of a western writer. He wrote hundreds of stories about the lives of the men he so admired, and he went on to win many of the awards being earned by his peers.
is is the story of the man and his writing life and his journey toward the publication of nearly 200 books and how his name became the name in the front of this magazine. And it’s one heck-uva story. For him, it’s the next best thing to bull dogging and taking eight seconds on the back of a bronc.
STRIKING A THOUGHTFUL POSE IN HIS LIVING ROOM DURING ONE OF HIS FAMOUS PRE-CONFERENCE BARBECUES.
Dusty Richards
With his black Stetson cowboy hat, Dusty stood a head taller than most everyone in the room the day he attended his rst writer’s conference. at’s where I would rst meet the man who would have a tremendous in uence on the lives of myself and so many others for more than thirty years.
1985 - Surrounded by a cluster of eager new writers, the sound of his voice rose above the excitement in the gathering room at the Ozark Creative Writer’s Conference in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Already deep in telling a story he paused to welcome each of us before continuing. His boisterous laughter attracted the attention of arrivals. He introduced himself the way he would continue to do for over thirty years. In all that time he never met a stranger. One would think he’d already attended several get-togethers. e remainder of his life he would go nowhere without attracting a crowd with that introduction.
“Howdy. My name’s Dusty Richards, and I write western books.” Standing there decked out in a Stetson which he seldom took o , he laughed as if he’d told a joke.
With several of us it was our rst experience though not the last with this tall cowboy. On signing in for my rst writer’s conference, his was the rst laugh and the rst voice I heard. For even as I registered he gestured for me to join them. We soon learned that in a crowd he could sense whoever felt a bit tense or nervous and put them at ease immediately.
Later, he told us the story of how he entered that same room that very day. Palms sweating, he turned to his wife, Pat, then studied all the writers gathered around and said, “I’m not sure they’ll let me in, Mother. I don’t have any books published.” He had brought along his contract for the three books which he’d never heard back on and was so sure it wasn’t enough to qualify him to attend a writer’s conference. His earlier behavior made this hard to believe. Telling this tale over the years, he found it hilarious. He was always able to laugh at himself.
Most of us were lucky if we had something published in a magazine or a local newspaper. As it was, writer’s conferences don’t check to see if attendees are published. ey exist to bring hopeful writers and published writers together to learn and teach. Because of that we all settled down to mingle.
Barbara Clouse remembered an earlier event in Fayetteville at Mt. Sequoyah in 1984.
“The blessing to the entire conference was meeting Pat and Dusty Richards. ey treated me with such kindness, like a long-lost friend, a member of their family, and I felt at home. My fears of isolation as a writer melted away, as I learned right away that we all spoke the same language of creative writing, research, characters, and story plots and a wealth of other subjects. Needless to say, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for nding such a group of people.
DUSTY AND VELDA TAKE A MOMENT TO SHARE THE ART FOR TWO OF THEIR UPCOMING BOOKS IN THE EARLY 1990S..
Dusty Richards
“On one occasion during that weekend, we were sitting around visiting like often happened. Someone asked me about my background, and I mentioned that I felt like I was the only writer in Muskogee County. I told the group that I would love to have a club to attend for ideas, support, and learning. is is before cell phones, computers, Google, and other instant ways of getting information. I spent a lot of time at our local library, and that was the only place that had reference books on writing.
“I guess Dusty heard my complaint and said, ‘Well, why don’t you just go home and start your own writers club. Put an article in the local newspaper announcing your intentions to start one. See if your library has a meeting room where you could meet and see if they would help you get started. Don’t gripe about it, just go do it!’”
Dusty with Longmire creator Craig Johnson at Western Writers' of America's 2016 Conference in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Casey W. Cowan
It wasn’t long before a few of us, led by Dusty, began our own search for a group of writers that met locally, for that was suggested in all our classes at the conference that weekend. Dusty and some of us girls—back then it was okay to call us girls—began to look for such a group, with no luck. After checking out some that weren’t what we were looking for, Dusty decided it was time we took the bull by the horns, as he had earlier suggested more than once. Time to launch our own group. It was 1988, and the small college town did not o er anything like what we wanted. He laid down the rules, and we agreed. ere’d be no o cers, no dues, no keeping of minutes. We may have agreed, but in our minds we elected him President. We stepped back and put him in charge. It suited his personality and abilities.
Dusty and fellow writer J.B. Hogan during an Ozarks Writers' League Conference in 2014
Casey W. Cowan
After a few bumpy starts, that search resulted in what I remember to be a cluster of ve writers that would grow over the years. With Dusty ever sure we could keep the group together, we struggled to nd places to meet. At rst several members who lived in Fayetteville shared their living rooms, and a couple of others worked in town and talked their bosses into opening up the building’s lunchroom every ursday night. We were determined that a meeting a week would help us get ahead. We would accomplish more than a monthly meeting, but that made it more di cult to nd a home.
We approached the President of an organization known as Arkansas Poets and Writers, but with only one visit, we discovered it to be mainly poets. We decided on a critique and support group to ll the needs of members, writing ction or non ction.
After meeting here and there, including in a church that had an old-fashioned heating system that, when it came on, we had to stop talking until it went o it was so loud, we found what appeared to be a permanent home upstairs in the old o ce building of e Jones Center in Springdale. It was free and large enough to support the growth we expected
With Dusty at the helm and talking about our group everywhere he went, members poured in from the entire area of Northwest Arkansas. We soon settled on a name and became the Northwest Arkansas Writers Workshop. We remain that today. e entire area of Northwest Arkansas supported us with members. It seemed many writers lived and wrote in the college town and were searching for a group.
Dusty and I led us to win awards every year at conferences. For ten years we held a free writer’s conference. anks to Dusty serving on the board of directors of Ozarks Electric Co-op, we were able to hold that popular free conference there. While it is no longer being held, the original Northwest Arkansas Writers meeting continues to function as a virtual gathering, some thirty-eight years after its founding.
For all those years, Dusty was the central star, and the stories we all have to tell about our adventures with him and because of him would and shall one day ll a book. ese stories were gathered from those who continue to repeat their favorite tales about him. e cowboy who would literally give you the coat o his back, even if it meant he’d freeze, was a man of such a generous spirit he seemed unreal. For those who knew him, he will never be forgotten.
DUSTY RICHARDS, THE COWBOY WHO WOULD LITERALLY GIVE YOU THE COAT OFF HIS BACK, EVEN IF IT MEANT HE’D FREEZE, WAS A MAN OF SUCH GENEROUS SPIRIT, HE SEEMED UNREAL.
Kelly D. Willis
In the early years, when he drove a company truck and could afford to travel—remember that was the eighties, and most of us didn’t have much money to spend on extras—he’d nd every writer’s conference being held, during the season, and attend. He would gather up handouts as well as information, then return to our group and share everything. His wife, Pat, who was a registered nurse and had a heavy workload, worried about him driving alone so much. It suited her when one or more of us would accompany him on his trips to conferences. He was constantly on the lookout for a gathering where he could learn more about writing, and he’d o er to take along whoever wanted to go. Many of the small towns supported a library or reading groups, and he had no trouble being welcomed as a guest speaker. And always he learned facts about writing that he could carry back to us. I’ve never seen anyone so bent on learning his craft as he was… or in sharing what he learned.
After a while, some of us who took him up on his o ers to go along to a conference got to be known as Dusty’s Girls. It seemed our writer’s group was mostly women and all eager to write and be published. at’s when we found out how many women can travel in a club cab pickup. Loading sometimes became a problem. It seems that particular truck he drove was high o the ground, so those with short legs needed a butt boost into a back seat once in a while. Dusty stood by, and we boosted each other, lling the parking lot with loud hilarity. It never seemed to embarrass the western fella standing by.
He was probably one of the most patient drivers I ever traveled with. He liked to tell his stories all the while we whizzed along the highway. He preferred funny and western, and if no one made a comment, he’d wait a minute, then tell it all over again. Very patiently. Sometimes we couldn’t keep from laughing, but we tried not to. It was a habit he had as long as I was around him. We all got to where we’d automatically say something nice or funny about every story he told so he wouldn’t repeat it.
As a member of Western Writers of America, which Dusty joined a few years after his rst book, Noble’s Way, was published in 1990, he took his turn in line to hold the huge Western Writers yearly meeting in his hometown of Springdale. He came to our meeting and announced that a few of us were to help throw this shindig which he was determined would be the best WWA had ever held. And they would talk about it for years. Without delay, he began to assign jobs. No one told Dusty no. He would just keep right on assigning jobs without hesitation.
He declared that no one believed we could nd enough Western entertainment in Arkansas, so he was determined to prove we were part of the West. is be- came his declaration. “It will be the best Western Convention they’ve ever had.” He always called conferences conventions. No one ever corrected him.
A pair of teddy bears.
Casey W. Cowan
We who were assigned jobs fell right in to get them done. Not because he would be angry if we didn’t, but because it would please him if we did.
You need to understand something about this man, and I’ve said it more than once. He would do anything for anyone who truly needed it. He’d kick in and help without question. Anger never seemed to be a part of his makeup, though he was quick to stand up for what he believed. He simply did not know why we would not want to help him with this convention. It wasn’t that he expected tit for tat, he just thought everyone ought to be as generous as he was.
At the WWA conference Dusty assigned me to guide bestselling author Michael Gear on the train ride and through Judge Parker’s courtroom at the National Park in Fort Smith. We rode the cable car, and I had the time of my life with the popular writer who was dressed like a mountain man. Together we attracted a lot of attention.
Monkeying around with Bigfoot stand-in Scotty Cowan during SpringFest in Fayetteville, Arkansas in April, 2014.
Casey W. Cowan
Dusty also signed me up to pitch my book to a Penguin editor. Lisa Wingate stood by to make sure I carried through when I balked. Penguin eventually contracted the book as well as three others, so I’m one of the many writer’s whose career Dusty helped kick o .
With his wife’s blessing, he and I spent more and more time traveling to Western Conferences. She worked and told me she felt better when he didn’t travel alone. And so, until she retired, if it wasn’t Dusty’s Girls on a conference trip, it was Dusty and me.
Here’s just about everything his fans already know in a nutshell. Dusty Richards was an author of numerous Western novels and a noted mentor to hundreds of beginning writers. When attending conferences after his popularity spread, he acted as a speaker everywhere he could, and he quickly gathered a following. He was amused that some writers believed being around him would be enough to advance their career. He was fond of telling them that being around published writers wasn’t a magic way to become published. It was the hard work and studying their craft that would help the most. He also preached about doing research and reading.
JOTTING DOWN SOME THOUGHTS DURING HIS VISIT TO ZANE GREY’S CABIN. MAYBE ZANE GAVE HIM A FEW STORY IDEAS?
Dusty Richards
On a trip to Wyoming and Montana, we listened to his stories based on the true happenings in the area. We drove to Ten Sleep, Wyoming, one day, Pat and I entertained by historical stories. If Dusty didn’t know something, he would nd out. Ten Sleep, he explained, was so named because it took an American Indian ten days and nights of travel to get there from Fort Laramie. At rst, amazed that anyone could know as much as he did, I watched him when we traveled. He not only bought books about the area, but he also talked to people who lived there and soaked up everything they told him. at’s how he became such a fantastic storyteller. I soon learned from him that a writer does not tell stories, he lives them and takes his reader along with him.
A nal remembrance from an early friend, originally one of those rst few workshop group members. Lisa Wingate is today a New York Times Bestseller of the series Tending Roses and her latest, e Book of Lost Friends. She had this to say about Dusty.
“It’s a funny thing about friends. We nd them on the job or in whatever place we’re living at the moment or in the course of some hobby or activity we’re involved in. But jobs change, families relocate, interests bloom and fade. Sometimes friendships do, too. ey’re seasonal.
A BEAUTIFUL FAMILY. DUSTY AND PAT POSING WITH A LARGE PORTION OF THEIR FAMILY AFTER THEIR GRANDDAUGHTER’S WEDDING.
Rhonda Richards Albrecht
“Others... stick. ey’re timeless. No matter how long it’s been since the last visit, when the next one happens, you sit down and take up the conversation right where you left o .
“Dusty was that kind of friend. e kind who greeted you with a hearty handshake or a hug and never let go. I didn’t know that about him the rst time we met, in a ursday night writer’s group that held its weekly huddles in a Methodist church fellowship hall in Fayetteville, Arkansas. e group had only been meeting a few months when I wandered in for my inaugural visit. I was a sleep-deprived new mom in a new town, and I’d left a petri ed husband home alone with a whiny three month old baby— rst time solo, ever. e poor man was ashen when I picked up my notepad and car keys. He looked like he might faint. I think he said something like, “But... but what if the baby cries while you’re gone?”
“I left anyway. I was going to that writer’s group. I needed adult activity and the company of other writers. I also needed some friends in this new hometown. I gured hunting up the church hall on a dark, windy winter night was worth a try. Before I’d even made it in out of the weather, a big man with a big hat and an even bigger heart swept me through the door and into a friendship that would last through seasons and books, family moves and life changes, careers and retirements, and babies growing up and leaving the nest.
“Wherever life took us, there was always the routine of catching up over latest books, latest family news, new story ideas, and the tales of Dusty’s many travels with Pat riding shotgun. Occasionally, those travels brought him to our door. ose were the best times. Each one started with that hearty howdy and a big bear hug. ose greetings always tugged a daisy chain of memories. e chain grew stronger and richer over the years, longer and more complex, but always at its root lay a cold winter night, an open door, and that very rst ursday with Dusty.”
WHETHER WEARING HIS WHITE HAT OR HIS BLACK ONE, THE ONE AND ONLY DUSTY RICHARDS ALWAYS STOOD OUT IN A CROWD.
Casey W. Cowan
A new writer began to talk to Dusty about their book, he would tell them to send him three chapters, and he would go over it, and give them suggestions to help them out. I’ve seen him accept an armload of three-chapter-work from anyone and everyone who asked. I’ve never met anyone so generous with their time as he was. And he meant what he said about taking a look. ey’d get their work back with comments that would help them write.
In one interview, he remarked, “Hours and hours, pages and pages, book after book, you can’t have enough knowledge. Take some history, put your hero in the midst, and let him nd his way home. He knew for certain that good writing was good writing. e genre didn’t matter that much. Of course, we all learned all the rules as our group grew and matured. We also learned from each other how to break them. Dusty’s advice was always valuable.
Over the years he served on the board of Ozark Creative Writers Conference, held annually in Eureka Springs, Arkansas; the Ozarks Writer’s League in Branson, Missouri; and the Oklahoma Writer’s Federation. He also served on the board of the local electric co-op; the Springdale Arkansas PRCA Rodeo; and as President of Western Writers of America . In 2004 he was inducted into the Arkansas Writers Hall of Fame. In his spare time, he also co-founded this very magazine with his friend and fellow writer, Casey Cowan.
He began writing in 1980, and by 1990 his rst book, Noble’s Way, was published. He would go on to pen some 175 novels—some under his own name, many under a pseudonym or “house” name—including some that have not yet seen the light of day.
—Velda Brotherton is an award-winning nonfiction author, novelist, and a founding partner of Saddlebag Dispatches. She lives on a mountainside in Winslow, Arkansas, where she writes everyday and talks at length with her cat.
