Buchanan: Alvin Davis left incredible imprint on cowboy culture

“Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.” Psalm 37:3

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life," poet Mary Oliver asks us. And now we see what Alvin Davis has done with his own life and not just as “Mr. Cowboy Culture” himself. When the inimitable Alvin "changed ranges" this week at the age of 94, I knew the West would never again see the likes of this incandescent man. His humanity, his brains, his good cheer, his humor, his cowboy poetry, his Christian kindness and sensitivity to the pain of others made me see him not just as a gentleman but as a gentle man whose enthusiasm makes me think of the Greek word for that: “enthousiasmos”....meaning the “god or spirit in you.”

A creative entrepreneur and leader to the bone, his visionary ideas flowed from boyhood in ranch town Post, Texas, to embrace his major contributions far beyond his role as Executive Director of the National Ranching Heritage Center at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

I first met Alvin and the vibrant Barbara (Hext) Davis in 1987 when I contacted the National Ranching Heritage Center, as a writer and descendant of Texas ranching pioneers, that is to say, the Elder Daniel Parker family; I was named for Cynthia Ann Parker and named my horse Quanah for her half-Comanche son. After exuberant Alvin on the phone gave me that “y’all come” warm-hearted encouragement I moved to Lubbock. And many was the day Barbara and Alvin provided their guest room for me and my feet were under Barbara’s table.

Alvin and I came up with the idea for the National Cowboy Symposium & Celebration at Tech Tech University and soon helped form the steering committee under the auspices of the Department of Continuing Education, where our first event was held. In the meantime I began teaching courses there such as “Cowboy Poetry,” “How to Write Your Family Story as Fact or Fiction” and “Writing Your War Story.” These courses I then taught throughout Lubbock and the southern plains at ranches and historical organizations. Yet none of this innovation would ever have had a chance had Alvin not mentored my experiments. He was always brimming with fresh perspectives.

It was my joy years later to see his own leadership throughout Texas as a cowboy culture specialist invited, for example, to the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo, where I last saw him, for I had moved to the Texas-Mexico borderlands to continue writing after I got married. In all truth, that phenomenon would never have been possible without Alvin and Barbara’s friendship; I had been thrashing around in my research and travels until I met Dr. Jerry Cowley, Beef Cattle Specialist for Texas A&M Agricultural Extension Service at San Angelo.

The rigors of courtship would have been beyond my primitive grasp had I not presented my “situation” to Alvin. Barbara figured into this equation because their partnership served as my model for marriage, to tell the truth. Then they traveled to my wedding in San Angelo in 1991. At the outdoor reception while photographers bounced around snapping photos of bride and groom and my docile bay gelding as a guest, filling out this scenario I saw Alvin and Barbara eating barbecue and laughing with my parents from Arizona. I knew my life could never have happened in Texas as solidly as it did without the encouragement of the great Alvin Davis. Anybody who ever knew him well would concur he lived his one “wild and precious life” in service to others and to the eloquent American West.

Cynthia Buchanan has been published widely, from The New York Times to Quarter Horse Journal.  In 2022 she finished a new novel about ranching plus curriculum at TeachersPayTeachers.com. She makes her home in Uvalde, Texas.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Cynthia Buchanan Alvin Davis left incredible imprint on cowboy culture