About Robert

Robert on Scarlett O'Hara (left) and Springtime, a Welsh Pony mare (right)

But life was not quite as idyllic as it might sound. Robert describes himself as “a pretty bothered kid.”

“My parents divorced when I was three years old. I don’t know if it was that, or it was just that I didn’t get along well with many kids. I didn’t feel too good about myself through high school,” he says.

When he looks back, Robert believes he got along best with the ponies and horses in his life. They became his refuge. He spent much of his time riding, training, jumping and occasionally showing their horses with his sister, Susan. Robert also looks back fondly on long days spent trail riding in the Blue Mountains to escape the summer heat in the valley. “Those were some pretty fun memories... packing our camp into the  Blue Mountains, catching trout, and sitting around the fire,” he says.

As he grew older, Robert found that the only people he knew with horses were either into the rodeo scene, or wanted to be. Though he admired their skills, he felt it wasn’t for him. “I tried to fit into that group,” he says. “I guess there was something about it that just didn’t fit my persona.”

And so he looked at things to do that didn’t involve horses ---- a try at college, and then a stint in the Navy. “I decided it was time to see the world and thought the Navy might be a good means to get that done,” he says. “Well, things don’t always turn out the way one might plan. The Navy sent me to Beeville, Texas for a while.”

In Texas, Robert says he swapped his horse based lifestyle for a Harley Davidson motorcycle: “You didn’t have to feed the darn thing and you could ride it hard and just put it up for as long as you wanted. “ But after he returned home to Washington, his interest in horses soon returned. “Now, that Harley was a fun machine, but it was just a machine,” he says, "It had no mind of it's own, the challenge was not there".

When you meet Robert today, you will no doubt hear him say how much he has learned from being around horses. That education began in earnest around the time he returned from Texas, a time when he met two “teachers” by the names of Quick and Hunt.

Quick was a sorrel Quarter Horse colt, a gift from his parents. “We got along pretty good. I think it was because he liked me for some reason,” he says. “Looking back on that, I think he may have been a masochist of some kind. I didn’t do a lot right by him, but we did kind of get along.”

Hunt was Ray Hunt. Robert first rode with the renowned clinician at the Douglass Lake Cattle Ranch in British Columbia. “That was my first introduction to being around a really good horseman,” he says. “Ray really got my interest. Before I knew it I was a self-proclaimed disciple of his. “

But Robert admits that his enthusiasm may have outmatched his talent in those early years. “I’m quite embarrassed now looking back on what I was doing to horses with my new ‘knowledge,’” he says. “I owe that sorrel gelding a lot for putting up with me through those times.”

“Always looking out the window”

Upon returning to the Northwest, Robert also returned to Central Washington University where he pursued his other interest -- becoming a school teacher.

“My dream was to teach in a one-room schoolhouse somewhere in Wyoming, somewhere in ranch country if at all possible,” he says. “My idea of the perfect life was a place where I could teach and enjoy my horse.”

Robert eventually found that job in “a little one roomer” just south of Sheridan, Wyoming in Johnson County, where he had more than enough room to keep and ride his horse. In fact, he often rode Quick to the Kearney School where he taught.

“I would keep him in part of the schoolyard that the kids had given up for him,” he says. “My last year there I tried to make it up to the kids by taking them on the Cowboy State Centennial Wagon Train. I found an old farm wagon, turned it into a chuck wagon, bought a team of strawberry roans (Sally and Sue) and away we went!”

While Robert appreciated the challenges and rewards of teaching children in the classroom, after a few years he found himself wondering if it was the right setting for him.

“Looking back to my own childhood, I was always looking out the classroom window.” he says. “I think it was because I found the things going on outside to be a heck of a lot more interesting than the things going on inside most of the time. As a teacher, I eventually became aware that I still had a tendency to look out, especially when horses and ranch hands passed by the school.”

“When things really started changing for me”

Around that time a fellow teacher from Sheridan told Robert about someone who was giving a horsemanship clinic in Parkman, Wyoming. She described him as being “very handy” with horses. So Robert went to watch Buck Brannaman for the first time in 1988.

He came away so impressed that he rode a colt in Brannaman’s clinic the next time he came to town. “What a learning experience that was.” he says. “I often think back at that colt starting with Buck. That was when things really started changing for me.”

Around this time, budgeting cuts were forcing the closure of many rural schools in Wyoming, including the Kearney School. So the timing was right for Robert to return to southeast Washington and to his education in horsemanship. He started by sponsoring a clinic for Brannaman in Dayton. At this point in his story he’ll tell you, “the rest is history, as they say.”

Robert traveled with Buck some while he gave clinics and considers himself very fortunate for the experience. At least most of the time, he adds with a smile.

“Buck put me on some horses that I might not have ridden on my own,” he says. “I remember one horse in, I think it was North Carolina. The horse was zipping around the round corral at the end of Buck’s lass rope. This horse was moving around in there like Ricochet Rabbit. Buck was on his big red horse Biff. There wasn’t much that fazed Biff, but you could see his concern over this one. The crowd, including me, thought this was pretty entertaining. Then I heard Buck over his PA system say, ‘Robert, get your saddle’.” Robert still gets tickled retelling the story. “It always worked out and I’ve come away with some good knowledge from the experiences.”

“I’ve been blessed to work with and to spend time with some of the best in the horse world,” he says. Along with Brannaman, Robert says he’s spent some “very much-treasured time” with both Tom and Bill Dorrance, two brothers regarded as old masters in horsemanship circles. “On a couple of occasions I was invited down to Bill’s ranch in California. That was a real treat riding and roping with Bill, and his sons Dave and Steve,” he says. “If that wasn’t enough, Bill and I headed down the road to spend some time with Tom and a couple of colts I was riding at the time in his round pen.”

The Dorrances are both gone now, as is Ray Hunt, who died in 2009. But Robert says he feels grateful they had the desire to share and teach their valuable lessons and observations with so many others. “What a blessing to have them living on in the people and horses they have influenced over their many years,” he says.

Robert and Quick while working for the US Forest Service on the Medicine Wheel District of the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming