The Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum held a “Student Author Book Signing Event” to celebrate the top Hunt Elementary Student Authors from the first writing contest on April 9. Fourth and fifth graders wrote first-person journal entries as if they were on a cattle drive in the 1800s. This writing project was part of an engaging social studies program that included a field trip to the Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum to learn about the great cattle drives and life in the 19th century. The students selected had the most creative and well-written entries.
The entries were compiled into a booklet titled “Beeves, Brands & Biscuits- Adventures on the Trail with Hunt Elementary.' Below are a couple of stories written by the students.
Trail Boss
by Hayes Cromeens My name is Hayes. I’m a trial boss. This is my first time being a trail boss. The reason is because I was a big land owner in the German community, and I lost my ranch, money and family to fever and the war. I needed money, so I joined a trail ride. We started today and I’m quite nervous. We got bad weather. It started snowing hard and bad by the time we got to Indian Territory. We rode all day and our cook, also known as Cookie, was preparing deer meat, coffee, beans, and biscuits with pickles. I had a good dinner and the rest of the way was easy. We got to Kansas after a successful drive.
My Journey to Kansas by Dalori Bland
Day 10. Hi, I’m an eagle and my name is Maddie, and I’m 5 ft long. Today I’m flying back home to my nest, until I saw this trail of men on horses, and there are longhorn steers than are lined up in a line. So I decided to follow them. Later that day, at night, a big storm hit and all the longhorn steers are running around and are going different ways. I decided to take shelter and find a warm place I can stay until the morning.
Day 20. The next day I wake up and I hear a dog barking, so I got up and I saw the dog that was barking, and I noticed that he was barking at the longhorn steers to get in line. And that’s when they started their journey to Kansas.
Day 60. I’m flying behind one of the drag riders. I noticed that he looked young for his job. Later that day I figured out that his name was Tyler. Everyday Tyler would let me sit on his shoulder and even some mornings he would give me his leftovers. Tyler and I became really good friends. The next day we made it to Kansas. They delivered the longhorn steers and we went back home.
