'Quintille Firman grew up dirt-poor on a Texas Panhandle homestead during the Dust Bowl era. In l931, she and a dozen friends experienced a special Christmas pageant at their schoolhouse in Tascosa that included a frightening blizzard. While the story, retold by her daughter Casandra, centers around one memorable incident, readers will feel the stunning strength and firm resolve these children of the Great Depression exhibited every day. Into this novella seeps hints of fathers who deserted, grim-faced mothers who stayed and children who could afford only one pencil for the school year. There are crumbling adobe shacks called home, threadbare clothing, schoolgirl crushes and unrequited puppy love. Kids and even adults will read this one twice' - ""True West"". 'Quintilles story, so poignantly retold by her daughter Casandra, speaks volumes about the human condition on the High Plains in 1931. It is hard to imagine that anything so simple as a lead pencil could break a budget, or that using two in one school year could constitute extravagance. Yet children in Old Tascosa at the end of the Depression and on the cusp of even more desperate times were, like their counterparts elsewhere on the Plains, accustomed to hardship and well used to shouldering their share of the familys burden. They had no reason to know that life anywhere, or what constituted luxury, could be different. Not knowing they were deprived, they found joy as children will in friendships and games, and in the wonders of the school room. And in the simplest of Christmas pageants they found the prospect of bliss' - Red Steagall, from the Foreword. It was Christmas time in Old Tascosa. The year was 1931, well into the Great Depression and on the brink of the worst days of the Dust Bowl. Tascosa, once a booming Wild West town, complete with outlaws, cowboys, and gamblers, was all but deserted. Its only resident was Frenchie McCormick, a famous dance-hall girl from Tascosas glory days. In 1931 she was a frail and lonely woman in her eighties, living in a tumble-down adobe shack and waiting for Tascosa to rise again. This story is about Tascosa, the Christmas pageant of 1931, and how twelve children, stranded in a one-room school house by an untimely blizzard, met Frenchie. Casandra Firman lives in Port Orchard, Washington. Quintille Speck-Firman Garmany lives in Pensacola, Florida.

'If ever there was a coffee-table book that could exemplify the best of the best, this is it. Wyman Meinzer's photos portray the heart and soul of this historic ranch, but even more important, so do Henry Chappell's words...His sentences drip with vivid imagery, allowing readers to watch a movie in their mind of this west Texas ranch where one's livelihood is still earned, four generations later' - ""True West"". ""The Sixes' - the name alone conjures all the history, romance, and tradition of the West. It's how the West was, and still is, on a 290,000-acre working cattle outfit in Texas...Chappell handily captures the essence of the West Texas cattle outfit and its history...Meinzer's work is eye-candy for those enamored of the ranching lifestyle. This coffee-table volume's a keeper' -""Western Horseman"". 'A sumptuous, beautifully written and illustrated volume that tells the story of one of the largest and most famous ranches in the Panhandle...Meinzer's photographs and Chappell's prose enchant the reader' - ""Roundup Magazine"". '[A] handsome, oversized book featuring lavish photographs...150 pages of stunning pictures ...Meinzer has produced about 15 other books that are credits to his talented eye, but this one may be the most impressive yet' - Glen Dromgoole, ""Lubbock Avalanche-Journal"".

Red Steagall's weekly radio program, Cowboy Corner, has been on the air for more than ten years and is carried on 175 radio stations across the country. A major feature of each show is Red's interview with his guest that week. They talk about the West, about cowboys, about horses, about history. It is always a conversation between friends who share mutual interests and mutual acquaintances, and in the course of these conversations the listener learns about Western heritage, Western traditions, and Western values. With the assistance of editor Loretta Fulton, Red has compiled the conversations with twenty-one of his friends into a unique book that captures the flavor of the Western way of life. Included are interviews with notable Western figures Roy Rogers, Rex Allen, Reba McEntire, Richard Farnsworth, Jim Shoulders, Roy Clark, John Justin, Elmer Kelton, Wilford Brimley, Joaquin Jackson, Buck Taylor, and many more. Their stories about early days in movies, ranching, law enforcement, music, writing, and other endeavors create an important oral history of life in the West.