IN THE PIT with a slithering array of rattlers, Rick Wilkinson both entertained and educated at the recent Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup. Wilkinson has been handling the vipers for 30 years without being bitten, but he still gets a knot in his stomach every time he goes among them.

Rattler Handler Entertains,
Teaches At Sweetwater Show

SWEETWATER — All eyes of the children — and most of the adults — are open wide, staring at the writhing rattlesnake in Rick Wilkinson's hands. There is an audible gasp from the audience as a rattlesnake on the floor strikes out at Wilkinson's thick black leather cowboy boots.

Slightly over six feet tall, the lanky Texan moves through the man-made pit filled with rattlesnakes with the grace of an athlete.

He talks almost continuously in a quiet, unassuming voice as he delivers his lecture on snake handling.

From the tone of his voice, he could just as well be delivering a talk about raising daisies.

Wilkinson picks up a diamond-backed rattler with a hook and lays it on a table in the middle of the pit. He advises the younger members of the audience here in the Nolan County Coliseum to stand perfectly still if they ever run across a rattlesnake in their yards at home — and hollar at the top of their lungs for their mom or dad.

It is the 50th annual Rattlesnake Roundup in Sweetwater, and Wilkinson is the head snake wrangler.

While he appears calm during his presentation, once he's out of the pit, he admits that his stomach is tied in a knot and his heart is pounding as a dozen or two rattlesnakes slither on the floor around him in the snake pit. His show over for another hour, Wilkinson makes his way to a quiet area behind the stands, pulls a cigarette, lights it and relaxes for a few moments before returning to the pit for another show.

Wilkinson helps train the others in the Sweetwater Jaycees, who produce the annual event, in the handling of snakes.

"At least to a certain extent," Wilkinson says. "It's honestly really hard to train somebody to do this. It's got to be something that you can kind of pick up on your own. We'll watch these guys, and you can tell whether they'll make a hand or whether you need to tell them, 'Well, we don't need you right now, sorry.'"

Wilkinson, 51, was born and reared in Sweetwater.

"I moved away a time or two," he says, "but I always came back."

He says it just seems he's always been involved, in one way or another, with the roundup.

"They were having this roundup when I was little," Wilkinson says. "My neighbor just down the road was Mr. Bill Ransberger. He was the handler at the roundup. He was also my neighbor. I had an opportunity to watch him."

In elementary school, Wilkinson's science fair project was about rattlesnakes.

"I've been handling them for 30-something years," Wilkinson says.

He's never been bitten by one of the snakes.

"I never have," Wilkinson says. "I've come close."

Ransberger died about three weeks ago, Wilkinson says, but his spirit still hovers over the coliseum.

Today, Ransberger is watching over Wilkinson. Several snakes strike. None are close enough to hit.

Older children and adults watch open-mouthed as Wilkinson calms a coiled rattlesnake on the table, then slides it off gently onto the palm of his hand and walks around showing the audience.

Smaller members of the audience peer through Plexiglas windows cut in the white plywood walls that form the circular snake pit in which Wilkinson performs.

"The first five years of the roundup, the area ranchers wanted to try to rid our country of rattlesnakes," Wilkinson says. "They were way over-populated. As the years have gone by and the Jaycees have taken over, we look at the rattlesnake as part of our heritage. Now, we work it as a harvest. All we're doing is helping Mother Nature keep a little bit of a balance with the snakes in our area."

On the other side of the coliseum, Gene Bartlett is milking rattlesnakes.

He carefully holds a large snake with its body extended, its mouth open and its fangs hooked over the lip of a funnel. Venom from the snake drips into a beaker below.

"We can milk 10,000 pounds of snakes," says Dennis Cumble, another Jaycee at the milking pit. "We've done that many before."

The number of snakes the last few years is down because of drouth, Cumble says.

He explains that within the three-day period of the rattlesnake roundup this year, they expect to handle some 2208 pounds of snakes and milk them for about 1500 cc of venom.

The venom, which used to be donated to Texas A&M, is now sold to a laboratory in Arizona as part of the Jaycees’ fundraiser.

"We don't make a lot on it," Cumble admits.

Most of the money comes from the crowds drawn to the event.

The snakes generally come from an area within a 75 to 85-mile radius of Sweetwater, Cumble says. There are hunt clubs, consisting of eight to 10 people each, that begin gathering snakes about a month before the roundup.

"They bring them to us," Cumble says.

Sweetwater, Wilkinson says, is a perfect habitat for the rattlesnake.

"Our climate here is perfect," he says. "We don't have real hard winters. Rattlesnakes have nine to 15 babies when they're born. They're born alive, not hatched out of eggs."

If a rattlesnake is able to get a good meal and is able to get water when he wants, it can go a full year without having to eat again, Wilkinson says.

"With all that, you can see why we'd get over-populated," he continues.

While he adds that there are no problems with mice or rats around Sweetwater, Wilkinson says the role that rattlesnakes play in controlling rodent populations is probably overstated.

"A rattlesnake eats three or four or five rats a year," Wilkinson says. "The owls and the hawks and the roadrunners and everything else are the ones that keep mice and rat populations down."

Wilkinson says they have had animal activists show up from time to time and object to the roundup.

"Most of those folks don't live around here, where you can walk out your back door and step on a rattlesnake," Wilkinson says.

Most of the people here have been around long enough that they know how deal with snakes.

"The first day of the roundup, they bring in all the elementary kids," Wilkinson says. "They come over, and I put on a demonstration and try to show them how to react if they come across a snake in the yard. We pretty well train the kiddos, and as they grow up here, they know how to react to rattlesnakes. They know how to live with them."

That includes standing still and screaming for their parents.

"Rattlesnakes cannot hear," Wilkinson explains. "They don't have any ears. Kids can hollar all day, and it's not going to bother that snake."

Since the rattlesnake is a pit viper, it reacts to heat. It will strike at sudden movement.

In fact, studying pit vipers is how the military came up with the idea of heat-seeking missiles.

"It works on the exact same principle," Wilkinson says.

Cobras, however, are totally different.

Rattlesnakes have a hemotoxic venom, a venom that attacks blood and muscle. Cobras have a neurotoxic venom, a venom that attacks the nervous system.

"Cobra venom causes vital organs to shut down," Wilkinson says. "I also do demonstrations with cobras. Normally, I have a couple of cobras here. I get them shipped in here from Afghanistan, but it's kind of hard to get them right now."