Cowboys’ Directness
Shrinks Swelled Heads

AMARILLO — Cowboys have long burst the bubbles of those who think themselves important, and cowboys in Wyoming are no different.

Dick Cheney, who served in the Ford and Reagan administrations before becoming President George Bush's Secretary of Defense during the Persian Gulf War, was reelected to the U.S. Congress five times before leaving the legislative branch of government for the executive branch.

Cheney recently told a group of Amarillo oilmen of his last Congressional race and the Wyoming cowboy who put him in his place.

"When had a tradition in Wyoming," Cheney says. "We always the campaign every fall in the community of Torrington, down on the Wyoming-Nebraska border. Ranch groups would invite all the candidates, Republican and Democrat alike, to come out and speak to the folks."

After 10 years in the House of Representatives and having his picture in the newspapers, television and posters, Cheney says he assumed everybody would know who he was.

"Before it was my turn to get up and speak at that last rally," Cheney says, "I was out working the crowd. I wanted to make sure I greeted every voter there. I walked up to one old cowboy with his back up against a tree and a cowboy hat down over his eyes. I reached out and grabbed him by the hand and said, 'Hi, I'm Dick Cheney. I'm running for Congress and I'd like your vote.'"

The cowboy replied, "You got it. That fool we've got up there now is no damn good."