Chuckwagon Of Year Honors
Go To Husband And Wife Team

McLEAN, Texas — Les and Lyda Darsey will be in Fort Worth next month to celebrate, not to cook.

The Academy of Western Artists named the Gray County rancher and his wife as having the 1998 Chuckwagon of the Year.

Les and Lyda Darsey, who ranch along McClellan Creek in the Texas Panhandle, will be honored in ceremonies July 16 in Fort Worth.

In announcing the award, the academy said there were more ballots and the voting was closer this year than ever before.

"It's getting tougher each year," said a spokesman for the Gene Autry, Okla., based academy.

Darsey's experience around chuckwagons goes back to his youth, and his wife has spent most of her life cooking for cowboys. Darsey's father and grandfather came to the Texas Panhandle in 1939 from Wichita Falls when Darsey was only 11 years old.

It was the tales of cowboys at the ranch that led a teenaged Darsey to run away from home and head for the Matador Ranch in Motley County, where he was the hoodlum for the wagon for a few days until the sheriff showed up and suggested he return home.

After high school, Darsey went to work on the JA Ranch near Clarendon in 1946.

"I was with the wagon down there, and that's what kind of got me familiar with chuckwagons and chuckwagon cooking," he says.

Darsey's memories of being with the wagon led him to buy an old farm wagon a few years ago in Shamrock. Darsey built the chuck box and bows for the canvas top.

"We spent one whole winter restoring it," Lyda remembers.

Soon they began competing in chuckwagon cookoffs. Their first venture was a chuckwagon competition at Shamrock in 1994. In 1996, they won the chuckwagon competition at Ruidoso, N.M., and placed second at the Cowboy Symposium in Lubbock.

"Lyda's always been a good ranch cook, so we started experimenting with Dutch ovens and cooking on coals," Darsey says. "Lyda has a peach cobbler she's right proud of."

"And bread that we're pretty proud of," Lyda adds.

She's also won praise for her chicken fried steak and potatoes.

But there's more to a chuckwagon cookoff than just the cooking. The wagon itself has to be authentic, along with the dress of the contestants, and the cooking utensils.

"Usually, it's 50 percent on your wagon and camp and authenticity, and 50 percent on the food," Darsey says.

"I enjoy the people," Lyda Darsey says. "I've always cooked on ranches. I've always cooked for cowboys. It's not as convenient as it is at home. I cook the same food when we're right here when we work cattle for cowboys. You can't feed anybody nicer than a bunch of cowboys. They'll appreciate you."

The award ceremony for Chuckwagon of the Year will be at 7:30 p.m., July 16, at the Scott Theater in Fort Worth. Entertainment will include Dayna Wills, Red Steagall, Chuck Milner, Brenn Hill, Larry Maurice and Tommy Morrell and the Time Warp Tophands.

Filling out the top 10 chuckwagons in the Chuckwagon of the Year competition as determined by the chuckwagon cooks, builders and owners are Lee Hammond Chuckwagon of Clovis, N.M.; Wayne Clemm of Poteet, Texas; the Flying M Chuckwagon of Memphis, Texas; Henry Jennings of Stinnett, Texas; C Bar C Chuckwagon of Hartley, Texas; Bob Drake of Breckenridge, Texas; the Grublenik Chuckwagon of Raton, N.M.; Natha Mitchell of Stanton, Texas, and Jerry Slaton of Afton, Texas.