Stephenville’s cowboy claim is legit, yes sir

In her song "Stephenville, TX," the (mostly) pop singer-songwriter Jewel says she moved there because she fell in love with a man, "and I moved his ex-old lady's things out of the closet, the same closet I had to move my things back in."

This makes Jewel an anomaly. She didn't relocate to Stephenville to rope cattle in the rodeo.

Not directly, anyway.

Jewel is married to Ty Murray, the nine-time world champion cowboy. In 1997, Murray bought a place on the outskirts of Stephenville and fixed it up real nice so that he and his bucking horses would have a place to stretch their legs when they retired.

A lot of rodeo cowboys - guys who wore gold buckles, guys who will wear them, guys who just try really hard and say "yes sir" and "no sir" and refer to women as "sugar" in such a way that it doesn't offend them - make their homes on the outskirts of Stephenville. One or two may even have a place on the main drag.

This is why the Texas town of 17,123, situated at the junction of U.S. Highways 377, 281 and 67, about 70 miles west of Fort Worth, is one of several dusty-spur places claiming to be the "Cowboy Capital of the World."

Ante up, Dodge City.

Five cowboys from Stephenville are competing in this year's National Finals Rodeo at the Thomas & Mack Center. As they say in Stephenville, it's been a down year. There are none from Dodge City, Kan., Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp having come up short in the final go-rounds.

There are pardners in Banderas, Texas, who also lay claim to "Cowboy Capital of the World," because that is where the big cattle drives originated during the depression. Plus, they had dude ranches. But there are no dudes from Banderas listed among the top 15 money winners.

So I gotta go with Stephenville.

So does Teresa Burdick. She was the "sugar" who answered the phone at the Stephenville Chamber of Commerce on Monday. "It's a great day in Stephenville" she said, and she had one of those Texas accents that drives men crazy. So I immediately believed her.

When she learned I was a reporter from the city, she said that perhaps I should speak with the chamber president, whose name was July - July Danley. But Ms. July Danley was out to lunch.

So I asked Teresa Burdick, who lives with her folks on the outskirts of town, that were I to visit Stephenville on the way to Dublin (home of Dr. Pepper and Ben Hogan), how long would it be before I knew I was in the "Cowboy Capital of the World?"

Not long at all, she said, because I would see the trucks and the hats and experience "the down-home family atmosphere" which you don't often get on the South Side of Chicago.

She also recommended the chicken-fried steak at Jake & Dorothy's Cafe, and confirmed there is this place in Stephenville called Beans and Franks that specializes in gourmet coffee and gourmet hot dogs such as the "Big Nasty" - a jalapeno sausage topped with chili, cheese and cayenne pepper.

She said she has yet to bump into Jewel at the Walmart Supercenter.

Neither has Dakota Kirchenschlager, one of the few NFR cowboys not named Cody, who sometimes ropes with a guy from Oklahoma named Bubba Buckaloo.

Kirchenschlager, who moved to Stephenville when he was 10 because he wanted to learn to rope cattle in the rodeo like his old man, made it into his first NFR by a grand total of $3.

Perspective: That is $1.40 less than what a small cafe latte costs at the Starbucks at Excalibur just around the corner from where he and the other team ropers were signing autographs Monday.

Kirchenschlager, who has a place on - you guessed it - the outskirts of Stephenville, said I would know I was in the "Cowboy Capital of the World" even before Teresa Burdick said I would.

"It's on the sign when you come into town, yes sir," he said.

When I asked if Stephenville is to rodeo what Charlotte and Indianapolis are to racing cars, he said, yes sir, that it was. When I asked if he had ever bumped into Jewel at Walmart, he said no sir, he had not. But that he bumps into her husband all the time.

Kendra Santos, who writes about cowboys and western culture and has written a book about Ty Murray, calls Stephenville "a slice of rural America where spurs jangle down the grocery aisles." And that she would know, because she has walked those aisles with the man himself in pursuit of his favorite snack, Cheez Whiz and Chicken in a Biskit crackers.

(Full disclosure: My mom used to put Cheez Whiz and Chicken in a Biskit crackers in my care packages at college. So if I had to move to Stephenville, I think I could be happy, even if I have only bet on horses and not ridden them.)

In addition to the numerous chicken fried steak testimonials, I discovered that Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kevin Kolb hails from Stephenville. And Red Snapp, who managed nine minor league teams in 10 seasons - six called "Snappers" or "Red Snapp-ers" - before retiring from baseball in 1929 to operate a filling station in Dallas.

I should have asked Teresa Burdick if she ever bumped into Kevin Kolb at Walmart.

Or about the time in 2011, when a fire truck ran into a car driven by a pregnant woman in Stephenville, and the fire truck was driven by a county commissioner, and the pregnant woman was Jewel, and there was a story about it the next day in the New York Times.

This is the sort of thing that can happen in Stephenville after one moves the ex-old lady's things out of the closet.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski