Margaret

One of my dearest friends on this earth is a lady named Margaret Hawkins.  She is a gem.  In a couple of weeks, she'll be 84 years old and I truly love her to death.  Margaret is a cowgirl and has been all of her life.  And I admire the things she has done in and with her life.  But that isn't the reason I love her so much.....she is one of the kindest and most genuine people I have ever met.  Truly, she is the salt-of-the-earth.

Margaret's dad raised horses from remount stallions back when Margaret was just a girl.  My dad remembers seeing those horses they raised.  He said they were better than anything anybody else had around here.  That was the start of a lifetime of raising horses for Margaret.  Some of the horses she raises today go back to some of those old remount studs.  Impressive........ 

She was an integral part of getting barrel racing introduced into the sport of rodeo.  We take that for granted now....barrel racing was not always a rodeo event.  But women like Margaret wanted to be able to show their stuff.  And they did something about it.  Up until just a few years ago, Margaret was still running barrels.  She has run and raised some awesome barrel horses.  She raised a stallion named Tiger Brazilius, aka "Brazilius" who took her to the Mountain States WPRA Championships as well as placing her at the acclaimed Cheyenne Frontier Days and other big PRCA rodeos.  Margaret's daughter, Virgilene, also one of my dear friends, has run some of those great horses too and been very successful. 

When Margaret was about 30 years old, she married a man named Virgil Hawkins.  I wish I'd had the pleasure of meeting Virgil.  I'm sure he was quite the man.  He passed away when Margaret was about 40 and left her a pretty big ranch to take care of.  Not one to shirk her task, Margaret took on the challenge and not only did she keep the place together, she added to it and did some pretty great things over the years.  Also pretty impressive..........

I don't get to go visit the Figure 2 Ranch very often anymore.  I used to go pretty often.  Let me tell you, it was an experience. Margaret and Virgilene would always take me out to look at the colts.  They can both tell you the lineage of every colt and tell you what that colt's relatives did.  They can quote speed indexes of the running horses and tell you how much money a lot of them have won.  They aren't bragging.  They're just stating facts. Another of the things I love about both of these women.  Regardless of how much success they have had in their lives, they are not braggers.  Both are extremely humble.  And grateful.  And Margaret  bakes a pretty mean pecan pie.  Almost every time I'd go up for a visit, she'd bake one....just for me.

Many times when I talk to Margaret on the phone she will tell me how grateful they are for the good things in their lives.  Virgilene often says to me, " we're busy or we're doing this or that.....BUT THE IMPORTANT THINGS ARE GOOD."  I love that.  I love it so much that I borrow it from time to time.  And almost always when we are ready to hang up the phone, Margaret will say to me, "Good talkin' to ya.  Love you dearly."  I love you dearly, too, Margaret.  Me, and about a million others.