Honoring Old Yeller Dressed boyishly in denim overalls and a straw hat, Kassie Stagner, 10, wraps her arms around a yellow Labrador retriever, striking a pose that’s reminiscent of character Travis Coates and his devoted dog in the 1957 movie classic, Old Yeller. “This morning, I rubbed my T-shirt in the dirt, too,” says Stagner, whose efforts won her the “Travis Look-Alike” contest during Old Yeller Day in Mason, Texas (pop. 2,134), last year. The annual October event honors the late author Fred Gipson, who spent most of his life in Mason, where he penned the beloved dog tale in 1956. The following year, Walt Disney turned Old Yeller into a Hollywood favorite, starring Dorothy McGuire, Fess Parker and Tommy Kirk. Set in the 1860s, Old Yeller was inspired by a true story told by Gipson’s grandfather and recounts the frontier adventures of a teenage boy, Travis, and his poor family who adopt an ugly “yeller” dog....