Pasco ranchers share memories, history

The smell of cooking barbecue was complemented by the sound of fireworks. Or, were those bullets being fired? Those entering the Back Forty Pavilion at Starkey Ranch, quickly realized that the crackling pops they heard involved not pyrotechnics or gunpowder, but handmade whips slung by the hands of 16-year-old Chase Kiefer of Bushnell. The event drew a crowd of more than 200 people, many of them from ranching families around Pasco County. The event, hosted by SCENIC, a nonprofit organization, was attended by families who brought cattle brands from yesteryear, old pictures, plenty of stories and an appetite for barbecue and live country music, which was performed by Kissimmee-based Kenyon Lockry. The cattle brands are part of SCENIC's Living Legacy Project, which works to preserve the area's rich ranching history with photos, video and written stories on the organization's Web site. At a booth under the pavilion, historian and author Jeff Cannon of Hudson displayed several brands from families around the region. His oldest was an 1845 brand used by John S. Taylor, a Civil War veteran who lived in Hernando County. There was an 1883 brand made by Constantine "Bud" Stevenson, a blacksmith killed during a "family feud" with the Whidden family, Cannon said. Cannon explained that ranching was prevalent throughout Pasco during the Civil War, when the area's "Cow Calvary" rounded up beef cattle for Confederate soldiers fighting up north...more