Betty: Well, I. . . I went to school on the ranch ah. . . it was a huge school district—took in this whole corner of the valley. And ah. . . the Kings on the south, and us here, I think were the only families with kids in the whole district. So ah. . . it was a long ways from here over to the schoolhouse at Urraca, so they. . . my mother taught us for. . . till I was in about the sixth grade—at home. And then they hired a teacher who came and lived on the ranch, and taught us—my brother and my sister and I—there were just three of us in school. So basically, I never knew another child my own age until I started high school, and when it came time to start high school, we moved into Alamosa during the week. My mother and my brother and sister and I, and then we went to school in there, and then we'd come back out here on the weekends. So ah. . . as far as the. . . what kids today thinks the fun part of school, we didn't have. But we had. . . we learned a lot. I never once ran up against anything in high school or on in college that I had lost by going to school here on the ranch. Usually, I was ahead of. . . of the people that had been in regular school. So I've always thought it was a real blessing to have had that kind of an education.
NW: And how did you go about learning the ah. . . riding and. . . and ah. . . you know, cowboying, cowgirling? Cause you know, you told me you were. . . you were into that from an early age.
Betty: Well (laughs) the. . . the best way you learn that is just to get on a horse and go. (Laughter) They ah. . . I had a. . . a picture of me when I suppose I was about a year old. Dad had me on a horse. I just kind of grew up on a horse. I was an outdoor person—I never. . . never had a doll in my life. Never played inside. My sister thought I was horrible, because she liked those things. She was a good-looking blue-eyed blonde, very feminine. And ah. . . I liked the outside, so I grew up in the middle of it. Ah. . . was often tried to bribe my mother on a day when they were working cattle to dispense with school for the day, cause I would work extra hard the next day if I could go and help roundup the cattle, and ah. . . I guess I just learned ah. . . by experience. Ah. . . my father was a excellent horseman. He ah. . . and I don't know where he learned it, but he was considered all over the state as being a good horseman. We raised good horses—we had a thoroughbred ah. . . stud horse that belonged to the U.S. Remount Service which was ah. . . the U.S. Cavalry, and we had out own mares that had quite a bit of thoroughbred breeding in them, and we raised horses and then we would break the geldings. About every two or three years, the officers of the Army Cavalry would come by, and we would show off all the horses we had. Ah. . . they, at that time of course, paid much more for a horse than anyplace that you could see them. That was kind of right at the end of the depression—during the middle of it to the end. And ah. . . my father. . . which is one reason I guess he made the ranch go—anytime he could sell anything for a profit, it was gone. And it didn't matter if it was his favorite horse or my favorite horse, or. . . or the other cowboys' favorite horses, ah. . . if the army would buy them, they were gone. And then we'd start with a new batch. And ah. . . it was ah. . . that's just something that I just grew up and learned by experience. Still do it.