Western Heritage Day Canceled Due to Weather

Annual event introduces schoolchildren to range of frontier activities

April 13, 2016 Linnea Kirgan

 (Abilene, Texas) The 34th annual Western Heritage Day scheduled for Thursday, April 21 has been canceled due to concerns about weather and ground conditions. It is only the second time in the event’s history that it had to be canceled.

The popular educational event is designed to immerse children of the Big Country in Western culture as it might have been in Abilene during the 1800s. More than 4,000 children attended the event in 2015.

“The decision to cancel was made in order to help ensure the safety of our participants and volunteers given the overly saturated ground and the forecast for more rain and thunderstorms for Thursday morning,” the University said in a statement.

The University has already set the date for its 35th annual Western Heritage Day event. It will be Thursday, April 20, 2017.

The celebration typically includes numerous learning stations, booths, demonstrations, and cultural activities aimed at teaching new generations about the integrity, honor, character, and hard work of frontier women and men left as a legacy for generations of West Texans. The event is free to daycare and primary-aged students in the Big Country region.

A new “Texan Cultures” station was planned for 2016 to bring a distinctive language component. The station’s activity would have been be a Spanish Language word game developed by HSU undergraduate students who are studying Spanish with Dr. Rosario Hall, an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Head of the HSU Department of Foreign Languages, and Dr. Joe Alcorta, Professor of Spanish and Coordinator of Minority Studies. The station was to be sponsored by HSU’s Department of History and HSU’s Department of Foreign Languages.    

“We wanted to bring a language experience that would fit with Texas,” said HSU Professor of History Dr. Tiffany Fink. She said the station would have also reinforced what students are learning in social studies.

At the station, students would have learned how to properly pronounce a range of Texas geographical locations with Spanish origins, such as Amarillo and Rio Brazos. Students would have learned how to properly say each word, find each place on a map of Texas, and learn the origins of the word.     

Typically, children come to HSU with their classes or groups, spending up to two hours exploring all of the special campus activities. These include HSU’s Six White Horses and the World Famous Cowboy Band, a small farm animal petting area, sheep shearing, folk music and dancing, Western melodramas and story telling, the HSU branding pit, chuck wagon snacks, the Fort Griffin Longhorn heard, the frontier washing experience, face painting, and more.

In addition to these activities, HSU invites teachers and parents to extend their experience with the children by bringing a sack lunch and enjoying the Western atmosphere as they picnic in Walton Grove next to HSU’s pond.

To register your student, group, or class for next year’s event, please complete the WHD Class/Group Registration Form (https://www.hsutx.edu/news-and-events/event/westernheritage/register/). Teachers can find additional information on the WHD Teacher’s Handout. On-site registration is also available.

HSU’s Western Heritage Day is made possible by gifts from the Guy Caldwell Endowment for Western Heritage and the Lee and Lou C. Evans Endowment for Western Heritage.

Learn more: https://www.hsutx.edu/news-and-events/event/westernheritage/

Share:
Share: