A West of 98 Special Announcement

Sharing a bit of publication news

I continue to pick up new clicks and new subscribers from my letter to new Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, so if you are new to my Substack, welcome! You can read more about it here. Every month, I summarize my writing and a few good reads and recommendations here.

My regular essays will return next week. I’ve got a (hopefully) exciting essay in the works about feeding local communities, but it requires a bit more polish and revision before I am ready to share it with the world.

I briefly mentioned this in The Prairie Panicle earlier this week, but I want to expand. A couple of weeks ago I teased on social media that my letter to Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins was being picked up by a significant publication in Texas and agriculture. Well, last week, my letter appeared in the iconic “Livestock Weekly” newspaper. If my readers will indulge a bit of personal pride, this is easily one of the most exciting moments I’ve had since I launched my public writing almost a decade ago.

For those of you who may not be familiar, the Livestock Weekly was founded in 1949 and it still originates out of its headquarters in San Angelo, Texas. It is the newspaper of record for livestock news and markets in Texas, Southwestern states, and beyond. Every livestock auction of note puts their reports into the Livestock Weekly. If you want to know cattle prices at the market in San Saba or Roswell, New Mexico, range cattle sales in the Texas Panhandle, meat goat prices in San Angelo, or lamb prices in Goldthwaite, Texas or New Holland, Pennsylvania, it’s in the Livestock Weekly. If you have an upcoming special purebred cattle sale, if you have a ranch for sale, or if you’re trying to get your small business in front of potential rancher customers, you advertise in the Livestock Weekly. They still publish a hard copy of their newspaper every week, but their digital edition is equally superb and you can subscribe to both. They also have a really cool Instagram page where they share iconic pictures and articles from their archives.

The good folks at Livestock Weekly didn’t pay me to say any of that. They didn’t even ask me to say it. But their publication means something special to me. One of my great writing heroes is Elmer Kelton. Some consider Elmer the greatest Western novelist of all time (I wrote about Kelton in this very newsletter back in 2023). I maintain that Kelton’s novel “The Time It Never Rained” is one of the three greatest books ever written about Texas (the others are “Lonesome Dove” and “Goodbye to a River”). Kelton was the associate editor of the Livestock Weekly from 1968 to 1990 and I can only imagine how many of his words appeared in its pages over the years.

The great John R. Erickson (creator of the famous “Hank the Cowdog”) is one of the finest writers who ever hailed from rural Texas and he, too, was formed by the Livestock Weekly. He wrote articles for the Weekly, while cowboying full-time, as he sought to launch his own literary career. You can read via the Hank the Cowdog website how Kelton and the Weekly helped launch and form Erickson’s writing journey. My first memory of the Livestock Weekly was reading Hank the Cowdog myself, in which the characters referenced reading it in some form or fashion. The legendary Ace Reid created the “Cowpokes” cartoons that are a famous part of Western and cowboy humor and they, too, began in the Livestock Weekly. That’s not to mention many other fine writers and journalists who were shaped by the Livestock Weekly or who grew their career in its pages.

I’m no Kelton, Erickson, or Reid. My writing skill pales in comparison to their own artistic abilities. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was very proud to see my name published in the very same pages where names like theirs have appeared over the years and decades. It’s a cool feeling. And lest you doubt whether anyone reads print media in 2025, I have already received phone calls and emails from folks who read my letter in the Livestock Weekly!

Thank you to Connor Frank at the Livestock Weekly for reading my essays and contacting me to see if they could reprint my letter. Thank you to publisher Robert S. Frank for putting it in his paper. If you have any interest in livestock markets or rural Texas, I encourage you to subscribe and support their fine newspaper. If you have any interest in re-publishing my work, or if you want me to write something original for your publication, my email is open and I am listening.

Thank you for reading and sharing my work, my friends. It truly makes a difference to expand my reach and influence and I look forward to continue growing this newsletter and my writing with your help!

James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and the “Rural Church and State” and “West of 98” podcasts. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to him wherever podcasts are found. Check out the West of 98 Bookstore with book lists for essential reads here.