Thursday, February 25, 1999
Eastland Countians take oath on behalf of famous
horny toad
By Bill Whitaker
Although his 36-year tenure as the longest-serving county judge
in modern-day Texas came to an end last year, Scott Bailey had
one more bit of official business to conduct - and he did so this
week.
With great ceremony, he bid a crowd in the Eastland County
Courthouse lobby to raise their right hands and take an oath,
vowing to accept without question the legend of Old Rip. In doing
so, they embraced for all time the tale of a horny toad supposedly
entombed in the courthouse cornerstone in 1897, only to be freed
31 years later amid great public fanfare.
So what if most folks outside Eastland County regard this toad
business as sheer nonsense, the result of an elaborately mounted
stunt concocted to garner the town national publicity in 1928?
The 68-year-old former judge has long regarded it as his sacred
duty to insist fellow Eastland Countians show proper faith.
 |
| Sitting alongside a huge
historic photo of Old Rip's resurrection in 1928 at Rip's Diner
in Eastland are, from left, retired County Judge Scott Bailey
and resurrection eyewitnesses Richard May, Bill Wood, Velton
Moser and Weldon and Marvelene Armstrong. Photo by Bill Whitaker/
Reporter-News |
"We don't ask 'em to put their hands on the Bible - the
New Testament anyway - but we do like to ask 'em to take the oath,"
the judge said.
Among those vowing eternal allegiance to the dead prehistoric
throwback - its shriveled reptilian remains resting in peace in
a nearby casket - was Bud Arnot, chief justice of the Texas 11th
Court of Appeals. And watching the retired judge go through the
motions was 41-year-old Brad Stephenson, who took over the post
of county judge last month.
"The last thing he told me before he left office,"
Judge Stephenson said of his courtly predecessor, "was the
location of the keys to Old Rip's abode."
Beyond belief
If Judge Bailey has been guardian of Eastland County's scaliest
legend, he knows some day he, too, will go the way of Old Rip
(though, presumably, Eastland Countians will refrain from putting
the old judge's earthly remains on eternal display in the courthouse
lobby the way they seem to have done to Rip and his various stand-ins).
That's why Judge Bailey not only invited the new county judge
to witness and assist in the annual ceremony acknowledging Old
Rip, he also helped introduce children from area schools who had
written poems and short tales about the legend. One by one, youngsters
read aloud their ode to the toad.
More and more folks in town seem intent on acknowledging and
rediscovering Old Rip these days. For instance, 54-year-old Bette
Armstrong of Bette's Bits, Inc., markets stuffed horny toads and
wooden horned toads. And set to open March 8 on Interstate 20
is Rip's Diner, its stainless-steel interior decked with historic
photographs of Rip's so-called "resurrection" 71 years
ago.
Eastland even mounts an Old Rip Festival, one that Bette has
sought to enliven by dressing up as a giant horned toad for the
annual parade. Her husband, who moved to Eastland in 1993 after
retiring from Lockheed in Fort Worth, only shakes his head at
what his wife has undertaken in the name of Old Rip.
"They call me the toad lady of Eastland," Bette said
with civic pride.
But if there's anything more amazing than a West Texas town
making much ado over a horny toad, it's the fact that, 71 years
after Rip emerged from the cornerstone, several witnesses to the
miracle of Eastland County remain among us. What's more, each
insists he or she saw the horned toad removed from the cornerstone,
alive and well, if just a tad groggy.
"Will Wood took it out of the hand of the man who removed
it from the cornerstone," 83-year-old Truett Been, son of
then-81st District Judge Elzo Been, assured me. "I was just
six or seven feet away from it, and there wasn't any hanky-panky.
Will handed it to his father, who was part of the group that put
Rip in the cornerstone in the first place."
Scoff at these tales at your own risk, at least when in Eastland.
"You're not here with a bunch of liars," 79-year-old
Bill Wood, son of Will Wood, told me at one point.
"You know," 86-year-old fellow witness Velton Moser
chimed, "we're all church members."
A likely story
Of course, herpetologists and Yankees doubt the tale of Old
Rip. At best, some suspect Rip was quietly slipped into the cornerstone
a night or so before the crowds gathered. Yet others, such as
Ed Pritchard Jr., 85, son of then-County Judge E.S. Pritchard,
prefer to simply state what they saw and leave the speculating
to others.
"I don't understand it, but I can't dispute it and I can't
verify it," he told me the other day from his home in Fort
Worth. "I just know they took it out and I know it was alive."
Truett wonders if all the publicity about Rip went a bit too
far. He recalls Milburn McCarty getting a job as a page in the
U.S. Senate about the time Rip hit the headlines in Texas and
beyond. Seems Milburn convinced his sister Mary back in Eastland
to buy horny toads from all her friends and schoolmates at 50
cents a toad and then send them to D.C.
"He was selling 'em for $3 a piece," Truett said.
"That's possibly why we don't have any horny toads anymore!"
Maybe, too, that's why we have so many toads in D.C.
Bill Whitaker, who used to have a horned toad for a pet
till the toad escaped into the heating vent, can be reached at
676-6732. You can e-mail Bill at whitakerb@abinews.com.
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Copyright ©1999, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews
/ E.W. Scripps. Publications
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