Page 40 - The Hunt - Summer 2021

“We’re so happy just to have the opportunity
to be here doing this, and doing it right—protecting the land and the animals and continuing this
way of life.”
—Lisnageer Farm’s Bill Fairbairn
Now 71, Rocky Dillow runs the headgate for the export operation. As they’ve aged, he and the
other King Ranch cowboys have worked where they can. Two died in the weeks preceding these interviews. One, the late Timmy Corum, appeared at Fairbairn’s every day, needed or not. He was content sitting in his car, drinking a beer, feeding the cats and checking on the herd. “He was just so happy to see cattle here again,” Fairbairn says.
Corum had a heart attack in the driveway. He recovered, only to succumb in mid-March to subsequent pulmonary complications. Another old cowboy raised on King Ranch
and Dillow’s 81-year-old cousin, Kenny Wyse Young died three weeks later. “All these boys passing ... We all grew up with this, and we all said we’d do it again if we had to,” Dillow says. “It wasn’t good pay, but you made your way and enjoyed what you were doing. We lived hard lives, but it kept us going.”
Dillow estimates that just two other Chester County cowboys remain. “With my appearance, you’d never think I was a cowboy,” he says. “I’ve put on weight. Most cowboys are skinny, but I’m big-boned. I have knees that need to be redone, but I won’t do it—too damn hard-headed.”
Fairbairn has been stubborn, too—in maintaining and protecting his livelihood and building his Angus herd. But he’s also been
38 THE HUNT MAGAZINE
summer 2021