In 2023, Log Cabin Village honored the lives of two individuals enslaved at the Port Sullivan Plantation Home which today serves as the Village's main entrance and museum store. During this presentation, Log Cabin Village Assistant Site Supervisor, Shae Nawoj, will share the research that led to the installation of two memorial Stopping Stones at the Village and the ways such efforts can be used to tell the stories of our enslaved ancestors in a meaningful and relevant way.
Meet Shae Nawoj
Shae Nawoj works as the Assistant Historic Site Supervisor at Log Cabin Village in Fort Worth. She has worked in the museum field at institutions as varied as Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Gettysburg National Military Park, Colonial Williamsburg, and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. Her background includes studies in public history with an emphasis on 19th-century American history and memory, with a BA from Sam Houston State University and an MA from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. At Log Cabin Village she works as part of a team on a mission to set the record straight about the complexities of life on the Texas frontier.
The cattle drives of the post-Civil War era along various trails constituted the largest man-made overland domestic migration of cattle in history. This was also where the legend of the American Cowboy became reality. Cowboy poetry celebrates that history along with contemporary ranch life. Ron says his cowboy poetry honors that history while being fun, family-friendly, patriotic, and most of the time, it even rhymes.
Meet Ron Wilson
Ron Wilson is a cowboy poet from the Lazy T Ranch near Manhattan, Kansas. He works as a rural development specialist for Kansas State University, where he earned a B.S. degree in agricultural education and a master's degree in mass communications. He worked for the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee before returning to Kansas.
He serves as national secretary of the Western Wordsmiths chapter, an official spokesperson for the National Day of the Cowboy organization, an Ambassador for the National Multicultural Western Heritage Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, and legislative chair for the International Chisholm Trail Association. He writes a biweekly cowboy poetry column titled Cowboy Up, chairs the annual Kansas Cowboy Poetry Contest, and is host of the monthly online Cattle Trails Showcase video program. He was proclaimed "Poet Lariat" (not laureate) by the Governor of Kansas. In 2022, he was inducted as a cowboy entertainer in the Kansas Cowboy Hall of Fame.