Cracker Cowboy

The Trouble With Panthers

Title:
The Trouble With Panthers

2011 Patrick D. Smith Award

“The trouble with panthers is they can’t change. With the whole world changin round it, old panther got no choice but to go on bein a panther. It can’t reason like you and me -- can’t decide to earn its livin a little differently.”

Central Florida, November 2004. Upon hearing this admonition from his dying grandfather, young cowman, Bodie Rawlerson, doesn’t hesitate to promise the old man that he won’t be like the panther. Though he hates change, fears it more than anything else, he vows to do whatever necessary to carry on the family legacy of raising cattle on the land he so dearly loves. But unbeknownst to Bodie, forces are already in motion to render his promise impossible to keep. Within days of his grandfather’s passing, these forces of human (and inhuman) nature will convince him that nothing lasts forever, that change is life’s only certainty -- that time and chance do indeed rule us all.

Author: 

William Culyer Hall
Price:$19.95

Florida Frontiers “The Barber-Mizell Family Feud of 1870”

Moses Barber had simply had enough of his cattle going missing. He believed that David Mizell and his friends were periodically stealing from his herd. His rage reached a point where Barber publically declared that if Mizell set foot on his property again, he would be shot.

On February 21, 1870, David Mizell became the first casualty of the Barber-Mizell Family Feud. He was shot and killed on Barber property near Holopaw, Florida, in Osceola County.

Florida Boy

Title:
Florida Boy

Florida Boy is the prequel to the award winning novel The Trouble With Panthers by William Culyer Hall. The Rawlerson family first settlesin south central Florida in the late nineteenth century. Pioneer life is very difficult but the family perseveres in this gripping story.

Author: 

William Culyer Hall
Price:$19.95

Florida Frontiers “Floridanos, Menorcans, Cattle-Whip Crackers: Poetry of St. Augustine”

Three sisters entertained Union soldiers in their St. Augustine home during the Civil War, carefully gathering information. While two sisters continued to distract the soldiers, the third, Lola Sanchez rode a horse through backwoods and marshes to relay Union plans to Confederate forces.

Poet Ann Browning Masters is related to the Sanchez sisters and writes a poem from Lola’s perspective in the new book “Floridanos, Menorcans, Cattle-Whip Crackers: Poetry of St. Augustine.”

Florida Frontiers “Benjamin Dehart, The Cracker Tenor”

The clear, strong, almost operatic singing of Benjamin Dehart can be heard accompanied by his skillful acoustic guitar playing at annual events such as the Florida Folk Festival in White Springs, the Fall Pioneer Jamboree in Barberville, Patrick Smith Day in Holopaw, the Cowboy Heritage Festival in Kissimmee, and the Will McLean Florida Folk Festival in Dade City.

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