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By KATIE HARRIS
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BLACKFOOT -- Bob Schild, local cowboy poet, likes to joke that he’s famous everywhere except Blackfoot. Locals will have the chance to see him in person Friday, Oct. 16 at the Blackfoot Performing Arts Center at 7:30 p.m.  (The Morning News — Katie Harris) Cowboy Poet, Bob Schild shows off some of his saddles. He will perform at the Blackfoot Performing Arts Center at 7:30 p.m. on October 16.
Real life is what Schild puts into his poetry. “It has to be genuine. I know this stuff, it’s been my life,” said Schild, then with a smile he adds, “Most of it is based in fact, there is a little added for entertainment value. But, the heart of it is genuine and people can tell the difference.”
Schild pulls from experiences growing up on the Fort Hall Reservation during the depression, living the rodeo life and starting up and running B&B Leather, which he refers to as “a saddleshop that’s a crossroads for cowboys.”
Around the age of 14, Schild accompanied his father to McCammon to pick up a horse.
“We didn’t have a horse trailer or any other way of getting the horse home, so dad dropped me off right there on Marsh Creek Road. The horse had maybe been saddled twice. I rode it all the way back to Tyhee where we lived,” said Schild. “I had to ride right through Pocatello traffic. I’d try to get up on the sidewalk and cops would come and run me off, back into traffic. By the time I got back home the horse was dead tired and so was I.”
Growing up was about working hard for Schild.
“We didn’t go places, we didn’t do things. We worked,” he said. “There were no football games, no school dances. It was an existence, just like everyone else then just an existence. I remember eating out at a restaurant one time before I left to college. We at the Hong Kong Cafe. I still remember I ate chop suey.”
One this Schild did spend a lot of time on was riding horses.
“We rode horses most people would never get on,” he said.
This is something that would serve him well in the years to come.
His father did not believe in education and only had a fourth grade education. But, Schild was inspired to continue his own education by two high school Agriculture teachers; Herb Glindeman and Ralph Matthews. They got him excited about school and helped him secure a $100 Sears Roebuck scholarship and a 65 cent per hour job cleaning box-stalls at the University of Idaho Dairy Barn.
“I found that I was not an A student,” said Schild. “I was working everyday at 4 a.m. and fell asleep in my 8 a.m. class every time. It was a battle I just could not win.”
But something good did come from that early morning class. Another student, Carl Yokom, sporting a cowboy hat and boots clicked with Schild and a friendship was born.
“He took me to see a college rodeo club practice. I was so excited to see these guys rodeo,” said Schild. “I was disappointed as heck. They had these horses like we had back home, green horses, and nobody would get on. So, I said I’ll get on ‘em. We threw on a saddle and I knew from that time on I could rodeo as good as any of them.”
There was a problem though. He was broke and the cost of travel and entry was out of his reach.
“I didn’t have a dime. I couldn’t even afford five cents for a cup of coffee,’ said Schild. “Then here comes (Howard) Harris, he wanted to put together a functional rodeo team. He bankrolled us. He paid for everything and said if I didn’t go now, I was a chicken...”
Schild began to see success in several events including saddle-bronc riding, bareback riding and bull riding. After graduation he turned pro. This came with a regular paycheck. He competed from New York to Los Angeles.
“The drives were extreme and we started reciting poetry to stay awake,” said Schild. “It was mostly bar-room poems that should not be repeated in public. Before long we were writing ditties of our own.”
Schild acknowledges that he had good luck in pro rodeo.
“I could make money and get home with it,” he says.
In 1961 he opened his business, B&B Leather in Blackfoot.
“I kidnapped an old sewing machine, put it in the back of my truck and would park at the rodeos and make chaps right there.”
At the time he opened his business Western Horseman Magazine came to Blackfoot and did a story on him.
“I immediately had national and international coverage,” said Schild. “My rodeo following saved me. Before I knew it I was working 60-80 hours a week. The rodeo business carried my shop.”
Schild was so consumed with running his business there was no time for poetry. He went 13 years without writing a single poem.
“I didn’t stop reciting poems,”he said. “But, I had no time to write them.”
That changed one day when a man walked into his shop asking about cowboy poetry. Schild thought he was just stopping to hear some poems. It’s not uncommon.
“Then he asked me if I write poems? He wanted to know if I had any poems he could look at,” said Schild. “I went to my desk and dug out some old yellowed poems.”
The man was Bob McCarl, representing the Commission on the Arts.
That visit led to Schild’s participation in the Elko Poetry Gathering, books, performances and CD’s.
“I like writing much more than reciting,” he admits. “But, I decided to just take the bull by the horns and do it. That’s what I’ve been doing my whole life.”
Schild will perform as part of “A Night on the Snake River Plains” featuring three other cowboy poets and the country band “Saddle Strings” Friday, Oct. 16 at 7:30 p.m.
“I like the combination of music and cowboy poetry,” said Schild. “Poetry won’t compete with music for an audience. It’s a small group that speaks the cowboy language. But, when you combine the two it makes for a great entertainment.”
Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for students and can be purchased at Tweedy’s Music or by calling BPAC, 317-5508.
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