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  • George Rhodes looks through his recently published work "Along the Chisholm Trail and Other Poems" with some of his previously published education text books and pamplets. Rebeka Rutledge/The Duncan Banner

    Rhodes always a writer
September 10, 2012

Rhodes always a writer

Rebeka Rutledge The Duncan Banner

DUNCAN — It’s interesting, the people who are settled into this small corner of the world and may well be a neighbor, fellow church member, or the person in line with you at the grocery store.

Stephens County is full of writers, artists, musicians and others with special talents, one of whom is George Rhodes, a recently published poet with “Along the Chisholm Trail and Other Poems.”

Long before that feat, he was a student, printer, soldier, farmer, rancher, reporter, editor and teacher.

However, there is one past time he was constantly pulled to.

“I was always interested in writing,” said Rhodes. “I helped on my dad’s farm where he had cattle and in high school I worked at a print shop, but I was interested in writing.”

Rhodes grew up in Cotton County on a farm just west of Empire and in sixth grade, he moved to Duncan.

After graduating from Duncan High School, he attended Oklahoma State University and Cameron University, then went to work for The Norman Transcript in the printing department.

“Then I got drafted into the United States Army and I met my wife, Lynn,” Rhodes said. “I was in the Army for two years stationed in Germany, then I came back, got married and finished my journalism degree in 1961 at OSU.”

From there, he took a position at the Watonga Republican as a “one man show,” serving as editor and reporter, as well as other roles. Rhodes then went to work for UPI in Tulsa, a fast paced job rewriting for radio. It was then time to come back home.

“I came back home to help my Dad with the farm and cattle and I worked for The Duncan Banner as the city editor,” he said. “Then, I went to Lawton and worked for The Constitution as wire and city editor for four years.”

At one point, the director of journalism at OSU asked Rhodes what he thought about teaching, so he went back to school and got his masters and doctorate degrees. In 1972, he took a position at Utah State University as director of student publications, where he was for three years.

From there, he went to teach journalism at the University of Texas at Arlington for 20 years, while Lynn taught at Texas Christian University. He retired from there in 1995. He co-wrote a few text books and other teaching aids with fellow scholars including his wife.

“After we retired, we wondered ‘What do we do now?’” he said. “We still had family in this area and land around Duncan, so we moved back to get closer and we’re still here.”

Rhodes is still in possession of his family’s hay farm, but is trying to sell it. He and Lynn spend much of their time traveling by going on cruises and visiting various sites throughout the country and abroad.

While he spent much of his time writing journalism stories and research papers during his career, Rhodes didn’t write much after retirement. Then the simplest encounter turned all that around.

“I was walking (from my house) to the Simmons Center and when I passed the Chisholm Trail Heritage Center, a mother and her about 3-year-old little girl were coming out the door and she said to me, ‘My daddy is a cowboy’ and asked if I was too,” Rhodes said.

“It prompted me to write the poem ‘My Daddy Is a Cowboy’ and it just flowed from there and led into the next ideas.”

Rhodes said he’d liked poetry before and had even written some years before, but tossed it out. Mainly, he respected that with poetry “you can say a lot in a short space.”

From the “Daddy” poem, Rhodes decided he liked the theme of the cowboy.

“I like the history of the Chisholm Trail and I live right on it,” he said. “The first half is about cowboys and the second half is more personal observations, reminiscing about life on the farm and a hodgepodge mix of things.”

The result of his six months of work was the publishing of “Along the Chisholm Trail and Other Poems” in June this year, which became one of the top selling self-published book of poetry for Outskirts Press. It also showed up on Amazon’s Best Seller List for poetry a couple of times and has received glowing reviews.

“I have been pleased and was shocked to have gotten on the top selling lists,” said Rhodes. “I would like to write more and I may do another book.”

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