January 29th is Kansas day. Home on the Range is the state song of Kansas. mix those two together and you have the movie I co-wrote, and now a writer for Positive News for You.{{more}}
Where else can you go into a 100-year-old plus cabin and sing the song that was written inside it? That happens a lot when visitors go to the cabin north of Athol, Kansas. Nine miles north and to the left at the marker, a road leads to the cabin near Beaver Creek. There, Doctor Brewster Higley made his home in the summer to hunt and fish and deliver many babies and did what he could for a sick child or the elderly. Higley came from Indiana as a surgeon to get a fresh start on life. He wrote poetry about his surroundings, where the deer and the antelope played. He showed the poem to a friend and the rest is history, with a tune for the poem supplied by an Irishman from Rhode Island, Dan Kelley. The song became the national anthem of the cowboys and it spread like wildfire. So popular that many people claimed they wrote the song. An Arizona couple sued for 1/2 million dollars for copyright infringement in the 1930s.
Home on the Range became the state song of Kansas. Now, after the book and movie of the same name, Home on the Range is still the quiet and relaxing place it always has been. Linger long enough in the evening hours, a deer just might pass by.
Home on the Range is an award-winning film produced by Lone Chimney Films in association with Sperra Studios. The movie tells the unforgettable story of the authorship, preservation and legacy of the iconic song Home on the Range, and the location where this “unofficial anthem” of the west was written in Smith County, KS.
Sharon Black has been writing for many years including newspapers, short stories, and as a publisher. She was born in Nebraska and has lived in Kansas most of her life. In her hometown of Smith Center, Kansas, Willa Cather’s hometown is to the north and Bob Dole’s hometown is to the south. Sharon is a press release writer for the National Parks Arts Foundation, and writes for b U n e k e magazine. The biggest project she has accomplished is co-writer of the TV movie Home on the Range. The movie is about the song, which is the state song of Kansas and the lawsuit surrounding it in the 1930s, and finding the rightful author of the song. Sharon is distantly related to the Mississippi writer Eudora Welty.
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