Sat, Jul 19 2008
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Published April 28, 2007 11:36 pm - Tahlequah’s Red Fern Festival a coon hunter’s delight Celebration recalls famous story, area history By Liz McMahan Phoenix Staff Writer TAHLEQUAH — Music from the 1950s drifted across the town square and the Red Fern Festival here Saturday morning.
People milled about, looking at the cars, checking out the food booths and looking at novelties. What brought people here was the novel and movie, “Where the Red Fern Grows,” which was published in 1961 about the bond between Billy Colman, a fictional 10-year-old boy growing up in the Ozark Hills and two redbone hounds he bought for coon hunting — the treeing and tracking of raccoons. The story is what brought Clyde Box and his wife Dorothy Box here from Tulsa. He said he had watched the movie and used to be a coon hunter. She even went with him on one hunt when they were dating. But it was music of a different sort that played down the hill by the stream running through Sequoyah Park. The sounds coming from there would have been music to Billy Colman, the central character in the Wilson Rawls’ book. The sounds in the park were from about a dozen coon dogs. The dogs were mostly silent until a raccoon in a wire cage was hoisted up a tree. Once the dogs spotted the animal, there was a cacophony of deep-throated baying sounds from the dogs as they lunged and pulled on their leashes, trying to get to the tree where the raccoon seemed to be ignoring them. The dogs seemed anxious to get their turn in the trailing and treeing contests of the afternoon. Cousins Cody Todd, 14, of Tahlequah and Dusty Todd, 13, of Porter were among the dog owners. Cody Todd’s Walker hound Dolly won the raccoon hunting competition Friday night and was back Saturday for the treeing competition. Dusty Todd brought Elvis, an English hound whose coppery coat shone in the noonday sun. There were more than a dozen other dogs there too, but few of them were the redbone breed like the dogs Colman ordered from a mail-order house in the book. Redbones aren’t really very popular around here, explained Joe Miller, a coon hunter from Stilwell. Area hunters seem to prefer Walkers, English or bluetick hounds. And while $25 was practically a lifetime of savings for Colman in the story, it wouldn’t begin to be even a down payment on a dog today, Cody Todd said. “I want a redbone really bad,” he said. “They’ve got kennels in Kentucky that have them. A pup that’s bred good is about $300.” Coon hunting is one of the most expensive sports in the United States, said Jimmy Phillips, executive field representative for the American Kennel Club, which sanctioned this weekend’s hunting events. Miller said a good dog that’s just starting is worth $1,000 to $1,500. Getting a good one that’s already trained costs $4,000 to $7,000. 
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