Voices of the
BIG BEND
Jim Glendinning recreates some of his popular radio interviews from “Voices of the Big Bend,” an original
production of KRTS, Marfa Public Radio, which is broadcast throughout the region at 93.5 FM.
Story and photos by Jim Glendinning
G
rowing up on a ranch near Fort
Davis gave Cecilia Thompson a
feel for land and space that
would pull her back to West Texas later
in life after years of teaching and direct-
ing theater elsewhere in the USA. As a
teenager, she enjoyed “all that was to be
enjoyed,” was an avid reader and fin-
ished high school in Alpine in 1937.
It was at SRSU, where she graduated
with a B.A. in speech in 1940, that she
caught the attention of her professor,
Annie Kate Ferguson, an inspiring
teacher. Recognizing Cecilia’s talent and
potential, Ferguson facilitated her next
move, to the preeminent theater arts
department at The University of Iowa
from where she graduated with a MA.
She remained at Iowa, culturally
enriched by a wide circle of fellow stu-
dents and earned a Ph.D. in theater arts
and allied fields in 1954.
Then followed years teaching and
directing theater productions in several
universities around the country as well
as community theater and summer stock
productions. In 1968 she returned to
Fort Davis to care for her aging parents
and went back to SRSU teaching in the
speech and drama department.
Following her parents’ deaths in the
early 70s, she turned from theater work
to a writing career, which enabled her to
reconnect with the folks of West Texas
and also observe the changes about to
take place in Marfa.
In the late 80s she was commissioned
by the Presidio County Historical
Commission to research and write the
official history of Marfa and Presidio
County – a large project. She “dug in,”
as she describes it, and after two and a
half years completed the first two
volumes, from 1535 to 1940. It won the
T. S. Fehrenbach Award from the Texas
Historical Commission.
Then another writing commission
came up: researching the history of
Cibolo Creek Ranch for John
10
Cenizo
CECILIA THOMPSON
Marfa
Poindexter. She applied the same thor-
ough scholarship and hard work to this
project. With these two projects com-
pleted, she understands the flow of local
history in Presidio County like no one
else in the region. Whether about the
Marfa Opera House, the polo matches
between the Marfa garrison and the
Mexican Army or the fancy balls, which
took place in Marfa’s great years, she
knows the story.
Failing eyesight now means that she
cannot read the printed page. Nothing
daunted, she has teamed up with histo-
rian/author Louise O’Connor to pro-
duce Marfa: Images of America: Texas by
Avalon Press in 2008. This compilation
of 230 postcard-size pictures of old
Marfa, which also includes some con-
temporary images, has become a best
seller. Now she is hard at work, again
with Louise O’Connor, researching for
volume three of her Presidio County
history. A research assistant reads docu-
ments; Cecilia analyses and judges.
“There’s so much out there, we may
First Quarter 2010
JOE MUSSEY
Fort Davis
need a fourth volume,” she says with
enthusiasm. Her mind is sharp, and her
other senses acute. She is excited by the
new energy and changed life in Marfa.
Meanwhile she keeps digging into the
history of the area.
J
oe Mussey was born on May 18,
1930 in Sanderson to Stella and
Rueben Massey, a blacksmith
and part-time mechanic. His
father’s family, descendants of French
Huguenots, hailed from Fort Stockton.
Two brothers (now deceased) and one
sister who today lives in Houston com-
pleted the family. It was a happy child-
hood, Joe recalls, but the family was
poor.
It was in Sanderson that Joe observed
a local man called Fossett digging hope-
fully into a mountainside for gold. This
intrigued young Joe and caused the first
stirrings of geological interest. “At age 9
I wanted to be a scientist, an archeologist
or geologist,” he recalls.
Graduating from Sanderson High
RONNIE PATILLO
Alpine
School in 1948, his first job was at the
“Rattlesnake Bomber Base” at Pyote,
Texas, maintaining the laid-up bombers,
followed by four years Air Force service
at Travis AFB in California as a wing
chief, servicing the engines of B-36
bombers.
In 1953 Joe enrolled on the GI Bill at
Texas Western in El Paso (now the
University of Texas at El Paso). After
four years with a riotous crowd of fellow
students, he graduated with a Bachelor
of Science degree in mining geology in
addition to holding down a night job. “It
was the time of my life,” Joe recalls. The
same group of ex-students still meets
annually at Joe’s house in Fort Davis.
Graduating in 1959, Joe then pur-
sued what he calls his vagabond years.
First he headed north for a year in
Alaska and Canada, then returned
south to work various jobs in Utah,
Colorado and Arizona. Settling down a
little, he started working as a geologist
for the Texas Highways Department
and by the early 70s applied to the