Connie: Lessons from a Life in the Saddle

Connie: Lessons from a Life in the Saddle

"Connie: Lessons from a Life in the Saddle" is Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist David Horsey's tribute to Connie Cox -- Montana rancher, rodeo cowboy, raconteur, rascal and prairie philosopher. In an evocative biographical essay, collected passages of wit and wisdom and 100 photographs, Horsey shares the story of a true son of the American West. Horsey writes: "There are lessons to be learned from men like Connie Cox. And I have to say, there are many such men in the rangelands of Montana and elsewhere in the West; men who have worked hard most days of their lives and who will not be retiring to ride a golf cart and chase a little white ball around some unnatural expanse of perfectly manicured country club grass. No, these men will still be riding a horse under a big sky, moving skittering cows until the day they die – or close to it... "Connie is more typical than exceptional. The things Connie knows and cares about are the things most men and women of the West know and care about if they have learned the lessons of a land that is steeped in legend, a land that is sometimes harsh and often unforgiving, but heartbreakingly beautiful and so vast that only a fool feels bigger in it than he should. Connie acknowledges he still has lessons to learn – and that may be his greatest wisdom. "Conrad Cox is not a guru, a guide, a sage or a saint. He does not belong on a pedestal. His place is in a saddle, riding on the same level as any other man, moving toward a far horizon, doing good work under storm clouds or sun and, in any circumstance, declaring with a grin, 'This is livin’.'" David Horsey, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist, is a political commentator for the Los Angeles Times. His work is syndicated by Tribune Media Services to more than 200 newspapers, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. Besides winning two Pulitzers for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1999 and 2003 and being a Pulitzer finalist in 1987, Horsey has received the National Press Foundation's Berryman Award for Cartoonist of the Year along with many other honors, including first place in the Best of the West Journalism Competition for his columns about the 2008 presidential election. After graduating from the University of Washington, Horsey entered journalism as a political reporter. His multi-faceted career has taken him to national political party conventions, presidential primaries, the Olympic Games, the Super Bowl, assignments in Europe, Japan and Mexico and two extended stints working at the Hearst Newspapers Washington Bureau. As a Rotary Foundation Scholar, Horsey earned an MA in International Relations from the University of Kent at Canterbury. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate from Seattle University. Horsey has published seven books of cartoons, including his two most recent, "Draw Quick, Shoot Straight" and "From Hanging Chad to Baghdad." For escape, David spends a few weeks each year working as a cowboy in Montana.