Note to Editors: Adapted from the Kansas Profile radio series, this column profiles a different Kansan, Kansas community or Kansas-based company every Wednesday, as a regular feature of the K-State Research and Extension News  lineup. A photo of Ron Wilson is available at  http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/news/sty/RonWilson.htm.

Released: January 17, 2007

By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.

Finding a horseshoe means good luck. That folk wisdom came from my grandfather back when I was a kid. Recently I found a horseshoe and it did bring me good luck. Only it wasn’t some rusty horseshoe along the trail. It was a horseshoe that had been shaped into a work of art. I also found the remarkable Old West-style craftsman who shaped it. He uses horseshoes, wood and similar items to create wonderful works of art with a western theme. He’s located in rural Kansas, and he’s remained true to the cowboy way in both good times and bad. 

Terry Dishon is the proprietor of the Lazy T Buckaroo Foundry and Woodworks in Alta Vista, Kansas.

Terry and his wife Rita were originally raised on farms near Troy, Kansas. Terry was always mechanically skilled and also a fan of the old west - really a cowboy at heart.

In 1986, Terry went to work with the National Guard at Fort Riley. He did metal work, body work and repair, and general metal fabrication. Terry and Rita like the rural lifestyle and they wanted to live in a rural area. They eventually settled in Alta Vista, population 434 people.  Now, that’s rural.

In 1997, Terry went into business on his own. He started his own auto body shop in his garage in Alta Vista and called it Auto Spa. He did repair work, but his specialty was restoring International Harvester vehicles. That included not just tractors but also the International Scout, such as the vintage vehicle that Terry drives.

Terry’s handiwork was excellent. One of his restored vehicles has gone as far away as Belleville, Illinois.

But then life threw Terry a curve. A goiter on his neck suddenly started to grow and expand. The doctors checked it out and they had bad news: Terry was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Surgery took his voicebox and part of his airway, but Terry is not the kind of guy who will quit. He says, "I’ve got too much livin’ to do."

Since he could no longer work in an environment with paint fumes, he retired from his body shop, but his other skills came into play.

Terry says, "I’d always enjoyed western art and history, so I took up wood and metalwork." He started designing and building western-theme items. He had been making these as gifts for friends, but the response was so positive he started marketing them.

Using his first initial, Terry named the business Lazy T Buckaroo Foundry and Woodworks. He says, "I thought I’d just laze around and play cowboy the rest of my life."

But Terry’s not being lazy. He creates wonderful handmade works of art with western themes as well as household items such as hat racks, coat racks, tissue holders and boot scrapers.  He makes picturesque barn wood picture frames. His handmade boot scraper feature hames from a horse collar, mounted on an old disk. No, not some computer disk, an iron disk blade from a farm implement.

Perhaps his most striking piece of work was a giant model of a Saguaro cactus that he built for a customer’s ranch home near Alta Vista. The saguaro cactus is 9-1/2 feet tall and is made out of 236 horseshoes. It even has spines made out of welding wire.

Smaller examples of his handiwork can be found at Lee´s Western Wear in Manhattan and Drover´s Mercantile in Ellsworth. He sells them at western shows and community festivals from Lawrence to Colorado.

I was shopping at Lee´s Western Wear when I spotted a creative, decorative item made from horseshoes. The craftsmanship and creativity caught my eye, and it lead me to find this wonderful cowboy craftsman.

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K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus in Manhattan.

For more information:
The Huck Boyd Institute is at 785-532-7690 or rwilson@ksu.edu

K-State Research and Extension