| Eldorado's gold Everyone and everything is a target for Eldorado's brand of West Texas humor, including the small town's polygamist neighbors | |||||||||||
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By David Casstevens Fort Worth Star-Telegram | |||||||||||
ELDORADO - Before the self-proclaimed prophet of a sect of Mormon polygamists was indicted on two felony counts and became a wanted man, Warren Jeffs predicted that on Wednesday, April 6, 2005, the world would end. On April 5 a notice appeared on the Eldorado Chamber of Commerce marquee: "Tomorrow Has Been Canceled." Residents of this small community trust the sign board outside the county courthouse to keep them informed about local news and events. So when the forewarning appeared, the sheriff's phone began to ring. The message had unsettled some folks. Sheriff David Doran said, "People called and asked, 'Do we need to be concerned?' " He assured them that the apocalypse wasn't at hand. The sheriff recognized the mischief as the tongue-in-cheek handiwork of the town's court jester and its No. 1 promoter. Jim Runge is a 61-year-old Eldorado native and a true West Texas character. Who else would stand on a street corner as he did one morning, dressed like an aristocratic panhandler in a white tuxedo, gloves and top hat? His sign read, "Will Work for Grey Poupon." Some think he is a bit eccentric, in a good way. Others wonder if he might be one taco short of a combination plate. Runge doesn't care. His mission is to provide a little entertainment - and levity - and to make life in town interesting. Eldorado (El-do-RAY-do), pop. 1,951, sits alone, a map dot 45 miles south of San Angelo. The only town in Schleicher County doesn't have a tourist attraction so Runge adopted a small, weedy patch of city land and made it a roadside park. The perimeter of the "Hysterical District," as he named it, is decorated with colorful, hand-painted placards, a collection of pearls of wisdom and groaning puns. "Strive to be as good a person as your DOG thinks you are." "2,000 pounds of Chinese soup equal Won Ton." "Bad spellers of the world UNTIE!" In October, kids are invited to venture, if they dare, into the dark cobwebbed inner sanctum of Count Dracula's Pre-Owned Casket Company, Runge's Halloween haunted house. He stages a spring goat race, the Elgoatarod, spoofing the sled dog Iditarod in Alaska. About half the citizenry gathered on the courthouse lawn two weeks ago to celebrate another of Runge's quirky festivals, a storytelling-and-liars contest called the Running of the Bull. Runge's office in this one-stoplight town is a former gasoline service station. The place is cluttered with an eclectic hodgepodge of memorabilia. Sports items range from a display of golf balls - "as big as hail!" a sign reads - to a football inked with 11 "X" marks. Runge says the memento was autographed by the Texas A&M University football team. The office doubles as headquarters of the Eldorado Olympic Bid Organizing Committee (EOBOC) which he says, straight-faced, will make a formal pitch to play host to the 2016 Summer Games. Eldorado has plenty of propane to fuel the Olympic flame, but only one motel. "Runge is wonderful," said Randy Mankin, owner and editor of the weekly newspaper The Eldorado Success. Mankin saw him for the first time during the town's centennial celebration in 1996. Runge was walking on stilts, dressed as Elvis. The town's drum major has done almost as much to publicize Eldorado as Warren Jeffs' Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints, the largest polygamist sect in America. About 18 months ago, a group of his followers left the FLDS stronghold along the Utah-Arizona border and resettled on a 1,600-acre ranch four miles outside of town, and began building a small community. Some say there are as many as 200 FLDS members living on the ranch. Their reclusive leader reportedly has 50 to 70 wives. The renegade sect's arrival inspired one Eldorado resident to compose a satirical song: Well a guy came out to take the census To get up here he had to climb some fences Countin' up the growin' population He said 'What's this - a livestock operation?' Mankin coined the slogan, "Eldorado, Polygamy Capital of Texas" and printed polygamy marriage licenses, which include lines for the name of one husband and up to 10 wives. Runge renamed this year's goat race around the courthouse square the Texas Polygamy Games. While some Eldoradoans balance concerns about their new neighbors with humor, others aren't amused. They resent their town being associated with the group in which men take child brides and whose leader - the second son of his late father's fourth wife - is a fugitive. "It's not exactly the kind of publicity we want to have," said Eldorado Chamber of Commerce president Leonard Wideman, a local minister. "But it is what it is. We are the polygamy capital of Texas." Compound fractures Behind a padlocked steel gate, a narrow dirt road cuts through the rocky landscape and leads up to a guardhouse. Beyond it looms the largest and most mysterious structure in the county. Even from a half-mile away the white stone temple appears massive, standing like a mirage against the West Texas sky. "The Taj Mahal," said Claryce Williams, an Eldorado resident. Mankin, the newspaper editor, compares the appearance of the imposing edifice with the landing of a UFO. When David Allred, Jeffs' brother-in-law, paid $700,000 for the ranch land he told the seller and local police that it would become a corporate hunting retreat. But soon workers began round-the-clock construction on what FLDS members named the YFZ Ranch. YFZ stands for Yearning for Zion. According to sect teachings, Zion is where the righteous will take refuge when the sins of the wicked destroy the world. About 10,000 fundamentalist Mormons live in the twin border cities of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah. The sect broke away from the Mormon Church in the 1890s after the church renounced plural marriage as a condition for Utah statehood. The FLDS believes that men have the obligation, a religious duty, to take at least three wives. Girls born into the group know no life other than polygamy. To reduce the surplus male population, Jeffs has excommunicated hundreds of teen-age boys, expelling them from their homes, during the past 4 1/2 years, according to The Associated Press. In his book Under The Banner of Heaven, author Jon Krakauer writes, "Mormon authorities treat the fundamentalists as they would a crazy uncle - they try to keep 'polygs' hidden in the attic safely out of sight." But the FLDS compound outside Eldorado became big news in March 2004 when The Success printed a front-page story under the headline, "Corporate Retreat or Prophet's Refuge?" "We're honest West Texans here," said Wideman, pastor of Eldorado's First Presbyterian Church. "They came in lying. That's not the way to start up a relationship." Townspeople wait and wonder what the future holds. In addition to the huge limestone church, with an estimated 60,000 square feet of interior space, FLDS members have built a dozen dormitory-style buildings, a meeting hall and other structures. If more sect members migrate to Texas, the colony could one day rival the population of Eldorado. What would be the impact of a potential block vote in local elections? Jeffs' arrest warrant raises fears of a showdown between law enforcement and the 49-year-old religious leader, reminiscent of the 1993 Branch Davidian standoff at Waco. Still, some want authorities to do something. "We sent an army halfway around the world to stop oppression in the Middle East but we can't stop oppression in our back yard?" Claryce Williams asked. "Fourteen-year-old girls forced to marry 70-year-old men? Come on. That's sick." In June, Jeffs was indicted by an Arizona grand jury on two felony counts of sexual conduct with a minor and conspiracy to conduct sex with a minor. Arizona and Utah are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to his arrest. His whereabouts remain unknown. "He ain't locked up here," said Deputy Sheriff Kevin Herbert. He gazed eastward, in the direction of the fenced compound. "For all anyone knows, he could be out there, right now, watching CNN or Cinemax." Sheriff Doran has made 12 visits to the compound and has opened a dialogue with several members. "We have no proof he is there," Doran said. "He is said to move around a lot, dodging the radar. But we'll handle it like any arrest warrant. If we know the guy is out there, we will arrest him." Runge said most folks are taking a live-and-let-live attitude. Always the optimist, he hopes that someday the outsiders will pack up and leave. "We would have our Olympic Village already built." Mankin has another idea. He envisions Texas A&M and Brigham Young universities jointly opening a junior college at the site. He said they could call it Gig 'em Young. Shooting for a laugh Outside the old stone courthouse, beneath a stand of shade trees, the event organizer climbed atop a square plywood platform - the Bully Pulpit - and bid welcome to the third annual Running of the Bull. "We're gonna begin our bull-shootin' shortly," Runge announced. "Everybody is welcome to come up and talk. It's a free-for-all deal." The host surveyed the audience, seated in lawn chairs and picnic tables. Some had traveled from surrounding towns, but many are his neighbors, nursing home residents in wheelchairs, oil field workers, cotton farmers, cattle and goat ranchers, good folks with sun-cured faces and callused hands. Runge recognized one older local as being part of a group that regularly meets for morning coffee and conversation at Shot's convenience store. The Eldorado "Mensa Club," he calls it, a joking reference to the society whose members have scored in the top 2 percent of the population on a standardized intelligence test. Runge swears this story is true. One of the coffee drinkers declared one day that Neil Armstrong never walked on the moon. He said he knew for a fact that the event was staged - never really happened - because he personally looked up the date of the first lunar landing (July 20, 1969), and according to The Old Farmer's Almanac, the moon wasn't out that night. In past years, Runge selected a panel of judges. "But this time we're going to let everybody vote." The master of ceremonies instructed the crowd to award each speaker a numerical rating, like Olympic diving, from 0 to 10, using their hands. "For those of you who have been maimed in farming accidents, just hold up however many fingers you got." Walter Griggs, pastor of the Agape Assembly of God Church, decided against entering the event but admitted he probably has the credentials to be competitive. Griggs calls himself a "Longhorn" preacher. "You know what a Longhorn preacher is?" he asked an out-of-town visitor, setting up his punch line. "A point here," he said, touching an imaginary steer's right horn, "and a point there," touching the left. "And a whole lot of bull in between." Speakers came from all over, poets and storytellers from San Angelo, Big Spring, Carrizo Springs. F.L. "Curly" Butts hails from Bowie. Gene Perkins drove more than 300 miles, from Garland. One by one, they stepped to the microphone and recited rhymes about roosters, and mules, poems about cowboys riding horseback over the last ridge and into the golden pastures of heaven. Dennis Gaines of Kerrville delivered a long-winded yarn about coon-hunting, rich with dialect and West Texas humor. In the afternoon, thunder clouds gathered. The sky grew doomsday dark. Undaunted by the rain - a sweet summer rain - local talent Jon Cartwright tuned his guitar and performed his song about a fellow and his large family. You can't believe how hard it gets With 13 wives and 40-something kids You can't even think with all the noise You'll be plumb wore out spankin' the boys. Plural Girl Blues, Plural Girl Blues Anniversary today and I don't know whose. PHOTO: Daniel Pechacek, 7, was the official matador at this year's Running of the Bull. David Casstevens (817) 390-7436 dcasstevens@star-telegram.com | |||||||||||
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star-telegram.com Originally published August 14, 2005 | |||||||||||
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