Saturday, December 14, 2024
Dan and Judy Coates were two of a kind. Not in temperament or personality, but in heart and vision. The two worked joyfully to contribute substantially to the Granbury we know today.
The Coates Western Exhibition and Sale that takes place Friday Oct. 25 and Saturday, Oct. 26 in conjunction with the Harvest Moon Festival of the Arts is a tribute to Dan and Judy and a way to honor their lasting impact.
The Coates loved art, they collected art, they supported the arts, donating their time and resources to art events and organizations, even early Granbury July Fourth events included art.
Dan had always enjoyed drawing but not pursued art professionally until one day when Dan was critiquing a fine art piece quietly to Judy, she quipped that he should try his hand at art himself.
Dan always took Judy’s suggestions seriously. In no time Dan made a name for himself as a western sculptor. He was soon selected for prestigious shows, winning awards and earning commissions. Dan had found a new outlet for his love of the cowboy life and all things western.
A genuine cowboy, Dan was described as larger than life, and one who wore the heart of Texas on his sleeve. A true gentleman, known for his generosity, warm demeanor and quick wit. A brilliant man full of brilliant ideas and the drive to execute them.
Judy was a woman who exuded tenderness and beauty. She was known for her devout faith. She had the gift of using her excellent taste to make a house a home and helping others do the same. A true lady in every sense of the word.
The Coates moved to Granbury from Arlington in 1976 with their children Courtney, 13 and Dan, 10. The family had traveled all over Texas on weekends with Dan who was a rodeo announcer on weekends and worked for an investment firm on the weekdays.
Dan had learned to announce beside his Dad, who was a famous announcer for rodeo, wrestling and boxing. Dan began to announce rodeo at the age of 14 and kept doing so for the following 30 years. Both Dan Coates are regarded as two of the best to take the mic.
“You’d think the kids would get sick of going, but they love it,” Judy said to the Hood County News in June 1977 about traveling around Texas to all the rodeos.
The Coates family had lived in Granbury just one year at that time, and the family had jumped into serving immediately.
The family was familiar with the landscape around the state and chose Granbury as the place they wanted to raise their longhorn cattle and put down permanent roots. The family did everything together, working and playing.
“We had been coming to Granbury since I guess 1975 visiting friends who have a lake house here. And we would drive through Granbury to go to a rodeo when my dad was announcing rodeos on the weekends, and he and mom just fell in love with this little town.,” shared Courtney Coates Blackman.
In Pete Kendall’s Hood County News tribute article about Dan Coates published in April of 2005, Dan says that when traveling back from a rodeo he realized Arlington wasn’t that far from Granbury and he said to Judy,
“How would you like to move to Granbury?”
And Judy replied, “I would love to.”
“We were living in Arlington and next thing I know Dad contacted Dave Cook and they bought the Umphress place and we had this little farmhouse and 200 acres. They wanted to build a big house up on the hill. They redid the farmhouse while we lived in it, and we never moved from there. The farmhouse was never built, “ said Blackman.
In 1976 as a new resident, Dan served on the Bicentennial committee in Granbury as the country was in a flurry to celebrate the two hundredth birthday of our nation.
Just a year later in 1977 Dan and Judy would lead the Independence Day celebration planning and execution. Dan is considered one of the founding fathers of our current July Fourth event.
“I thoroughly intend to jump in with both feet,” said Judy in the 1977 article. Judy had period costumes made for the event and for the promotion prior. Judy had “a lovely Native American dress” that she hoped Courtney would wear, “But she loves to ride that horse too much to be hampered with skirts,” Judy explained.
Blackman recalls the first celebration that her parents were in charge of,
“I remember listening to him talk about it. He said, ‘We need to build this as an old fashioned Fourth of July.’ So my dad got a school bus from the high school – it didn’t have air conditioning.
“Back in the day there would be old timers that would pick on the square in the gazebo and Jack Stout used to cook his sourdough biscuits and just hand them out to whomever was walking by. It really was a small town, you know,” explained Blackman.
The entertainment for this “Whistle Stop Bus Tour” were “pickers” Clarence Vaughn, Fly Vaughn, Elmer Cody and Tom Hafford. Blackman continues,
“And so my dad said, ‘We need to latch on to this, and this is what it’s going to be.’ So he got that bus, and he got those pickers to agree , and they went on the bus.
“My brother, my mother, my dad and I were all dressed in old-fashioned clothing. I don’t know who all was on the bus but I know there were lots people on the bus.
“He (Dan) took a map and he drew a radius around Granbury and we had posters, and we stopped at every little town within that radius around Granbury.
“And he’d pull that school bus up, and all of us unloaded and the pickers would get out and sit in these chairs and start playing. And then we would take off in our costumes and ask if we could put posters up in their windows. It really was the beginning of the fourth of July, I remember it so vividly.
“It was so much fun. He was great at that (promoting). From the time I was born my grandfather never really had a regular job. He was a promoter and an announcer.
“So it was there (this ability), it was in them. And I think my Dad even talked to my grandad – talked about ideas, what would be really great. They were wild west and promoting all kinds of stuff before social media,” said Blackman.
Dan described his plans for the 1978 July Fourth to Peggye Swenson of the Hood County News in June, “It’s going to be a rip-snorting great day,” he said. It was going to be something you had to see to believe according to Dan.
Granbury was well on its way to becoming a hub to the communities around it. After the completion of the DeCordova Bend Dam in 1969 the next decade would see the movers and shakers of Granbury begin to organize new civic groups and strengthen the ones that already existed. These groups would become the foundations of civic and cultural life in Hood County, laying a strong foundation for all the growth to come.
Small groups of people would do the work, their names can be seen over and over in the archives and Dan and Judy Coates are two of those names.
The Coates became key players in these groups, serving in every capacity. Between them they served on committees and boards and as leaders: The Hood County Bicentennial Commission/Shanley Park Association, the Old Fashioned Fourth of July committee, 4-H, Hood County Livestock Raisers Association, the Lake Granbury Area Chamber of Commerce, the Lake Granbury Beautification Council, Mission Granbury and others.
Donating ideas, inspiration, time and money, decade after decade, the Coates’ did so while raising their children, excelling at their work and running their ranch.
Their parties were the stuff of legends, a yearly soiree that at last count was attended by hundreds. Held in the “old west” town built by Dan behind their home. Blackman said the attire was “clean jeans.”
A western art exhibition in their name seems a fitting tribute to the Coates, a way their legacy can continue to contribute to the community they so loved.
As Dan said to Suzanne McMinn of the Hood County News in Aug. of 1990,
“Granbury has been wonderful to my family and I think the world of it.”
