Fri, Dec 05 2008
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Published July 12, 2008 09:37 am - Terrell Lester on Clem TERRELL LESTER Column
He was the voice of the rodeo. The voice of the people. And now, the voice has gone quiet. That wonderful, slow drawl, tilled from the rich and fertile Oklahoma soil, has been silenced. Cancer, the loathsome baddy in the black hat, gunned down the beloved good guy in the white hat. Clem McSpadden didn’t stand a chance. The stand-up guy from Chelsea, the guy they name post offices for, the fellow the workaday cowboys admire and respect, Clem McSpadden, is gone. He was Hall of Fame good. A man who belongs on a pedestal. He represented all that was virtuous and honest. Stetson blocked its first white hat with Clem McSpadden’s head in mind. He was a man of the people. The people’s choice. They raised him. They elected him. They re-elected him. They loved him. To them, he was just Clem. Good ol’ Clem. Ol’ Clem from just down the road a piece at Bushyhead. They sent Clem off to congress because they trusted him. They knew him. They knew his family. They knew he would do right by them. And he did. He never forgot from whence he came. He never forgot the trust they placed in him. He was a statesman. He was a spokesman. He was born on a working cattle ranch at Bushyhead. And 82 years later, even to the day he died, he was still running cattle across much of that same Rogers County spread. 
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