Blackjack Shootoutnew and improved?
By DANA DUGAN
Express Staff Writer
Rain, a bad accident and dispassionate acting turned this years
Ketchum Blackjack shootout into a dismal affair.
The script itself was re-written, with the assistance of local acting
coach Cathy Reinheimer. The play was narrated by Chris Milspaughthe first time it
has had a professional narrator. It was also the first time youngsters were included.
Called a new and improved version of the nearly four-decade-old event, the
story is about a fictitious shootout in Ketchum, circa the 1890s. It involves a love
triangle between Blackjack Ketchum, (a real bank robber associated with Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kid), his wife Blackjack Nell and Indian Joe.
A poem, written in 1962 by Bill Roovaart, was based on the first Blackjack
Ketchum shootout.
The plot includes a considerable amount of drinking. The last line of the
poem says: "This time Nell put her money down on the best supply of hootch in
town."
This years action appeared more clean-cut than in the past, when
dance hall girls and drunk cowboy types would spill out of the Casino, not just in
character, but clearly inebriated.
The cast members who in previous years had often been in the Pioneer
downing some spirits prior to the shootout, this year werent.
"This year only one guy came in and threw back a shot of Jack.
Theyre not all drunk this year," Pioneer bartender Mark Wheaton said.
While outlandish behavior in the past was abetted by the mornings
preparations, it was amusing and kept the crowd entertained. This year, however, there
appeared to be a palpable lack of connection between the audience and the players.
"The actors didnt really seem to be in the spirit of the
thing," said a spectator.
Though the rain and chilly temperatures limited the turnout of spectators
by a few hundred, there was still a hearty crowd in attendance, resolutely braving the
weather and looking forward to a fun day.
Many people crowded into Starbucks, on the corner of Main Street and Sun
Valley Road, and watched from the window. Others watched from inside the Bank of America
building and the Pioneer Saloon.
A woman in a voluminous yellow slicker who was watching the U.S. Open
[tennis tournament] in the Pioneer during the shootout said, "It was corny and cute
the old way."
A soaking wet girl, who has seen the shootout every year for the past
eight years, and who thought there was more shooting this year, said, "it hurts my
ears."
Though a Mountain Express reporter heard mostly bad reviews from
other onlookers, Walt Cochran, the leader of the Blackjack Ketchum Shootout Gang, said he
received many compliments on the new version of the shootout.
"Weve been trying to make it better. It has been evolving for
30 some years," he said in a telephone interview.
He added that the "accident was tragic but I hope that they [the
onlookers and parade organizers] dont criticize usit wasnt part of
us."
In fact, Cochran and his cohorts had done a pre-shootout safety
demonstration regarding their guns and blanks.
"A blank can kill you," he said, if it goes off close enough to
your body.