Group looking for "Seegoing Cowboys" info

The Okanogan County Historical Society is seeking more information on a group called the Seagoing Cowboys who volunteered to take cattle and horses to war-torn countries after WWII from 1945 to 1947. Some 7,000 United States men and boys took part; 29 from Washington State and 14 from Okanogan County.

Peggy Reiff Miller, Indiana, has been researching this group since 2002. She will be coming to Okanogan County to speak on Aug. 24 at the Whitestone Church of the Brethren at 9:30 a.m. and at the Ellisforde Church of the Brethren at 11:30 a.m.

She will be speaking at the Tonasket Senior Center on Monday Aug. 25 at 7 p.m.

The Society is looking for people who remember this time, are related to these men or know stories about them.

The men from Okanogan County were: Mark Bontrager (Tonasket); William Wix Dugan (Loomis); John Fancher (Tonasket); Earnest Finley (Oroville); Ivan Hawkins, Jr. (Tonasket); Victor Lewis Hawkins (Tonasket); Clayton E. Henneman (Oroville); Kenneth A. Lorz (Tonasket); Chas. A. Merrill (Tonasket); Bruce Picken (Tonasket); Bill Pyper (Tonasket); Gerald L. Vandiver (Tonasket or Oroville); Emmett Williams (Omak); and John Woodward (Loomis).

“They were students and farmers, bankers and preachers, laborers and teachers. They were Brethren, Mennonite, Catholic, Protestant, Amish, unchurched. Some sought adventure, some sought to serve people whose lives had been torn apart by war, some wanted to see firsthand what they had only read about or seen on film.

They were the seagoing cowboys: Men and boys who volunteered to tend the livestock shipped to war-devastated countries after World War II by the United Nation Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and the Heifer Project.”

--An excerpt from Peggy Reiff Miller’s website: http://www.seagoingcowboys.com

If you have some information, photos, please contact society offices at 509-433-4372 or ochs@ncidata.com or society President Sandy Brightbill at 509-486-1903 or jsbright@nvinet.com.