Charles Cook

A celebration of the life of Charlie Cook, a 90-year-old Buffalo resident who passed away Thursday at his home in Buffalo will be held Thursday, March 23^rd at 2:00 p.m. at Summit Wesleyan Church with Deb Sustrich officiating. Charlie will be sprinkled amongst the wildflowers by his family in his beloved Big Horn Mountains. Donations in Charlie’s memory may be made to the Buffalo Senior Center at 671 West Fetterman in Buffalo, Wyoming 82834, or Susie Bowling Lawrence Hospice at 497 West Lott in Buffalo. Online condolences may be made at www.harnessfuneralhome.com.

Charles Louis Cook was born July 14, 1932, in an old farmhouse west of Sheridan, Wyoming to parents William Albert Cook and Ilma Irene Frink.  He got his education in Sheridan except for a couple of years at the Wolf Creek School.  He graduated from Sheridan High School.

Charlie’s ranching career started on the Lodge Grass Creek Ranch.  He followed that by working on the Wolf Creek Ranch.  After that, he spent three years wrangling dudes for the Eaton Ranch. In the fall of 1952, he moved to southern Colorado and went to work at a cow camp for the Trinchera Ranch up in the Sangre De Cristo Mountains north of Alamosa, Colorado.

In February of 1953, Uncle Sam wiggled his finger at Charlie and said follow me.  Follow he did to Okinawa and Japan for 18 months.  In February of 1955, he was discharged from the service and returned to Sheridan where he spent the next 5 years on the Rapid Creek Ranch with summers up on the mountain.  Somewhere in there, he got married, a union that lasted 24 years and produced one son, Matt, and raised 5 other boys. 

After numerous other jobs, Charlie spent the next 17 years as the Ranch Manager for the Yellowbird Ranch and then retired.  As part of his retirement, Charlie has taken up leatherwork, saddle making, and packing for Spear O Wigwam Guest Ranch.  He has wrangled dudes, chariot-raced, and driven and packed mules. 

In 1982 Charlie and his wife divorced and for the next 20 years, he was a bachelor.  Then, as fate would have it (along with some careful planning) Charlie managed to capture the heart of a longtime friend and avid horsewoman Sue Sorenson from Arvada, Wyoming.  The two were wed on November 15, 2001, and took up residence in Buffalo, Wyoming.  

Charlie became a published cowboy poet whose poems were inspired by his ranching and cowboy lifestyle.  They are a collection of amusing and entertaining stories and rhymes that come straight from a man who has been there and done that. His cowboy poetry career started the winter of 1948/1949 when he was snowed in on Wolf Creek and passed the time by reading and re-reading the Western Horseman.  He soon had all the poems memorized.  While in the service of his country, Charlie wrote letters to his mother in which he penned several poems.  His mother had some of his poems published in magazines.  None of the letters were saved and only the published poems were kept.  Among them was a poem titled “Homesick” which is included in his book “Good Dogs, Good Horses, and Good Women”.

Charlie enjoyed helping fellow ranchers when they gathered, branded, sorted, shipped, and did any other ranching activities.  He also enjoyed hunting and in spite of his macular degeneration was an accomplished marksman and hunter (as long as he has Sue to sight him in).  He was also in high demand to recite his cowboy poetry and enjoyed doing that whenever and wherever he was asked to do so.    

Charlie spent the better part of his 90 years being a cowboy who saw the changing of an era in the cowboy lifestyle. He was horse and cow savvy, generous, kind, always a gentleman, and had that dry cowboy sense of humor and the benefit of wisdom which comes from years of experience.  Even though his ranching, riding, and leather crafting activities came to an end, he still promoted the cowboy lifestyle through his poetry.

Charlie wrote cowboy poetry for many, many years, but it has only been over the past 15 years that he became an entertainer.  That began when he wrote his signature poem entitled “Just a Swinging” while wrangling dudes for the Spear-O-Wigwam Guest Ranch in the Big Horn Mountains.  Charlie developed such a delightful way of reciting his poetry that he just rocked his audiences.

Charlie was inducted into the Wyoming Cowboy Hall of Fame in September 2017.  He was a cowboy all his life.  Not the pickup drivin’, two-way radio talkin’, Marlboro smokin’, team ropin’, bee boppin’ baseball cap type of cowboy…

No!  He was A REAL COWBOY!