I am a little late with this, but I was thinking of Cy Scarborough and a time back in 1989. We had two graduate from Farmington High School, and dad decided we would go, as a family, to the Bar D. We loaded up our four, with one friend of our boys and one boyfriend, now husband, of our oldest daughter. We wandered around waiting for dinner and saw so many people who were acquaintances, who were as surprised to see us as we were them.
Dinner as usual was great and we had front row seats, which made it even better. We were seated with the boys on one side of the table with their backs to the stage and the rest of us were facing the stage. The guys came out and the boys changed directions. Cy came out in his señorita costume and started singing. He walked off the stage right up to my 14-year-old son and told him to pop his “balloon.” Son tried and tried and it wouldn’t pop, so he bit it! It popped and Cy went to laughing and almost couldn’t finish the song. It caused a whole bunch of laughter, and afterwards, people asked if that had been part of the show for real. We had to tell them it was spur of the moment and we had no idea how Cy chose our son. Cy might have planned it but we sure were not told about it.
Justin is now married with four children of his own and lives in the South, but misses our Southwest. When we notified him of Cy’s passing, he chuckled and then said, “That is a great loss for the Bar D. Wish I could have gotten my crew up there to see the show! Someday we will get there!”
The Bar D is special to us. My husband helped string the very first tarp over the seating area when he was 16. His mom, Donnie Dalton, is from the Animas Valley and his uncle Delmus Dalton sold the land to the original founders of the Bar D.
Judy MillerFarmington
