About the Book
Life on the ranch has always been serious business… but that doesn’t mean it can’t be downright hilarious.
In The High Tech Cowboy, John Francis serves up a delightful collection of true-to-life stories from a lifetime spent on Wyoming ranches and, later, an Idaho farm. With a storyteller’s gift for finding humor in everyday mishaps, Francis shares tales of stubborn machinery, unforgettable neighbors, cattle, windmills, old trucks, modern inconveniences, and the countless surprises that come with rural life.
Whether he’s critiquing fancy restaurant desserts, pondering the mysteries of modern restroom design, or recounting the day a water truck tried to stand on its tail, Francis invites readers to laugh along with the people, places, and experiences that shaped him. His stories are rooted in real events, seasoned with a touch of cowboy exaggeration, and told with the warmth, wit, and common sense that have long entertained readers of Cow Country, The Wyoming Livestock Roundup, The Fence Post, and The Arco Advertiser.
Inspired by the storytelling traditions of great Western humorists such as Baxter Black, The High Tech Cowboy celebrates a disappearing way of life while proving that the best stories are often the ones that really happened—or almost happened.
If you’ve ever lived in the country, worked with livestock, appreciated honest humor, or simply enjoy a well-told tale, you’ll feel right at home in these pages.
About the Author
John Francis was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and raised on his family’s ranch west of town. He attended the old two-room Gilchrist School and grew up with frozen toes in the winter and a sunburn in the summer, working alongside his father on the ranch. He started ranching at the age of two. Not two o’clock, but two years old.
John took over management of the ranch in 1977 and continued to operate it until he sold the ranch in 2017. During that time, he married, raised two kids, divorced, and then married the love of his life, Jane.
A Wyoming L.E.A.D. Class VI alumnus, John has lectured on succession planning and has written humorous articles for Cow Country, the Wyoming Stock Growers Magazine. He has shared his stories with audiences large and small, including the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, and his high school class reunion.
Having retired from production agriculture, John now spends his time tinkering with two vintage Datsun cars and an old Dodge truck, originally purchased by his grandfather in the mid-1950s.
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