Time-traveling Barton cowboy set for TV debut
Toolbox
By J.C. MYERS Staff Writer - Published: April 30, 2006
Shaun Terhune said that he was born a century too late, but he's had a chance to travel back in time and become what every boy dreams of being – a cowboy.
At 20, Terhune of Barton is the youngest cowboy in the reality TV show "Texas Ranch House," an eight-part PBS series that will premier on Monday. The show is from the producers of the acclaimed series "Frontier House" and "Colonial House."
In "Texas Ranch House," 15 people from a variety of backgrounds re-create life on a working Texas ranch and the set re-creates historically accurate conditions circa 1867: 100-degree temperatures, rattlesnakes and rugged terrain, a diet of coarse and simple food, homespun clothing, no electricity and long work days.
The participants are from Vermont, Texas, California, New Mexico, England and Sweden.
Terhune, who has seven brothers and sisters, was home-schooled. He said he spent much of his childhood barefoot in the woods and fields of Barton.
The series was filmed over three months last summer, and it had a profound impact on Terhune. He still daydreams about life on the ranch.
"It was a growing-up experience. It made boys into men. I started as a pale-faced, insecure kid with a lot of maturing to do. I gained 22 pounds and grew a full beard. It was dangerous and you had a lot of responsibility. It was no place for boys. You either made it or you were out," said Terhune.
But he said that it was not at all like getting voted off the island on the popular TV show "Survivor."
"It was as real as reality TV gets," Terhune said. "Other shows are sort of staged with certain personality types. PBS was looking for people who really want to live it. The motivation is different, and there is no big money prize at the end."
But in one respect this series "will remind you of other reality shows," he said. "There are fights and arguments and it's exciting."
Terhune said that he applied to be on the show because he is a big fan of the other PBS "House" shows.
"I watched the family on the Frontier House, and I felt like I belonged on that show," he said. Being on a ranch show was particularly attractive. "I'm sort of a romantic. It's every little boy's dream to be a cowboy. I feel like I was born a century too late," he said.
Not a day goes by when Terhune doesn't think about being out in the desert with his fellow cowboys. He said it was difficult making the transition back to modern life after living with candles and no TV, cars or cell phones.
"The noise and the lights, the airport, everything seemed so obnoxious and loud," he said.
He still keeps in touch with his fellow cowboys. "No one has any idea what you've been through and it's frustrating at first," he said.
Terhune said the producers of the show tried to minimize contact between the participants and the production staff, who were manning the cameras and sound equipment, but that he did get to know them by name after awhile.
He said, "It's like you're on Mars surrounded by Martians and you want to talk to someone from Earth."
The cowboys wore microphones in their boots and the cameras were almost always present. At one point he took a bath wearing a leather loin cloth. "It was gross, but you don't want to expose yourself," he said. "There was no privacy."
Participants signed agreements allowing the show's producers to use any recorded image, he said.
Terhune talked about his rural Vermont childhood better preparing him in some ways for the deprivations of the cowboy life than the urban settings other cowboys came from, but he had a hard time adjusting to the heat.
"At one point I got a postcard from Vermont, and we were ogling the lush green," Terhune said. "It seemed like paradise compared to a place where nothing grows much bigger than sagebrush."
But now he also feels strongly attached to the desert landscape may someday return to Texas to work on a ranch.
"I'm qualified," he said "I've got some real good cowboy experience."
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