Perry described himself as a "product of a wholesale feather earrings place called Paint Creek" in his presidential announcement speech in South Carolina on Saturday, recalling how his father returned from 35 missions in World War II to begin working a "little corner of land" as a tenant farmer.
"It's a great place to grow up -- wonderful people out there," he said in a brief conversation with the Star-Telegram last week. "I tell folks, other than coincidental things in life, I could just as well be working in a feed store in Haskell County."
Perry's political trajectory took root here, beginning with a six-year stint in the Legislature that helped propel him into statewide posts as agriculture commissioner, lieutenant governor and the state's longest-serving chief peacock feather earrings executive.
While old friends and admirers applaud his latest venture, he also has more than a few detractors in this predominantly Democratic county, including those who still resent his switch to the Republican Party in the late 1980s. He did not carry his home county in his 2006 re-election campaign for governor or his 1998 race for lieutenant governor.In books, speeches and interviews, Perry has told of a rural boyhood that was both hardscrabble and idyllic. The family lived in a 1920s bungalow-style and was "fairly self-sustaining," Perry recalled in a 2010 interview in Texas Monthly. "Mom was a very, very good seamstress and still is. She made my sister's clothes; she made a lot of my shirts. Now, with blue jeans we wore Levi's. But when I went to college, Mother still made my underwear."
The stream called Paint Creek, which runs near the community that feather hair earring bears its name, got its moniker from its dark-red clay banks. The creek was dry for months until a summer rain late last week brought a brief respite in the worst drought to hit Texas since the 1950s.
"I've been farming since 1945, and this is the worst," said Dale Middlebrook, 83, whose cotton crop was destroyed by the drought. Some farmers who have suffered the same fate have been selling scrap iron to help get by.
But confronting hardships -- whether a relentless dry spell or a raging spring flood -- is ingrained in the community fabric and, as Perry has often recalled, helps define those who live here. Despite the distances that separate their homes, the farming families that dot the region seem strongly intertwined. If someone "lost a family member or the rains flooded your property," Perry once wrote, " everybody would be at your door."
Perry's father has described this area as "the big empty," a rolling landscape of farms and cattle country festooned by mesquite and cactus. Haskell, the county seat, is less than 15 miles north of Paint Creek. Stamford, another small town, lies just to the south. The nearest city, Abilene, is about 55 miles feather hair extensions wholesale south.
Ray and Amelia still live in Paint Creek. The heart of the community is Paint Creek School, which was established in 1937 and has an enrollment of about 160, about 50 more than when Perry attended. "No Dream too Tall for a School so Small" is the school motto.
Another social linchpin is the community church. The exact population is hard to determine because those who consider themselves Paint Creek residents live in rural homes scattered throughout the area. Perry says the community doesn't have a ZIP code and is "too small to be a town."
