All right.

I am Bart Taylor or Barton Lee Taylor.

When I'm on stage, I got my cowboy stuff on.

I'm Buckaroo Bart, so you can put that as you need to.

My series is a series on the life and legacy of Will Rogers, famous humorous comedian, movie star, Wild west, trick roper, cowboy, Cherokee, Oklahoman.

My first book was 2021 Will Rogers and His Great White House Sleepo.

My second book is Will Rogers and His Great Presidential Pals.

The third book, which we'll be discussing more in depth, is the Will Rogers and His Great Inspiration.

Thanks, Bart, for appearing on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors podcast show.

Bart has written, as he mentioned, a children's book series about Oklahoma's favorite son, Will Rogers.

I look forward to our conversation regarding his latest book, Will Rogers and His Great Inspirations.

Before we get into the details of your latest book, Bart, and your children's book authorship, can you tell us, tell us what being a children's book author means to you in the grand scheme of things, because I noticed you got a lot going on in your life.

So talk to us about how this whole book authorship fits into your life.

Oh, sounds great, Pop.

Rick, if I can call you that.

Yeah, that's all right.

Fire away.

They told me to call you.

It was very clear.

Now, Papa Rick, for me, I've been a lifelong historian, I guess you could say, or just a history lover, history buff.

And it all started with me going to historic sites with my dad when I was a younger kid, about 7, 8, 9 years old.

And it was those experiences that I had amongst dressed up reenactors that were reenacting me, whether it's shooting a musket, rolling cartridges, tending to a horse, whatever it is that got me.

And I wanted to be part of that.

Eventually my dad became a Civil War reenactor.

He drew me further into that stuff.

And then by about 12 years old, I was reenacting Civil War reenacting.

And that's really what got me into history.

And so I think kids today don't see history as something for them.

And I do believe if it's taught in the correct way, if it's made fun, almost like a useful part of who you are, right?

Your identity comes from all these other people.

We're made up of all that other stuff that comes before you.

So look backwards before we try to go forwards.

I've always been taught that.

And so with Will Rogers, it's the perfect guy.

I hear from mostly older people today that Will Rogers, they Know who he is.

They know about his comedy, how he's sort of a Jon Stewart, Johnny Carson, David Letterman.

Before any of those guys did their comedy thing, Will was doing that plus trick rope and plus being in movies.

Friends to five presidents.

And so there's really nobody quite like him.

And since he died tragically in 35 at age 55, a young man, we missed out on a lot of what Will brought to the table here in this country was it was a come togetherness message.

And so going all the way back to as a kid, I've always seen Will Rogers as something that's never been taught in the correct way.

Now, that's not going against anybody that's ever been here before me.

That's just there's an old school mentality when you look at Will Rogers or some of these old figures in the 20s and 30s.

Roosevelt.

Bart, how is this, all this stuff that you're describing, how is this brought out your children's book authorship?

There's so many experiences you're talking about.

Tell us how that all culminated into writing children's book series.

Yeah, no doubt.

So I think where I was going with the beginning of that, it was just saying the experience of making history accessible, fun, and a mirror for kids.

I can see myself.

It is part of my story.

Why haven't I paid attention to this?

I can be like that person.

Oh, I don't want to be like that person.

There's so many things in value in history that I saw at a young age that I see with Will Rogers that needed to be put out in public.

And there was nobody that was writing children's books about this guy.

It's more stale, right?

It was more stale than the legacy was sitting there.

I love the history aspect of it because it's interesting.

I've co authored with my granddaughters two children's books.

And our first book is called the Adventures of Caboose the Rocky Mountain Bear.

It's written in a setting in the Rocky Mountains that was an old coal town.

So we actually make references to how in the past the old coal town was really the lifeblood that built the town.

So you know what people have often remarked to me, they said, I didn't realize the history that I'm learning from this children's book.

Yes.

And like you said, Bart, in a fun manner, educate people.

So I appreciate that.

I'm interested in the inspiration and your origin story.

And what I'd like to know, was it the chicken?

It seems to me it's the chicken.

And the egg situation that I need to clear up with you.

Was it your job at the Will Rogers Museum and then you wrote children's books, or was it you wrote children's books and then you got a job at the Will Rogers Museum?

Yeah, it's a little bit of both.

Let me go there in a quicker manner here.

Here comes Covid.

I'm teaching at Union Public Schools as a 7th grade Social Studies teacher, and now I'm moved online.

And so I'm sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Tulsa and I'm reading this article on whitehouse.org I believe it was.

And I typed in Will Rogers because I was just like, you know what?

I know he was there a bunch.

I just see if I can find a cool story about him.

I was bored.

I found that he slept over at the White House with Calvin Coolidge, and it was like a boy's sleepover.

I was like, wait a second.

Most folks don't know he was friends with presidents, but also friends with one of the most quiet, shy, total opposites of who he was.

Right there.

There's another level of kids for me.

You're opposite.

Right.

Of other people, different things, whatever.

It plays into, right.

Oh, here comes the third part, the historical aspect.

Calvin Coolidge was a real president.

Will Rogers was a real entertainer at that time.

Biggest movie star, radio show.

Right.

I could keep going, but he's the biggest entertainer in our country's history at that point.

Two of those guys come together.

Silent cow and loud Will Rogers.

They become friends.

And so I was like, that is a sleepover story.

There's so many angles for a kid to go.

Here's a little history.

Here's a little.

Two different personalities coming together.

Here's a unique, kind of odd story of a comedian and a president coming together.

I think that the story for today or timeless always, but it's just for today.

We want kids to go, oh, everybody can come together.

I can find a little connector spot.

And Will was a connector in a world of dividers.

So even today, he's a perfect guy to show.

Guess what?

There was somebody that was worried about bringing the best of us together, to push forward and go create more of what we can become.

The best of us.

So there you go.

It was that story that said, that's the one.

Write that story before you got your current position at the Will Rogers Museum.

I. I self published that one just by myself on lulu.

Terrific.

Yep, Yep.

Did you use that as part of your resume to get the job?

What do you think, Papa?

I got a phone call on fall break from the director of Will Rogers Museum.

I had come out with my book two weeks early, wanted to purchase 50 copies for their gift shop.

So I'm just like, okay, and here's the cool thing.

I had interned and worked here for three and a half years as just a part time educator.

I'd done my internship here when I got my master's degree.

So I was like, okay, I want to eventually try to go back to that spot if ever possible, after that book.

Within a few weeks, he gave me a phone call and said, the interpreter here, who was 86 years old, mind you, playing Will Rogers, will was only 55.

So he wanted to bring me back.

And there was nobody else he could think of that had the passion to do it five years later.

That little smidgen in the coffee shop.

And who would have known it was all about a children's book?

Yeah.

And so that's.

We're talking about inspiration, children's books, history, and how to inspire other authors.

But that's a pretty cool story if you ask me.

For sure.

I couldn't agree more.

I have to tell you before we go on too much more, it's interesting because I've interviewed a lot of children's book authors right from California all the way to the East Coast.

And what's interesting is that I've interviewed two other children's book authors from Oklahoma.

There seems to be a sense of pride.

I haven't got the same sense of pride as I have from people from Oklahoma, which is quite interesting.

Oh, that's neat.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah.

On episode 23, I had a gal named Charlotte Glazon and she wrote a.

A children's book called Storm Trucks.

So if you're from Oklahoma, you understand why she wrote that story.

Yeah, no doubt.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's neat.

Yeah.

And next week, I actually have a gentleman named Cody Burke, episode 51.

But anyways, he wrote a book called Take Me Back to Oklahoma.

So he doesn't live in Oklahoma anymore, but he wrote a book because as a child he didn't appreciate how much he loved Oklahoma.

So he wrote a book called Take Me Back.

That's cool.

That's neat.

Yeah.

So very cool, very neat.

Yeah.

Thanks for bringing that in.

No problem.

So I'm interested in knowing.

And this is a little bit different because when I talk to children's book authors, we talk about having a children's book business plan, because you bring a book into the world now, how do you market, sell it get it in distribution for you.

It's a little different and it's a little more interesting.

So explain to folks.

I think all of your books reside on the Will Rogers Museum's website, correct?

Yes, correct.

And you don't have a separate website for the.

For your books?

No, other than just what the Yorkshire.

The publisher carries them, I guess, believe Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Right.

So explain to us a little bit about that relationship with the museum.

And I want everybody to understand.

I'm trying to help everybody understand the business side of it.

So.

Yeah.

You're the author.

Yep.

You.

I think you probably own the copyrights.

Oh, yes.

I could go into all this.

I'd love to.

Yeah.

So talk to us a little bit about the relationship that you have at the retail level at the museum and the online portion that you sell your books through the museum, if you don't mind sharing that.

Oh, yeah.

Not at all.

Yeah.

That's valuable information.

I wish I would have known.

Kind of.

So hopefully that helps your listener.

Yeah.

I'd say for me there's a couple things.

And for one, Will Rogers doesn't have a lot of children's content.

Right.

He's someone who I hear we need from all the older adults.

Man, there shouldn't be a guy like this.

How are kids going to know about a guy if there's no content, no picture books, no storybooks, no nothing really made for kids.

That was kind of my first angle, besides what we talked about in the unique place in the coffee shop.

And so taking that self publishing it, believing in myself to say, I think this can sell because not for one, he's needed.

This can go into schools because they have Will Rogers and then the gift shop doesn't have anything to reflect Will for kids.

Make them into a cartoon to reflect what kids like.

Right.

Yes.

You're going to teach the message of I never met a man I didn't like and you want kids to know about it.

Find an access point, create it.

If not old black and white photos aren't going to do it.

I've been in this business long enough to know that's the truth.

And so for me, there's your other kind of co. Why I do this thing as well.

So when selling them.

Right.

The gift shop is the perfect place to go to if you're writing a book on Davy Crockett or the Alamo would be a great place to go.

So you just got to find your niche of oh, what's needed.

Is there not very much content in this area how can I supplement maybe what is already there and make a different angle or a different perspective and a different cartoon?

Just a different access point for what you're going for.

Because I do believe there are so many niches that folks haven't found.

And Will Rogers was, for me, the.

One from a revenue standpoint, which I think is awesome.

The Will Rogers Museum gets to a touch.

I call it a touch point.

Their touch point is you.

Finally, you've drawn in a bigger audience because now you're going to children.

Like you said earlier, Bart, Will Rogers passed away in 1935.

Okay, that's a lot.

In 10 more years.

That's 100 years ago.

100%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Tell us about.

Because you're actually added a new stream of revenue for the museum and for the store, and actually you're developing new customers down the road.

Because if the kids are engaged and they really like the stories and they go to the museum.

And I was reading on your.

On the website, you guys are doing an expansion in 2026.

Yeah.

To do the expansion, that costs money.

And you don't do an expansion unless people are interested in the subject.

So from a revenue standpoint, just tell me, how are you sharing revenue?

And are they.

How is the museum looking at how you are bringing a new audience to them?

Yeah, that's a good question.

For me, I think it's something that's neat because it's a shared value, not only of the museum and kind of what my vision is, but as an artist, historian, educator, entertainer.

I call myself an edutainer because it kind of grabs.

And I know that's a weird word, but some people.

No, I don't like that.

That's what I do.

Because if education, what our future will be, isn't something that's actually taken serious, so many people say they take it serious.

But put your money where your mouth is.

And that's literally what I've done.

I've seen the need from older folks.

I've seen the need in the gift shop.

And I said, I've created the value.

I've created this new status of fan kids.

How do I know?

I've been in 59 libraries with these books.

What do kids want to be?

Cowboys, astronauts, movie stars, athletes?

Will was movie star, cowboy, two of them.

And so for me, I try again.

It's history.

It's different personalities.

It's his cowboy side, it's his movie star side.

So many things that are attractive to kids and Will's story, they got to be made attractive.

Yes.

It's got to be put in a fun round.

And so there's your value.

It's going to be a 15, 20, 25 year plan.

Because when these kids go back and check out my books at the library, they get a free coupon to the museum.

We've already seen over 40 turned in just from our last three months of out is terrific.

There's your building of the fans and your circular vision.

Right now in 2026.

Are you going.

Because you got some really cool art in the books.

Is some of that art getting incorporated into the store or into the.

Yes.

Oh, that's a good question.

And I.

You.

Obviously they won't be able to see this, but I worked as a park ranger at Craig Grove Battlefield in Arkansas.

Okay.

Okay.

I roped today.

I shot muskets.

A little different, you know, for sure.

I had a junior ranger program like most national parks do.

Okay.

Yeah.

Come and get your badge.

Say your pledge with.

I had the brown hat.

I was a ranger.

Nice.

When we came here, there was no programming like that.

Junior roper.

Oh, very cool.

So it's the characters from my book drive, the content.

It's also characters that I'm going to be writing other books about that you've never seen that are in here.

So they're going to be familiar images later on.

Ah.

So when they complete this, what do they get?

Not a badge, but they get a rope.

A children's kitty rope.

Because Will Rogers was a movie star.

Friends to presidents.

The guy we all want to be, he was just a roper.

Little kid.

That's fantastic.

I love it.

Build all those layers in, man.

That's what I've been trying to do.

And you know, it's interesting because Lori Orlinski from Yorkshire Publishing, she, of course, she introduced us, which was awesome.

But I had Laurie on episode 48 and we were talking about her children's book being middle.

She also really gave me a lot of education that I could share with the audience.

And aspiring book authors is what she called earned media.

And what she meant by that is that's media that you don't pay for.

Because I think everybody knows today, television, radio, any type of media is very expensive to pay for.

So if you can get earned media, which is mean, doing like you did, go to 59 libraries, that creates revenue for the museum because you put your books into the museum, then they clip out the coupon and then it brings revenue in because then they come to the museum.

So at the end of the day, that was free to earn Those customers to come to the museum.

Yes.

Yeah, I love that idea too.

Yeah.

And it's beautiful.

And so I just want to pick up on this a bit because on the front of your latest book, and I think most of us know who Reba McIntyre is.

Yes.

Some of us wouldn't know Rex Lynn, who I think is her fiance.

And.

And Rex has got one of those character faces.

So you think, oh, I know that guy, but you'll never know his name.

And so it's interesting to me is first of all, how did you get Reba and Rex to now, because I know Reba was born in Oklahoma and but I'm curious, how did you get Reba and Rex to actually write the forward for your book?

If you think about Will Rogers celebrity, it still carries a little bit of weight.

And for those type of things, that's what can happen.

And so I'm actual close, personal friends with Jennifer Rogers, the great granddaughter of Will.

She lives in Oklahoma.

She's got all her Airbnbs right here at the edge of the museum.

She's a business lady too.

She looks like Will.

She's funny.

We went kayaking the other day, so we're actual friends.

She knows Rex, she knows Reba, she knows all the Hollywood folk because she's from California originally.

So she got me into that door.

But it was the vision, both of our visions of getting her on the book because she was discovered by Will Rogers grand nephew, Clement Spadden.

Clement Spadden grew up in Will Rogers Ranch, the home that Will was discovered born in.

Clem McSpadden, his nephew also grew up in.

Clem McSpadden went on to be a National Spinal Rodeo announcer and a congressman.

He invited Reba to come sing the Star Spangled Banner at the Oklahoma City National Spinal rodeo in the 70s.

There's your catch.

Wow.

Fantastic.

And when you talk to Reba and Rex, were they excited about writing the forward?

Yeah.

If you read the four, it shows you exactly what I was envisioning, what could happen on the best of terms.

So if she says the right things, it's going to look so good.

Not for me.

But I want her to say her connection to Will because she is inspired by him.

There's that flowing of that circular inspiration thing that I like and I just wanted to see that.

Hey, I think I know who you are.

We're Oklahomans.

I want to see what you're, what you're really like.

And I got exactly what I was wanting.

That's terrific.

It's that connection to the Legacy.

It's her bigness of who she is now, but she also sees and says in the Ford that this book can inspire children.

And that's something for me as an artist hearing from an artist of that caliber.

Ka Ching.

Yeah.

Oh, my goodness.

No, that's fantastic.

Yeah.

So tell us a little bit about.

Because I'm curious on your book format.

So you've got a soft cover book, you've got a hardcover book and you've got an ebook.

So tell us a little bit about those formats and why you did all three.

Yeah, I think that was a co op, co op discussion.

I think not really knowing what sells.

I think that's where a lot of that comes from.

Access points, price points, availability.

You make it to the gift shop to buy it.

So a lot of that, that's where that comes from.

I think the.

For me, the hardcover is my favorite version of all those.

And that's.

That's in the book, that's in the bookstore.

Correct.

And is the soft cover in the bookstore also?

Yes, all of those are.

All three versions.

And so you can come and get.

I think we got a special deal where they can get two for a special price.

So.

Yeah.

Terrific, terrific.

I want to talk to you a bit because we talked about Lori and Yorkshire Publishing.

So I want to talk to you about your publishing approach.

So I noticed of course, you're using Yorkshire and.

Which you've used for.

You said you, you did your first book as an indie book publisher.

Yeah.

On Lulu.

Okay.

And then you did the next two with Yorkshire.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Basically all three.

So I eventually sold the.

That one or got a contract for the first book.

So they're all on Yorkshire.

Okay.

Okay, terrific.

No, I want people to understand that.

So it just.

So everyone understands.

What Bart did was in the beginning he did an indie publishing, which was.

He published it.

Then his next two books he worked with Yorkshire Publishing, which is a self published publisher, and then gravitated so that you have all three of her books with Yorkshire.

Correct, Correct.

Yeah.

I basically signed a contract for all three.

So I take.

I own all the rights as far as just the artwork and then they pay me royalties.

I believe it's 15 or 20%, I can't remember on the books there.

So yeah.

Terrific.

And so far, how.

So starting off as an indie publisher and then going to the self publishing route with Yorkshire.

So tell us the biggest difference.

How has that transition been?

Oh, it's.

It's night and day difference.

So Yorkshire does this.

The publishing, like just normal publishing.

With also a self publishing side.

So they're a hybrid, right?

Yes.

And so for me, I wanted to be published.

I wanted to either way just have my book out there.

But if I could ever get published, then I don't have to worry about it.

Right.

And so that's for me as a full time historian, educator, entertainer, trick roper.

I don't have time to ship because I know I've already done all that I bought.

Oh I think it was close to 300 copies and sold them by myself.

So I shipped them all.

We're talking 20 copies here, 20 copies there.

Right.

So that for me that just gets old.

I mean if that's the way you want to do, that's fine.

And I think there's pluses to both of sides of those and definitely it's.

A good learning ground.

Right.

For you, no doubt.

Yeah.

For me especially learning just to okay this.

Oh, I guess here's another thing I should have mentioned.

I changed a little bit on the COVID So when I signed a contract with Yorkshire, since they do have someone in house that helps a little bit more with that.

I already have a vision and I really don't want it to be messed with.

And it's already successful.

Can you guys just tweak it and help me a little bit?

That's exactly what happened.

And so my relationship with them, hopefully that's the way most things work out for everybody else.

But I'm an artist that has a particular vision.

I don't want you touching a lot of it.

Right.

Because I know where I'm successful in my crowd and my audience and I.

Some folks don't know all that.

They're going to have to figure all that out.

But that's okay.

It's part of being an artist.

But I already knew all that.

So I want someone who could support me being an artist.

Could also send print, what do you call it?

Fast print copies.

So just order demand.

Yeah.

So taking care of that and the bulk orders, of course.

I just sold 49 books in one day to one school.

Nice.

So you never know.

Okay.

I just had program of two weeks ago there.

They sent me an order for 49 books because kids wanted to order at the kids special price.

So there's another level of you building a special price for kids in school and that.

You know what?

That's the first time I've ever heard of that.

I got to write.

I don't really need to write it down, but I love that.

So kids special pricing when for.

Yeah, it goes to the schools, because.

You'Re going to have a price point wherever.

You either trying to make money or make your money back or whatever it is, but have a special price point for kids because maybe kids of, of some certain towns would have a lot of money, but 20 bucks, that's some hard chore.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think for me, those 49 books were sold to children, so that's their money.

And to me, I look at it like that's just another secondary honor.

Oh, look.

What they spent their hard money on was you creating some story for them to connect to.

It's a circular.

I love it.

That's terrific.

I know you mentioned you're an artist, but I'm.

I noticed you've used a illustrator.

His name's Greg White.

Yes.

Yeah.

And so what?

And I think you've used them for all three of your books.

Correct.

So tell us, how did you come to work with Greg?

What's the background story behind that?

Another interesting story from pal Bart Taylor here.

Again, I've got some stories and I bet you no one's going to have this story.

So here we go.

Check this.

Or maybe someone you'll tell me.

Greg White is.

He's the son of my father's best friend.

My father's roommate in college was Phil White, his dad.

So I went to school, Southern Nazarene University with Greg in Oklahoma City or Bethany, Oklahoma.

And so I got to know him there.

But also our dads were friends.

Now we're making books and creating content to help children.

So it's like this big thing that comes from a relationship that my dad and his dad had.

Right.

And so he had already had a lot of great little children's books.

He was with Tate Publishing and I believe he's got about 200 published copies.

He's done a New York Times bestseller book.

So I just approached him, I had no clue.

So on the first book, I totally, he totally gave me a discount.

I know he wasn't charging me what he could have charged and that.

Right.

And that's another angle that folks need to look at.

Not just have a friend do it, but look at who your artist is going to be.

Is that a long term investment?

Is that somebody you trust?

Because with Will Rogers, nobody's ever recreated an image of him as a cartoon.

So that's a big responsibility.

Not just creating stories, entertainment.

No, it's taking a real person.

I made sure to talk to the Will Rogers family before I started anything with designing a cartoon.

Because there's those built in layers of Respect and just doing the right thing.

So there you go.

Should say that because tomorrow I'm interviewing a gal and her uncle is the illustrator.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

And she never thought about writing a children's book.

And when she finally got the inspiration, she was looking for an illustrator, but she had always seen her uncle drawing and she talked to him and he became the illustrator.

So it's quite interesting.

And it's.

You're talking about real characters because in our children's books.

I've written 38 children's book with my grandkids in the series.

Now we've only published two so far because you know how much it costs to bring them a print.

But my five grandchildren are characters in all of the books.

And so I asked them because most of our characters in the books are animals.

I said, okay.

And they had to be animals from the Rocky Mountain.

So I said, okay, what animal would you like to be?

Yeah, trade in the book.

And that's that.

And they chose the animals that they wanted to be.

So it's.

Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah, personalize that.

That's.

It's your thing.

Absolutely.

Nobody's telling you to not do anything.

That's what I love too.

I noticed one unique feature on the COVID of the book and I love it because you were tapped it.

You just showed us the.

That your lasso character on the book here.

You had the COVID you were showing us the.

And I noticed one unique feature and I noticed this with a lot of children's book authors.

They find a uniqueness of something to add to the COVID to make it their own.

And I noticed that you used the lasso on all three covers.

Tell us about that concept and how it all came to be.

See, that's what I was hoping for is folks like you, Rick, or anybody seeing things, images going, oh, that's why it's built in.

Ah, okay, I get.

Because that's where Will Rogers comes from.

He is a roping cowboy from Oklahoma.

First, when we tell kids what is he first movie star, comedian, friends to five presidents?

Nope.

Cowboy on a 60,000 acre ranch steer open trick roping for fun.

Decides after he sees a Mexican cowboy doing an entertaining show with trick ropes.

That's the way I want to go.

The rope is always constant in his life.

It's always the thing that gets him to the next thing.

And so the rope, if you'll notice, he's got the rope in his hand.

The first one.

The second one is a historical take on a historic picture roping the presidents Will Rogers was part of the Ziegfeld Follies, one of the biggest shows on Broadway in the late 19 teens, 20s into the early 30s, I believe.

Biggest show on Broadway, forerunner to the musical.

Will Rogers roped the Follies Girls as part of his act in this big loop.

So who's in my.

The presidents are in his loop.

So now you're.

The presidents are in Will Rogers world.

See, that's the style of thinking.

Let's go to that third one.

Who do you notice is holding the rope?

It's the Mexican vaquero.

It's the person who inspired Will to hold that rope.

Yes.

So that's my style of thinking.

Okay.

And so when you went to Greg, your illustrator, and said, okay, it's important that the last sue be worked into the book cover, Tell us a little bit about that.

And how was his reaction?

Yeah, I think he agreed, like, once I told them the historical context, like, we're redoing an image from Will, like taking what we just talked about earlier a few minutes ago.

Will is going to be stale to kids if it's black and white.

This is a museum.

A lot of this stuff is stagnant.

It sits.

It's stale.

How are you going to make it come alive?

Colors, poppy looking, looks, big feet, different features.

The rope.

Right.

So again, people will see that.

Not only on my junior Roper.

We want kids to see that.

Hey, if you're a kid and you're going to be anything like Will Rogers and all the grownups say we should be more like him, where do you start?

As a movie star?

As a roper.

That's why our junior Roper is built the way it is.

That's why the rope is incorporated in all the different things.

That's why my new book is so focused on his roping as the big part that gets him to the big places.

Roper first.

Okay.

And I'm curious, when the new expansion part of the museum opens in 2026, will your characters from your children's books take on a bigger role and presence on the website?

Great question.

You couldn't have gone in the direction I wanted to.

Right there.

Perfect.

So, yes, we have the kids Museum.

And not only is our Junior rope reflective of the newer books and the content for children, everything is going towards that.

Since I own the images, of course, Greg is going to work with us on some newer images as well and some newer books along the line.

But when you go to the kids museum, those will be the ones not just like the book, but maybe A little bit turned.

He'll help us kind of recreate them and they'll be life size.

So when you go into our presidential room for kids, because we have five rooms for kids, presidents stage, radio, dress up and then just general kids stuff.

Terrific.

Right.

They could go in there and see those images from the book in a different view so it all plays together.

Can you imagine Will Rogers coming back and walking in and thinking, oh my.

God, yeah, the legacy I would love.

And like you said, it's his great granddaughter that you're friends with.

Jennifer.

Yeah, Jennifer.

She must for her in 2026.

She did.

She even.

She wouldn't have even known her great grandfather, correct?

That's correct.

Well, if he would have survived up to 70s, 19, late 60s, 1970s, and he would have been around.

For Jennifer, it's really like getting to live some of her childhood with her great grandfather that she never had the chance to do.

And think about this on a historical level.

Imagine if you're Lincoln's grandson and you go to the Ford Theater.

Right.

Man, that's impactful.

Right.

You're part of this longevity of history that's taught to children to strive to be people like him.

Yeah.

The same with Will Rogers.

There's only one statue of one comedian in Congressional hall right now.

It's Will.

Okay, right, terrific.

Yeah.

There's a bunch of.

There's on a statue, it says, I never met a man I didn't like.

It's so there's politicians walking by wheel all day long that hopefully we'll just turn to the side.

There's your man right there.

So for me, you start with kids and then if they ever become those folks up there, then they know, ah, that's the person you look towards.

So now with three published books, children's books, like when you're in the museum, do you find yourself like the bookstore will point you out or how do you.

Yeah.

And do you book book signings?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

So we have Will Rogers Days, which is an annual thing since the museum opened in 1938, three years after his passing.

Okay.

And so we do a parade, we do a birthday party.

We actually hired a Mexican trick roper to come do a show.

So as soon I'm going to read my book as a public event in a theater with the images on the big screen.

And then as soon as we're done, I'm going to say, hey, would it be cool to go see something that inspired Will today?

And I'm going to walk him outside and they're Going to see a Mexican trick roper, the same type that inspired Will to become Will Rogers.

That is so awesome.

Yeah.

So if I'm not living the dream of not just an educator, but as a children's book author, the books have really opened more doors than anything else.

Right.

It's the libraries.

It's Will's message first that everybody, all sides can point to.

I love it.

Never met a man I didn't like.

And so how do I use that to go into different schools and homeschool co ops and.

Because if it's a message that everyone's about, then it is for everybody.

I need to figure out how to get it in there, and that's how these books have helped with that.

And Bart, I'm curious.

I always ask people about a specific person that motivated them.

We already know that specific person motivated you.

But what's interesting to me is that is how you've lived your life.

And then all of a sudden, through Covid, you focused in on Will Rogers.

You could have focused in on anyone, but you chose Will.

So tell us why Will?

I believe it's because I'm a pretty loyal person.

But also, he changed my life.

And so it's not, oh, the message of Will change your life.

The message of Will is just a universal message of love.

So I love you.

I love you, buddy.

I love you, sister.

It's, I never met a man I didn't like.

Come to the table with all your warts and all right, we're here together.

Let's come together.

And so that's a message as a cowboy hippie to get behind and something.

Those are my values, person.

I live them out.

And how I think it's so neat to find somebody because I am a history buff and a nerd.

And this is all I do, all I've ever done, find someone that I go, oh, my gosh.

I'm just like this guy.

I am pretty funny.

I can trick rope a little bit.

I got 12 of them down.

I have a stage show, a stage name.

I've got art, I've got books.

I've got a charisma.

You know what?

Who's telling me I can't be not the next Will, but somebody who can inspire children as Will did, how he inspired people.

And there's nothing stopping me.

And I figured it out.

I figured it out.

The books, the trick, Roping, Buckaroo bar, my stage cowboy name, all those things work together.

That's why I see 10,000 kids a year.

That's why my Calendar is already booked up for the summer.

It's those things right there.

Being loyal to the legacy has opened the doors for me.

That's true.

Other than that, I don't know what to say because there's really nothing else to say other than I've been loyal to this legacy.

I interned here.

I knew there was a need here.

Why not feel the need myself?

You know what?

Congratulations to you because.

Thank you.

You know what?

To keep someone who passed away in 1935, even though they have a museum.

And as you get further away from Oklahoma, then who the hell is Will Rogers?

Probably comes up more and more.

Right?

So to actually dip into the well and have that inspiration to turn it into children's book.

Congratulations.

I hope the state of Oklahoma gives you an award.

What's cool about it is I'm not a politics guy and neither was Will.

Will said, if you're looking for a job, be a politician.

No training is required.

He just.

He just bust chops constantly.

He's just that guy and the guy that everybody goes, yep, that's.

That's exactly what we're thinking of.

And so how can we incorporate that into our world today?

It's not just a country specific thing.

Okay.

And you mentioned some of the books coming up in the future.

You talked about developing more characters.

So talk to us about this need to develop more characters.

And what are those characters going to look like?

Who are they?

Oh, like characters in my books.

Yes, like you talked about character development of future books.

And you're going to have.

Great.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So talk to us about what you've got in mind.

Okay, I'll reference this again.

So with our Junior Revoker book.

It's the same thing.

It's.

Hey, oh, I recognize that guy.

That's Will's kids version.

Or kids Will.

If you look here, who's asking these little questions down here?

They look of the same brand.

And Art.

It's Art.

A horse, right?

Oh, that's Teddy, Will's stage horse.

That's in my book.

Oh, oh, over here.

That's Sarah, Will's cow that lived as a dog in his mansion in the Hollywood Hills.

He had a cow that lived inside with his family and it was named Sarah.

There's Christmas cards he sent out with her laying underneath the Christmas tree.

Okay.

Pets for kids.

And then that third one, if I get to here.

One second.

No problem.

Oops.

There it is right there.

It's Jocko.

Jocko was Will's favorite dog.

There's a historic version of Will sitting with Jocko.

Okay.

And there's Jocko the dog.

If you can see, it's got.

Terrific, terrific.

So it's an.

It's done by Greg.

And that's just a different level of buying in the characters we've created with Greg's style.

All Will Rogers focused and centric.

But check this out.

With the renovation of the museum, kids are going to be able to come up here with their parents, of course, their laptop, their phone or whatever.

Will be able to choose one of those animals and have a specific kid tour built just for them.

And one of those animals is their tour guide.

Oh, so neat.

So that just like a scan, a QR code or something, and away they go.

100%.

You'll see little Jocko be an animated thing.

He'll be sitting.

Oh, I need to follow.

Oh, there he is.

He goes follow his little paw prints around the museum.

And so we've already actually been developing what we're doing on that.

And it just shows you the layers and levels you can build all these things into.

Will is my guy.

Right.

And anybody else that wants to come and do it too, come do it.

We have someone doing a preschool book, Will Rogers ABCs.

And so it's not just for me.

It's all this content just sitting there for us to be making.

Can you remember as a child the first time you heard a Will Rogers story?

Yes, I was here.

I tell kids that all the time because, again, I wanted them to personalize because I feel I'm genuine.

Sometimes right at the beginning, I want folks to realize, oh, this guy is passionate and genuine about what he's talking about.

It's not a show.

Yeah, he's a little entertaining, but that is truly what he's about.

So when I was here in fourth grade, every fourth grader pretty much in Oklahoma had to come visit the Will Rogers Museum.

Pretty much it was just part of what they learned about Jim Thorp, Will Rogers, Sequoia and some politician.

And so Will was the guy that was the cowboy, Cherokee movie star.

You learned about him in school more than the kids do today when I was in school.

And so I remember coming in here having a specific memory in the gallery where Will passed away.

And they're depicting his plane crash, Remembering the dark walls, black walls, conveying.

Right, conveying his death.

Yeah.

So it's those things that I know work and matter conveying with even a color, even just a picture of it.

So what can a book do?

What can that open up?

What can that spin around it's done it for me.

That is terrific.

Yeah.

So when you started writing your first book in 2022, I'm curious, first of all, did you envision writing a series of three books?

No.

Okay.

This is all just said, oh, this is what you're doing.

You follow the wind.

Okay, I guess I'll just do this.

You talked about teaching and involvement.

What was your central teaching or lesson that you.

When you wrote your first book, you thought, oh, you know what?

This is the message I want to get out now.

And I think it goes beyond just introducing children to Will.

What else did you want to get through the lesson of the book?

Couple things.

Yeah, good question.

Like, right off the bat, when I got signed by Yorkshire, the Calvin Coolidge National Historic Site, bought copies of my book to sell in their gift shop.

What?

You know, what the heck, that's pretty cool.

Just coming out with a new book and now a historic site.

Not only just Will, this, the other part of my story is buying that story, because no, nobody writes about Calvin Coolidge.

Nobody makes him into a cartoon.

You see where I'm.

Yes.

And so for me, it was multilevel again.

It's teaching kids about their history.

Will's forgotten history.

Oh, but that's right.

He was remembered, and he should be remembered still, if we're doing the right thing for being empathetic, for being friends to everybody.

Oh, he was friends to five presidents.

Did he agree with all of them?

No way.

But he found the connecting point.

That's what we are as a country is finding all those great connecting points.

That's more of the best of us.

Like I said before.

What does Abraham Lincoln say?

He says that.

What is it?

The better angels of our nature.

That's what I'm looking for.

And Will can be a teacher of that to kids.

So that little phrase of I never met a man I didn't like is on his statue teaching kids that.

There was this cowboy entertainer who always looked beyond all the surface level stuff.

If you read the book in sleep and Great White House sleepover, he finds out that Calvin Coolidge, his number one target on his radio show, who now he's standing in his home.

Meeting him in real life is an animal lover through and through.

Oh, there's Will's connecting spot.

Terrific.

Calvin Coolidge grew up on a dairy farm in Vermont.

Oh, Will grew up on a cattle ranch in Indian territory, Oklahoma.

There you go.

You can start to show that those guys came together.

They had the most different personalities, belief systems, but their come together part was through Their love of what animals.

There you go.

And so with you being so busy, share some insights into your development and writing process for your children's books besides your personal experience, like, you've become a real historian of Will Rogers.

So the additional research is almost like osmosis.

It.

It grew in you over.

Oh, yeah.

That's why I don't.

That's why I say, pop, I'm just riding the wind on this one, because you.

When you know this is what's supposed to happen, you.

And hopefully everybody gets a chance to feel that in life, because I think we can all find that.

You just gotta look a little hard sometimes and life can be tough.

But stick with it.

For me, all the stuff started happening to me for being loyal to this legacy and my stick to it.

Iveness, my determination is one of my number one things for me.

I want to see what I can do in this life.

I know I can do all these things, but guess what?

A lot of things happen that I didn't think we're going to have.

Book two and three, right?

Yeah.

So what is the audience calling for?

What is the Will Rogers Nation or the momentum, the person, the man, the legacy calling for?

There's different layers of all that built into it.

So my writing process for the third book, I'll go into it now, came directly out of my stage presentation, my show in the schools.

Because when I'm roping, I'm doing 12 rope tricks during my show from small to big.

I start when Will's 7 years old, learning a trick from a Cherokee freedman, a black cowboy on his dad's ranch.

I show those kids while I'm talking about it, the small rope trick that Will learned.

They're seeing it while they're hearing and learning about it.

Now, at 13 years old, he goes to the World's Fair, sees a Mexican roper.

I get up my other bigger rope, and I do the tricks that the Mexican roper was doing.

This is what Will Rogers was seeing.

Now he's inspired.

What does inspiration mean?

Guess what?

He turns that into winning contests.

See how my book goes now he turns.

So it's all that momentum he's creating, it's also happening to me in a different level.

I'm feeling it on a personal level, I'm also going, yep, that works for me and my narrative, keeping him in the rope in the loop.

And so I know, hopefully it's not a lot of air.

No, no, this is true.

Makes sense up here.

But that's how I looked at that Third book is taking what I've learned as a performer.

My audiences, how do they learn?

Oh, I need to build in things for them to do.

Roper, first comedian.

Okay.

So that's how that book came out of all of that on the road experience.

What worked for the first two books didn't work for the third.

The third book, to me, all the books work together.

The third book is the icing that I needed to show that's where he comes from.

Okay.

I want to take you back a bit.

So I want to take you back to how you looked at success when you started your first book and got the published book in your hand, to now your third book, take us from what success looked like for you on the first book and now what you think success is going to look like on the third.

Let's loan it over.

You know, the Rex and the Riva thing.

Yeah.

But let's just start at the beginning.

Sure.

Success to me at the beginning was selling and getting my money back and seeing was there a taste for these books?

And of course there was.

Is there a room for this on the shelves of libraries?

26 libraries.

My first year with my first book.

And I thought, yeah, I think there's a little room here.

Creating Buckaroo Bart to be the kind of the introducer.

Right.

If you want to talk about a cowboy who wrote and you're not roping, then you're not.

You're doing a disservice to the legacy.

And I know I'm just being funny, but, yeah, get up there and show those kids this is what it looked like to see him.

So I think that first book opened the door to, oh, my goodness, I can be him by telling his story and using his main prop the whole time through.

Ah.

That's what I learned from that first one.

Okay.

This is going to open more doors if I can maybe build some different historical aspects into that second one.

Oh, let's take all five presidents that he was friends with, because guess what?

Kids are going to hear those names eventually.

From Wilson to fdr.

Oh, ever.

All kids know FDR by the time.

Hopefully by the time we're done.

Yes.

And so it's those levels of thinking.

Okay, that worked.

This didn't work.

My audience is going to go a little bit more.

Oh, I'm going into more second, third, and fourth graders.

What are they learning about?

Let's look it up.

Let's incorporate that in the new book or the book specific.

So I learned all that for my first book.

You could keep this Going could be a bigger, better series, a more well built story, better narrative.

You're missing some things.

And so for me, I learned it on the.

On the road.

On the road.

That is phenomenal.

And you know what?

You've hit it right on the button.

It's when you produce your first book and then you go, go on to produce your second book.

There's certainly lessons that you can definitely learn.

Oh, yeah, just.

I'll share this one if you don't mind.

Just kind of off cuff.

Barry Corbin wrote the second or forward to my second book, if you don't know Barry Corbin.

He was the general on War Games.

He had a lead role next to DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon.

He was the dad on Modern Family to Cam.

He's also Roscoe on Lonesome Dove.

He was in Conagher.

He was.

He's all over the map.

He's got 70 something movie credits.

He's in Northern Exposure.

But he's a Will Rogers fan.

And I found that out because he worked in an event that I was at.

And so I said, hey, let's approach this person who's an actor, who's a working actor who loves Will, see if he'd like to write the Ford.

When I got him, he called my phone, said, I'd love to write the Ford for your book, Mark.

Now he sends me Christmas cards.

You ever think I could even remotely think about getting Rex and Reba without having that moment first?

So the Barry Corbin goes, Bart, you can go a little deeper, a little further.

And let's try a little bit more, a little bigger, circular.

Let's get that circle a little bit bigger.

And so it's those things that happen from the first one.

Jennifer Rogers, granddaughter, friend, writes the four to the first one.

I feel like that's the door opener.

Thank you.

Let's go Barry Corbin a little higher up status.

Now we have Rex and Reba.

Reba being on the top of all the pop culture.

And it's interesting, it's that old saying.

And I was a director of sales for a large company for a long time.

And I always said to the salespeople, if you don't ask for the order, you can't receive it.

And that's the whole thing.

You have to ask.

And you know what, there's two things that can be said, yes or no.

It's not like they're going to take you out back and shoot you.

No, I know.

That's the thing.

It's just.

You just go, just.

And that's why I felt like Will Style, how he became this famous movie star beating out Clark Gable and Shirley Temple.

That's big.

He doesn't.

He doesn't become that if he's not doing what you just said right there.

Right?

Yeah, absolutely.

That's.

That's.

The book says that too.

So how do you see book authorship?

Being a children's book author fitting into your life, coming up?

For me, as an educator, first and foremost, an educator, it's perfect for me.

Writing children's books opens doors, and I'm trying to get doors open for name recognition, reminding everybody, oh, don't forget about this guy.

His values are your values.

But he did it the right way.

Check him out.

He's worth checking out.

I'm the guy making the call.

Yo, look over here.

And that's what the children's books do.

That's what my roping does.

Yes.

Yeah, I hope that works.

Absolutely.

Like I said to you earlier, Bart, we talk about inspiring.

One of the things about this show is to inspire other authors who, they've got that idea, or they've got that half a draft, or they've got the full draft, but they just don't know what to do next.

So talk to aspiring authors and see if you can get them off of their.

Off their keisters.

Off of their keisters.

Mount up and let's run.

That's right.

My.

One of my good, close friends, she works with me here at the Will Rogers Museum.

And she's right.

She's the one that wrote the Preschool Will Rogers ABC's book.

And so she had an idea.

Having a young grandchild of age needing to learn his ABCs.

There's no content made about him.

Oh, I kept whispering her ear, hey, why don't you try doing something like that again?

It's the need for content.

But is there a need?

Let's create it.

Let's see if it even works.

Yes.

And so she's going to self publish first.

So right now, she's done.

She's created the ABCs of Will Rogers, which will sell pretty good in our gift shop.

It will sell in our gift shop.

That's the bottom line.

And so getting her to where she had enough confidence, oh, this is the moves I need to make.

That's why an author podcast can be so valuable.

Because if you hear these folks that have either made a mistake, it's not really a mistake.

It's a learning opportunity.

Right.

I think whether you run into a self published issue or a published issue, you're gonna Run into issues.

We're human beings.

Absolutely.

It just happens.

And when I encourage folks, it's take those ideas, find something where you can find no one else has done something.

Even if someone's done something, maybe take a different look how they do it.

How can I do a little bit different?

Add my touch.

But again, there's always something that someone can find to make a little content out of.

And especially if it's a passion project, should be no issue.

Right?

Get off that keister, get inspired and get it out there.

I had no clue these books were going to do anything for the Legacy.

And then myself.

It's done tenfold for the Legacy.

Thousands of kids a year hear me read these books.

In fact, all 9 to 10,000 kids I see hear me read one of my books, second and third and fourth graders.

So now these kids repeat, will hear a book every year.

Build your audience from within.

Get it in the schools.

Figure out a good story for those school kids, the children, because there's always summer library programs that need good programming.

There's always schools, homeschool co ops looking for that kind of programming, looking for authors, because kids want to be authors, too.

And I always say to aspiring children's book authors and children's book authors in general, remember, every year we're getting new readers.

And you might look at it from early childhood education to elementary education.

You know what, you got to pick your spots, your sweet spot, understanding, and then take it from there.

But we're always going to get them coming through the system.

Oh, no doubt.

That's why find something that works for schools, because there's your.

We all say we care about our children, and I know we do.

You just got to find a way for you and me and all of us to figure out our place to find them an access point.

Make history fun, make science fun, whatever.

Math.

Make math fun.

For sure.

Make math fun.

But all these things can be made fun for kids.

Entertaining and educational at the same time.

Absolutely.

There's a million other folks out there that have proved it.

I'm a walking proof that I didn't know what I was doing.

But I had a passion and I had a passion for sharing my values.

And as an artist, as an educator, how can I get that out to the kids?

And you know, it's interesting you should say that, because I find that no matter who we are, there's a storyteller in all of us.

Oh, yeah, no doubt.

And that's the beautiful thing about what you're doing.

And, and, and all of these children's books is proof that there's a story in all of us just waiting to come out.

And if you can harness it in a way and give people direction, it's pretty incredible.

The power of that.

Oh, the medium of children's books especially, I think I knew it because just a little backstory children book affected me.

So I go into the school where I went to elementary school.

It's called Ator Heights elementary in Owasso.

I get to go in there and read kids books.

It's the same library or the same place.

If you look over to the left in the library where the history books were, where I spent my time as a kid.

So I tell those kids, you see that station right over there?

That's where Buckaroo Bar got inspired to become this person because of those little paperback books over there.

And I have one with me and it's about presidents.

I went back and bought the book that inspired me as a little kid.

So I have that book with me so I can show them.

That book here I got out of this collection inspires what I'm doing here today.

Kids.

Right.

And I'm charismatic enough, I think engaging enough to go, oh, kids can see that he's serious.

He's right.

Right.

Besides Oklahomans encouragement for readers outside of your home state.

Yes.

Tell us how you hope that there's a.

Like a, like a wave and the.

And it ripples through all of America and North America, Mexico.

Yeah.

Throughout the world.

I've got a larger vision and I'll just share some of that with you because it's been created again out of the process of becoming this author who's now has Reba McIntyre running a Ford.

I can now go ahead and say I will be using that as I move forward.

Yes.

It's a very big deal and it was the biggest deal for me to be able to.

The whole plan was to maybe get that happening one day.

Because Will Rogers missed out on surviving into the 60s and 70s.

Think about all the stuff he could have shared, all the fans he could have made, all the Americans that look back at him and go, he's just like a Washington, a Lincoln, a Roosevelt, a jfk.

I'm an mlk, whoever, a leader that we can be inspired by that was one of us.

And because he passed away in what I call chronological push off points of history, a lot of folks see World War II, World War I, Civil War, you know what I'm saying?

They see these points.

He dies in 35, three years later, Hitler's invading Poland Blitzkrieg style.

Will's starting to be pushed to the side.

We're moving this way.

And that idea of his idea of being a statesman, of his civility, all that stuff now, it didn't fade away.

It just got pushed to the side.

We had other things we had to do.

And so I see Will's legacy as suffering in that period.

Because if you look at the opening of the museum in 38, over 150,000 visitors annually, that's huge.

This is the size of a presidential library here.

It's pretty good size.

And so something he did made sense for here and the world.

Well, you know what?

And for the people of Oklahoma to keep it alive.

Because that was our guy to go, look what we got.

Look at who we made.

That's one of us.

And he's going to change everything, right?

So when you have in 38, when the museum opens up and FDR eulogizes Will Rogers from Hyde park in New York and his home, summer White House, you kidding me?

Folks need to find.

That is a big deal.

That Will Rogers statue in congressional hall as the only comedian is a big deal.

So Congress adjourning for the day he dies, national day of mourning, Hollywood bowl filled the capacity for funeral.

Those are big deals.

So how do we make folks understand that guy, whatever he did to become all that, the way we reacted to him, how do we get back to whatever that was?

There you go.

Yeah, great.

Final thoughts.

Is there something that you said?

Oh, I wish Rick would have asked me that.

Is there?

I mean, I'm a talker, Rick.

Yeah, no problem.

I'm an under.

Follow what your heart is telling you.

As far as being an artist and what you want to do.

I think a lot of people are scared to be artists.

I think they're scared of not maybe scared is the right word, but confidence.

Can I do that?

You know, the lady here at work, Can I really do that?

I be that creator of that you can create that can be yours.

Nobody else has done it.

He's been dead since 1935. Who's are we waiting around?

Who are we waiting around for?

You.

We're waiting around for you.

And that's how I feel personally.

Now.

I know it works.

And so how can folks see themselves as that?

If you're feeling that something's talking to you, telling you, yeah, let's go with it.

Let's go for it.

It is amazing because all the guests that I've had on, all the children's book authors, all come at how they have written their book from all different angles, all different types of inspiration.

It's truly amazing and fantastic.

Bart, thank you so much for being a guest on the Adventures in the Heart of Children's Book Authors podcast.

Your generosity of time, your insights.

Wow.

I significantly, I can see how aspiring authors will benefit.

Also.

We've got listeners in 28 different countries.

This has got a chance to kind of get around the world and like you said, awesome.

Will has a great message that he's conveying and.

Yeah, and that's terrific.

I also want to promise our audience that we'll put all the links to the Will Rogers website and any other pertinent social media links that Bart would like us to put in the show notes.

We'll definitely do that.

And if you enjoyed this episode, please hit the subscribe button to listen to our future episodes.

And feel free to share this episode with anyone inspired by or who enjoys hearing about Bart and his children's book series on Will Rogers.

Thanks a lot, Bart.

Hey, thank you, Papa.

Appreciate your time.

That was awesome.