Ernie Dopp…”I wanted to be a cowboy”
By Eva Hallam Solberg
Published in PCN in 1979
“As long as I can remember, I wanted to be a cowboy. I packed a rope
around with me and lassoed the cats and dogs for practice.”
When only five or six years of age, Ernie Dopp followed his older
brother into a herd of horned cattle and roped a calf. “I didn’t have sense
enough to let go of the rope,” he remembered. With the dog trying to keep the
threatening cows away from him, he stubbornly held on until his brother jumped
in and freed the calf and rescued Ernie. “He gave me quite a lecture.”
Born in