Littlefield, Texas’ Other Claim to Fame

The only two-time World Hog-Calling Champ shares the secret of her success.

PIG PALS.“To be a good hog caller, you gotta love pigs,” Roxanne says. That’s her dearly departed pet “Oscar Meyer” in the photo.

DO YOU remember Minnie Pearl’s ear-piercingly cheerful “Howwwdee!” at the beginning of her act?

Stretch that yell to 15 seconds, wrap it around a honeyed core of come-hither snorts, and you get a rough idea of what Roxanne Ward’s prize-winning hog call sounds like.

Over the last decade, Roxanne has hollered her way to 25 hog-calling titles, including an unprecedented two world championships. She has appeared on Good Morning America with Charles Gibson, Late Night with Conan O’Brien and To Tell the Truth with John O’Hurley. She has given dozens of radio and newspaper interviews, and even made it into the Wall Street Journal.

With a gift of gab easily equal to the challenge, Roxanne has become an endearingly enthusiastic spokesman for agriculture in general, and the noble pig in particular. In fact, just try to stop her, or keep her on track during an interview.

“Did you know Wall Street got its name from the wall they built back in the early 1800s to keep wandering pigs out of the city?” she says, proving she can slip pig trivia into virtually any conversation at any time.

Gotta Love ‘Em
Roxanne spent the first few years of her life near her grandparents’ homestead in Blue Hill, Nebraska.

“Grandpa had a little bit of everything on his farm—the way farms used to be,” she recalls. “That’s where I first got fascinated with pigs. I’d sit on the fence and watch ’em for hours. They’re very smart and expressive. You can tell when they’re happy or sad or sick. I absolutely love them.”

Then the family began hopscotching around the Great Plains. “Dad was a jack-of-all-trades,” Roxanne says. “We moved every time he changed his underwear.”

It was during a stop in Seneca, South Dakota that she met her first real hog caller. “He had thousands
of hogs,” she remembers. “He’d call, and all these pigs would come a-running. Grandpa had a pretty good hog call, but it was nothing like his.

“My hog call is a combination of Minnie Pearl, my grandpa and that man from South Dakota,” she explains. The heart that makes it soar, though, is all Roxanne.

“To be a good hog caller, you gotta love pigs and appreciate how much fun they are,” she says. “I just can’t be around pigs without smiling, and they can tell.

“My first year at the World Championship, this 70-year-old lady from Arkansas got up there, cocked her leg and let out a call you wouldn’t believe. I thought, Oh boy, I just lost.

“But you aren’t judged only on whether people like the call. You’re judged on how a pen full of pigs reacts. When I gave my call, that whole pen of pigs came runnin’ up to the front. And the lady from Arkansas came in second.

“Nothing compares to that moment,” she sighs. “People were saying, ‘Roxanne, you won!’ And everything went into slow motion. It doesn’t even seem real.”

BORN ENTERTAINER. With a personality as winning as her voice, Roxanne is a popular ambassador for traditional agriculture.

Waylon’s Compliment
The next year, Roxanne won a second world championship because the judging committee didn’t realize the rules prohibited repeat winners. “So unless they change the rules, I’ll always be the only two-time champion,” she says.

(Call 1-800/862-8784, catalog number 4644, and judge her prize-winning form for yourself.)

When Roxanne isn’t out calling hogs, she and her husband, Joe, live on 5 acres outside the small West Texas town of Littlefield.

“This is Waylon Jennings’ hometown,” she proudly notes. “He once told me he only knew one other woman with a bigger mouth than mine, and that was Carol Burnett. I took that as quite a compliment. He was a very nice man.

“Littlefield also has the world’s largest windmill… and me!” she adds.

“I used to have two potbellied pigs, ‘Petunia’ and ‘Oscar Meyer,’ but Oscar passed away last May,” Roxanne continues before launching into 10 minutes of touching memorial stories.

“That’s Oscar in the publicity picture with me,” she explains. “When your kids move out, you start taking pictures of your pigs.”

Roxanne’s good humor even filters into their family business—a rural trash collection service called Country Dumpsters. After growing from an initial 40 dumpsters to more than 500, Roxanne credits good service and the motto: “Satisfaction guaranteed or your trash back.”

“Besides my hog call, I learned one other thing from Minnie Pearl,” Roxanne explains. “She knew how to make people happy, and that’s really what it’s all about.”