Tuesday, June 17, 2025
The Sod & Stubble film will premiere at the Ute theatre in downtown Mankato at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 18, with a special live introduction by the director. It will show again at 3 p.m. and again at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday April 20. Doors open one hour before show time, with seating limiting to 120 people. It will premiere at the Solomon Valley Cinema on April 25, at. In Beloit. In other locations, Sod & Stubble will premier in Clay Center on April 25, 26, 27, as well as in Lucas and Smith Center on April 25.
Gordon Murray of Mankato, has participated in the filming of the Sod & Stubble movie, through furnishing a team of horses and a wagon.
As a boy, Murray raised a litter of pigs to make money to buy his first horse. Even then, he knew what he wanted to do, was to be a cowboy. The day after he graduated from Mankato High School, he went to work in Nebraska on a large ranch alongside other cowboys. He returned to Kansas, married twice and had four children. He worked for several local ranchers, managed cattle herds, and was in charge of breeding programs. Murray later worked for the State of Kansas Highway Department. Throughout his career, he has actively bought, trained, and sold horses which he still does to this day.
Murray is no stranger to being involved with these kinds of events, as a year prior, he took part in a historical documentary, called “Ellis Trail to Nicodemus”, directed by Angela Bates.
That film re-enacted the journey of black people who traveled by train from Kentucky, and then walked from Ellis Kansas to settle the town of Nicodemus Kansas. There were four teams of horses, mules and wagons transporting their belongings as the re-enactors walked alongside.
“I drove the lead wagon in the film,” said Murray. “We filmed in the Nicodemus area and at Cowtown in Wichita over a period of a few days. It was great fun!”
The documentary was on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and is still being shown at various locations including at the National Park in Nicodemus Kansas.
“Some of the people in the movie were friends and acquaintances my wife Donna and I, we knew from having participated in the Lawrence Kansas Old Fashioned Horse-drawn Christmas Parade since 2005, as well as from going on Wagon Train Trips such as on the Oregon Trail.”
“I later received a call asking if we would furnish a team of horses and a wagon for the movie Sod and Stubble,” Murray said.
The work was expected to take four days to a week of filming. Initially, the plan was to take a wagon and a team of horses.
“I sent a picture to director Ken Spurgeon to see which wagon he wanted us to bring to Downs,” said Murray. “Since this new film was to cover several decades of the John Ise family's lives, Ken asked if we could bring all three – a field wagon for hauling corn, a covered wagon for the initial journey from Holton, Kansas, to the Downs Kansas area, and a second wagon for mules to pull in another scene.”
Later in the filming, Murray also took a buckboard and a surrey. The wagons were pulled by their most reliable team of Percheron/Paint horses named Rock and Chalk. They purchased the team in 2010 at a sale in Brighton Colorado. They were born in Canada and when they first saw them in 2002, Rock and Chalk were the lead team on a six-horse hitch pulling a stagecoach.
“We didn't need a team at that time but remembered the horses because of their distinctive color patterns. Their next three years were spent pulling wedding carriages on a ranch near Loveland Colorado.”
In 2005 their current team was getting older, and they purchased Amadeus and Valentino, which Donna renamed Rock and Chalk.
“Actors aren't the only ones with screen names and make-up for a movie.”
In the first scene, these black and white horses pulling the corn wagon are black and white paint horses. In later movie scenes, they were black horses with white faces, and near the end of the movie they were painted as an all-black team to pull an 1865 era hearse which I drove in the funeral scene. Since the main star of the movie Bailey Chase, of Longmire fame, hadn't driven a team before, Murray generally was riding behind the wagon seat holding the end of the reins.
“Bailey, an experienced horseman, took some instructions from me just prior to filming and didn't have any trouble with the horses.”
“Certainly, I never envisioned being a part of movies and documentaries,” said Murray. “I was born in Idaho, but as a young boy returned to a family farm just west of Mankato which had been homesteaded by my great-grandfather Helge Severson. My parents, Earl and Lillian Severson Murray, always had horses used for farming. Earl also did ranch work using his saddle horses to help neighboring farmers doctor cattle, round up cattle and rope wild cattle. When I got old enough, I worked by his side.”
When asked what Murray thought of the movie Sod & Stubble, he says, “I believe it will have a good following since it is based on a great book of the same name. All of us who have homesteaders in our past cannot fully appreciate the sacrifices our ancestors made in order to get land out west. It is a common story made so much more real by seeing this movie. Bouncing around on a wagon seat over rough ground for even a short time makes me appreciate the difficult journey.”
“Ken Spurgeon managed to put together first-rate stars for this movie production. I loved getting to converse with some of the stars I grew up watching in Western movies from my boyhood. Buck Taylor from Gunsmoke fame is a very personable and approachable character today. I especially enjoyed talking with him about my horses. I thought the leading lady of the film Dodie Brown did a wonderful performance as Rosa Ives. This is really Rosa's story, and what a story it is! I'm really pleased to have met and gotten acquainted with all the people associated with the film. I've become a real fan of RW Hampton. When I asked him to ride with me on the hearse in the funeral scene, I didn't realize what a talented Western Singer he is. R. W. Hampton was inducted into the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame, the Thursday before this movie premiered.”
“I’m proud to have played my small part in getting this story onto the movie screen,” said Murray. “Do I want to do another movie? No way. I have to get back to my regular life of buying, selling, and trading horses and horse-drawn equipment. That is what I love to do. I also have a hobby of collecting Cowboy Bits, Spurs, and saddles.”
Gordon and Donna can be seen in a lot of parades in the area, including Beloit.
Just some of the locals helping in the crew or in the movie as fill-ins include Steve Richardson, Marlene Armstrong, and Wakefield Fincham.
