Art & Soul -- Hat Maker Randy Priest 12.16.09 DONNELLY, ID (idaho) - JYL: It's hard not to fall in love with one of Randy Priest's hats the Cattleman, Tom Mix or Hop Along Cassidy the Nevada Crease, and Montana Crease, and the Gus Randy Priest pulls one of his favorite hats off the shelf.

Priest: "This is called the Horseshoe -40s and 50s all the old geezers loved this crease so we're just kind of bringing it back."

JYL: Priest sports a white cowboy hat that sits comfortably over his shoulder length gray-blond hairs. He says big companies have taken over much of the hat making these days--he's glad his shop the Silver Tip is still going. He's one of about 40 or 50 hatters still in the business. What defines this art form--is a particular eye.

Priest: "Sometimes I compare it to oil painters; there's 100 of them but eventually they develop their own style and you can tell whose painting that is by the style it's painted."

JYL: Priest paints pictures of cowboys in his mind as he works on his hats. What distinguishes different hat styles are the height of the crown, the kind of crease and the width of the brim. Cowboys in the Jordan Valley like what is called the "buckaroo style."

Priest: "And them buckaroos down there they love that style of hat and they wear em clear out to six and seven inch brims usually the crowns very low.
JYL: Don't they blow away?
Priest: They wear em kinda tight, then they like it."

JYL: Priest doesn't wear HIS hats tight--but he loves to wear hats and has since he was a kid. He started making hats in high school.

Priest: "I was always buying hats for myself that fit and re-doing them and cleaning them and wearing them and selling them off my head in bars."

JYL: In the 1970s he moved to Challis from Idaho City and bought a dry cleaner while learning the basics of hat making with Manetta Schrite at Rowell's Hat Company.

Priest: "And she thought I was a natural hatter."

JYL: Then he and his wife moved to Eagle and changed course. He took a break from making hats and became immersed with his wife in massage therapy. Five years later they separated. He moved to McCall and did massage therapy. Then he started cleaning and stretching hats -- and pretty soon folks began asking him to make hats. So he found some equipment and began to create.

Priest: "I get quite a bit of business just from being in the business 30 years and people look for me and order hats although they are more expensive than they were 30 years ago from $56 to $450 in 30 years."

SFX door bell
Priest: "Oh my God, play the trumpets; I got a customer.
SFX/bell then door opens
Fred: "I knew Randy when he had a shop in Eagle.
JYL: So you would go to him just for your hat?
Priest: Yeah, but now he's my friend and he charges me more for my hats now. People that know Randy we all get our hats made here, we go only to one place.
JYL: How many people come in each day?
Priest: I got lots and lots of friends, lot of time they come down here after work and drink a few beers and play music."
Music from his band's CD
JYL: When they're not jamming, they do gigs for weddings, birthdays and holidays .

Priest: "They just come and check on me all the time to see if everything is all right. We're just like a big old family here. We spend holidays together and fish together and hunt together, it's like a big family.
JYL: How many people are in this family?
Priest: Probably 50."
pause for music
JYL: There are 147 people in Donnelly a-third of them are friends of Randy Priest, and they all know that each winter, as icy winds blow and snow falls, Priest dreams of being in Fiji. Right now he can't afford that. But one day he will by using the same determination he has for making and selling cowboy hats. I'm Jyl Hoyt in Boise.

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