We reprint this article from our February 2004 issue to complement the feature story in our August 2006 issue, "Terra Peters: Next Stop - the World" by Dallas Baxter.

Story and photos by Marlys Hersey

I first heard Terra sing and play 6-string acoustic guitar back in October, at an informal gathering in the courtyard of the Marathon Motel.  When she belted out an original, “Let’s Go For the Hills” (one of the first songs she ever wrote), I was struck by how her ballad of  a love for music, horses, and wide open spaces was the quintessential Country & Western song. But unlike many so-called Country songs currently flooding commercial airwaves with formulaic, generic lyrics and music about  livin’ the good life out on the range, this tune and its creator were authentic. You could just tell.

When we met in Marathon a few months later, Terra was dressed like a Country & Western music star: black, felt cowboy hat on a head full of long, braided, sun-streaked hair, Carhardt jacket over a shimmery, maroon shirt, Wrangler jeans, and tan cowboy boots. No mere music industry costume, Terra dresses this way because this is who she is. Terra’s hat was a bit dusty, her Carhardt jacket worn in, her jeans somewhat faded, and her boots were pretty scuffed up. From use.

From livin’ the good life out on the range.

When Terra Peters does something, she does so with extraordinary dedication. And passion. And with the utmost joy.

Though only sixteen, Terra is already a professional musician. And horseman. And housebuilder. And beekeeper. And cowgirl. And, I suspect, several other things besides; these are just the interests of hers (some call them careers) that we covered in our few hours of conversation during a recent meeting outside the Marathon Library on a chilly afternoon in January.

Terra peters is a star; it’s only a matter of time until the rest of the world finds that out. At 16, Peters is aready a professional musician in the Big Bend. The self-taught singer, songwriter, and guitar player has a lot to teach most of the rest of us.

 To be in Terra’s company  is to believe that anything is possible. Terra radiates optimism, her language peppered with adjectives like “beautiful,” “enchanted,” “charmed,” “magical,” and “incredibly beautiful.” Her homeschooling’s “self-teaching curriculum,” she explains, is based on reading the classical books, and is “so great, because it lets you realize that the sky’s the limit.”

 Suddenly  —  and this rarely happens  —  I wish I were 16 again. 

  Terra is, at the very least, the product of homeschooling at its best, an education which has apparently allowed for a dynamic  blend of curiosity and exploration, hard work (both mental and physical), reading, writing — and fun.

 A recurring theme in Terra’s stories is play. Five years ago, when she was eleven, she was given her first guitar —  an acoustic Ovation —  by a family friend. She’s never had any guitar or voice lessons. “Our curriculum instilled ‘You can do it.’ You don’t need a teacher. I just played around with my guitar. And singing. Sometimes for seven hours at a time. I had some books with chords, but mostly it’s from just playing with it, having fun.”

 Even her horsemanship is inspired by a school of horse handling which pivots on play. She studied and improvised on the practices promoted  by Pat Parelli, whom Terra calls a “natural horseman. He studied horses in a herd, how they act with each other.... Horses play games with each other, to make the others respect them.” Parelli developed his observations into practical instruction for humans to play with horses, “Pat Parelli’s 7 Games.”

 Terra described in great detail her application of some of his games to one particular horse with whom she was entrusted for three months, to help the horse get used to humans.  It worked magically. The approach, as Terra describes it, centers on getting to know a horse on its terms, showing respect and friendship, giving it space: “You let the horse come to you.”

 Every morning, she plays with Petey, her “cow horse,” trained to work with cattle on an open range. “I play these games with him, you know? You see, it’s still fun. It builds a great partnership.... I know so many arrogant horse people. It’s not something to be arrogant or conceited about —  it’s about harmonizing with them in a natural way.”

 Because Terra does not yet have her driver’s license and lives on her family’s ranch 15 miles south of town, her parents drove her to our meeting.  In the first minute out of the pickup truck, her father announced , “You’ve gotta hear her latest song. She just wrote it two days ago. It’s great.” Clearly her parents, Ted and Peggy Peters, are her biggest fans. “Daddy taught me about singing, which is funny, because he doesn’t really sing. But he tells me ‘Don’t sing out of your nose. Enunciate your words.’ He’s a great asset. He’s so nice, and I’m glad he thinks like that, but he’s partial.”

 Maybe. But many others in the area seem to share Tara’s father’s appreciation for the music she makes. “This year a lot of dreams were realized.... I’ve had lots of opportunities to sing in public, some even paying gigs.” In the past year, Terra has played recitals for her homeschool group, “open mikes,” parties, summer festivals, Gallery Night in Alpine, and La Fiesta de la Noche Buena in Marathon. “I take any opportunity to play, like even if I’m sitting around with friends.” Her first performance at an open mike night at La Kiva, in Terlingua, led to her first paid performance at a Texas Dept. of Transportation retirement party, $100 for one hour of “just my guitar and voice,” as her business card says.

 When asked about her musical influences, she is hard pressed to name anyone. She just fools around on the guitar — for at least three hours a day. She might hear a song on the radio and think about trying something like that. That is, when she can listen to the radio, which isn’t every day. Their main source of energy is solar power, so “if the solar’s up, I can listen to music all day. If it’s cloudy, I don’t get anything.”

 She is quick,however, to mention  who  her influences are in terms of musical success: “Mark Pollock. He owns a guitar shop in Alpine. He’s  a big guitar man in Dallas.... He knows the ins and outs of getting famous in the music business.” Pollock has told Terra she needs publicity photos, a website, a CD. And she’s trying to find a local recording studio. 

 When she’s not working on a friend’s cattle ranch, riding at the Sunrise Stables in Fort Davis (in summer), or staying with her sister in Alpine so she can play music in town, a typical day in the life of Terra Peters involves playing with her dog and horse, reading, playing guitar, and hanging out with mom  and dad.

 Terra and her parents make  breakfast, lunch, and dinner together, take daily walks together (“two miles, on our path up through the mountains, and if we have energy, we might go up again in the evening, too.”). “Mornings, if it’s summer, we sit on the west side of the house and watch the sun on Santiago Mountain.  If it’s winter, we sit around the fire, Mama  drinks her coffee. Every evening we sit at the fire and talk, and I play guitar....In the summer, we live on the porch. There is nothing better than watching the sun illuminate the mountains..”

Behind every successful young country & western musician is   a great family. At least, in the case of Terra Peters (center), this is true. Terra lives with her parents Peggy (left) and Ted (right) on a ranch south of Marathon, where her schooling is intimately linked with their can-do approach and joy in life.

 Flowing through the stream of Terra’s stories about musical gigs, horsemanship, housebuilding, beekeeping, and working cattle is an undercurrent of her parents’ support. In telling me about the beekeeping and honey-making in which she and her older sister Elaine are  involved, she is nonchalant about their “Desert Honey” endeavor, including how they got into it. “I think Elaine read about bees somewhere, and we went headlong into the bee business. It was a good experience, but it’s not profitable. At one time, though, we had  a hundred hives. We read books on how to handle them.”

 I am reeling at Terra’s tales of the difficulty and intensity of the labor required to  get just a few pounds of honey, about the self-taught nature of their beekeeping —  and especially about what I infer that this says about how supportive their parents must be.  “Oh, yes. As long as it’s an intelligent idea, Mama and Daddy are very supportive. I mean, they don’t give financial support, but they give endless support and help if it’s something in their field of expertise.”

 Like building a house —  which the whole family did in Alpine, so Elaine would have a good home  while she’s attending SRSU. It’s the second adobe house they’ve built; the first is the family house on their ranch, replete with several rooms, a screened-in porch, and a greenhouse. “We did everything ourselves  — except pouring the slab,” Terra clarifies. “It took 7,000 adobes. I was the sifter....”

 This fall, Terra will start college at SRSU, where she plans to study equine science. “I don’t know which I love more, playing with horses, or singing....” She’s also ambivalent about leaving the ranch behind, even temporarily. “Out in the middle of nowhere  —  well, I’d say everywhere — there’s so much out there....Do I really want to leave all this to move into town? Of course, there will be more opportunies to play music, and maybe I’ll have some music friends at college.”

 There’s no question at all about her housing plans. “I’ll live with Elaine.” Before the family's current home was finished, the four of them lived together in a one-room house, 12x16 feet, with no running water or electricity, and the bathtub under a huckleberry tree. “Elaine and I learned to cook. We developed a great bond. It was just us. If I have children, I want to put them out there on the ranch in 12x16 room.”

 And there’s no question at all that Terra will continue to write songs, sing, and play guitar. “I don’t know what I’d do without music. Your guitar is such your friend. If you’re sad, or extremely happy, or sitting with friends at sunset, playing, life is at its peak.... When I can’t express something in words, or in writing, I can express it in a song.”

 And then, more or less, Terra  does just that. At the conclusion of our interview, I ask to hear her latest song, the one her dad boasted about earlier. Terra, her parents, a few friends and I all head inside the Cottonwood Station restaurant to get warm, where Terra belts out song after song, from waltzes to love songs, to her latest, a tongue-in-cheek country/folk rock number that implores an implied suitor, “If you love me so much, you’ll let me have my way: you’ll leave....”

 I am left wondering how I might possibly convey through writing Terra’s music, which I find incredibly beautiful. “Oh, I wish you could put a song into the article!” Terra exclaims.

So do I.