User:Drkeeling/Bee Dee Adkins

 Bee Dee Adkins  (March 8, 1903 – August 3, 1954) was a well-known hunter and trapper in the American Southwest and Mexico. Born in Lampasas, Texas, he was one of eleven children, ten of which were boys.

Bee’s family left Lampasas in the fall of 1916 and moved to the Animas Valley of New Mexico where they homesteaded some land near the Diamond “A” Ranch. Bee left home by the age of 16 and took a job breaking wild horses on a ranch in Northern Mexico.

In Mexico, Bee was both a cowboy and a hunter protecting the livestock of the local ranchers and helping to defend against Yaqui Indian attacks. As a result, he came to know the Yaqui Indian customs and way of life quite well. When a Yaqui Indian raiding party attacked a neighboring ranch and took two small children as hostages, Bee’s help was sought in recovering the youngsters. After some time, he managed to rescue them and returned them, unharmed, to their parents. After that, his reputation for bravery and knowledge of the Indian ways grew and, by the time he decided to re-join his family, now in Arizona, he had become an expert gunman, hunter, trapper, tracker and broncobuster.

Bee’s grandfather, Felix Adkins, had been a Baptist minister and, when Bee returned to his family in Gilbert, Arizona, Bee also decided to become a minister. While studying in this field, Bee met Viola May Brooks; they were married in 1926. By 1927, Bee had gone back to protecting livestock for ranchers around Marana, Arizona and, eventually, went to work for the Arizona Game and Fish Department keeping predators under control.