The word "cowboy" brings to mind the image of a rugged, hard-working man in hat and boots who spends his time outdoors with horses and cattle. It's an image of a by-gone day that conjures thoughts of old westerns and desolate ranches in Texas or Oklahoma. It's not an image that we would associate with a barrier island off the Georgia coast… at least, not before meeting Roger Parker.

A native and current resident of Richmond Hill, Roger has spent most of his life as the caretaker of Ossabaw Island. The island is one of the largest barrier islands off the Georgia coast. In 1924, it was purchased by Dr. Henry Norton Torrey and his wife Nell Ford Torrey of Detroit, Michigan, as a winter residence. Eventually, their daughter Eleanor "Sandy" Torrey West took up residence in the 22,000 square foot "main house" on the island, where she lives to this day at the age of 102. In 1951, Roger (who was still in high school at the time) began helping his uncle in the role of caretaker on the island. Eventually taking over the role from his uncle, Roger spent most of the next 60 years as caretaker of Ossabaw and assistant to Mrs. West.

During that time, Roger witnessed the transition of the island from a private residence to a Heritage Preserve owned by the state of Georgia, with a 24-acre life estate for Mrs. West. With the goal of preserving the island and using it as a resource for educational purposes, Sandy and her husband Clifford West established the Ossabaw Foundation and coordinated four ongoing educational and research programs in the 1960s and 1970s. These programs brought many visitors – artists, scientists, scholars – to the island and under the gaze of Roger Parker.

"An island is a great place to live," says Roger in his deep, gravelly voice. Wearing cowboy boots and with his cowboy hat propped on the arm of the sofa, Roger smiles in recollection of his many years on Ossabaw. "I've had hundreds of people come [to the island] and some say, 'Man, I'd give anything in the world to have your job.' I'd say, 'You want to come to work here?' Well, in about 6 weeks they were ready to go back to the mainland," he chuckles. "You have to love the island to live there."

At 79, Roger has spent a lifetime loving the island. While he spent many years commuting to the island to work, he eventually moved there permanently with his wife Sarah in 1970. He was the full-time caretaker and she "took care of the big house, cleaning and cooking." He says that once he came to live on the island full-time, it would be months before he'd leave Ossabaw for the mainland. He even had a friend's wife come to Ossabaw to cut his hair so that he wouldn't have to leave for a haircut. "I love it," he says simply. "Not too many people get to do the things I did." Roger and Sarah's son, Grayling, was raised going back and forth between Richmond Hill and Ossabaw. Eventually, Grayling was married on Ossabaw, and Roger's granddaughter Amanda also had her wedding on the island. Sarah passed away several years ago, and Roger retired from his job as full-time caretaker on Ossabaw, but he still returns to his house on the island regularly with his girlfriend, Jill Stuckey.

Having played a role in bringing electrical power to Ossabaw in the early '90s, Jill met Roger on the island and shares many of his memories of island life. As Roger reminisces, Jill pulls out picture after picture illustrating his recollections. "He free-ranged longhorn cattle [on Ossabaw]," Jill says, holding up a picture of a longhorn. Eventually, the state of Georgia decided that cattle didn't belong on the island since they weren't native animals, says Roger. So they came to him to see what he could do about getting the cattle off of the island.

"Joe Tanner, the DNR commissioner, told me I wouldn't ever get them off, and I said I would," Roger recalls with a devilish grin.

"They didn't think one guy could eradicate the animals," explains Jill.

"I had some help," says Roger, modestly.

True to his word, Roger designed a method of luring the animals into a pen and trapping them in order to remove them from the island. "If I can find anything wild and find out what it eats, I can catch him," says Roger, with a twinkle in his eye.

His experience with the island cattle over the years earned him a nickname that has remained to this day. "Trey Coursey, [Roger's eventual replacement as caretaker], coined the name 'Saltwater Cowboy' and started calling Roger that in the '80s, and it stuck," says Jill. Roger nods in agreement, "The nurse even put that on my card at the doctor's the other day: 'cowboy'." He chuckles at the moniker.

With years spent wrangling not just cattle, but donkeys, wild pigs, and even alligators, Roger has certainly earned his designation as a "saltwater cowboy." According to Roger, Mrs. West brought several Sicilian donkeys to Ossabaw for her son, and then they multiplied and the state wanted them removed. So Roger, along with four veterinarians visiting from Penn State and several other men, managed to round up the donkeys and castrate the males. "But we didn't think about the mares that had already been bred," Roger grins. "[Later,] Mrs. West and I would be driving around and we'd see a baby donkey and say 'How'd that happen?'" He laughs at the memory. Eventually, Roger was able to design a pen in which to trap the donkeys, and all but a few were removed from Ossabaw.

One of the only remaining donkeys is Mary Helen, who Roger delivered on the island. "When I was trapping the donkeys, there was one that was trying to have a baby and couldn't," recalls Roger. Thinking he'd get some more experienced help, Roger asked the vets who were visiting from Penn State to deliver the colt. "But they hadn't ever done it – didn't know how," says Roger. "I'd done it 25 to 30 times. So I put a rope around her feet and pulled her out." The baby's mother died of infection a week later, so Mary Helen was bottle-fed by Mrs. West and became a familiar sight at the main house. "She'll find a way into the main house and help herself to what's in the kitchen," says Jill.

And she's particularly attached to Roger. "If I drive my truck by her and stop, she'll walk up to my exhaust pipe and smell it, then follow me for a mile," he says. "She just loves that exhaust." "It's one of the first things she smelled when she was born," adds Jill. "It's like comfort food. She starts running and kicking up her heels just in bliss. I call it a diesel high!"

In addition to wrangling cattle and rounding up donkeys, Roger has spent many years controlling the pig population on Ossabaw. The pigs on Ossabaw are a unique breed. In the 1500s, Spanish explorers left a population of pigs on the island that, over the centuries, have adapted to their environment. Both Roger and his uncle have also introduced different varieties of pigs into the existing population to improve the bloodlines. The resulting breed on the island has two unique characteristics. According to Jill, it has been discovered that the Ossabaw pigs are non-insulin dependent diabetic, which has led to a great interest from researchers. In addition, the Ossabaw hog has become world-renowned for its delicious flavor. But Roger scoffs at this. "It's not the damn hogs, it's what they eat!" he says. The pigs' unfettered access to all the edible treats the island has to offer is what makes the meat taste good, he insists. Roger would help control the pig population by trapping 800 to 1000 hogs per year. Well known for his cooking on the island, Roger recalls killing 100 hogs a year just to eat or give to people.

Beyond animals, Roger's life on the island also brought him in contact with many illustrious people. He recalls many hours spent cooking for various celebrations. "Every holiday on the island we had a barbeque," he says. While he says that his wife did all of the "inside" cooking, he took charge of the pork. Over the years, he met the many artists, scientists, and scholars who visited Ossabaw, as well as Georgia governors, and President and Mrs. Carter.

"Jimmy and Rosalynn are good friends [of ours]," says Jill, who (along with Roger) regularly entertains the former president and first lady at her home in Plains, Georgia. In 2014, Mrs. Carter stayed in Roger's home in Richmond Hill while she was on the campaign trail with her grandson, Jason Carter. "She had a great time," Roger says. He recalls the Secret Service coming to inspect his house before her arrival and during her stay. He says they even called his childhood friend, Sheriff Clyde Smith, to ask about him. "Clyde probably warned them about you, but they still let her stay," jokes Jill.

Roger also had the opportunity to meet Henry Ford, though not on Ossabaw. As a child, he attended Richmond Hill schools and says that Mr. Ford regularly visited each classroom. "Every time he came here he went to every class," Rogers explains, though the automobile magnate didn't make much of an impression on the boy. "I didn't pay no attention to nothing but girls and basketball [back then]."

Of all the people Roger met on the island, Mrs. West has played the most important role in his life. Having spent decades caring for her and the island, he has many fond and often funny memories of their times together. "I was closer to Mrs. West than [just about anyone]," he says. "I still go to see her every time I go over there.

"Me and Mrs. West used to ride horses just about every day," he says with a smile, warming up to the memory that's coming. "[One time], we were riding down side the river. I always rode ahead of her. I heard something, I looked back, and her horse was bucking. Damn horse threw her into a bed of cactus!" While Mrs. West wasn't hurt, she unfortunately had long cactus thorns embedded in her backside. Just about the time Mrs. West had pulled down her pants so Roger could pull out the thorns, along came two fishermen, calling "What are you doing?"

"I said, 'I'm trying to get the cactus out of this woman's [rear]!'" Roger laughs at the memory. "My wife must've picked cactus out of Mrs. West for 3 days!"

But the story doesn't end there. About a year later, Roger, Mrs. West and several others had gone to get oysters, and Mrs. West got out of the boat and got bogged down in the mud, Roger recalls. She was covered in so much mud, she had to pull off her pants. "Well, here comes a boat, I swear," says Roger, "and a man says, 'Hey Mrs. West…didn't I see you up here about a year ago and a guy was pulling cactus out of you? And she said, 'Yes, he's right here!'…We had a lot of fun." Roger smiles at the memories.

In summing up his life on Ossabaw, Roger chose one word: "Happiness." He adds, "Huntin', fishin', messin' with the hogs and cattle… there's nothing better that I love. I wouldn't change a thing about my life."