on June 30, 2025My friend Gene Owen was famous in the bull riding world. Right now he was at a higher pinnacle than anyone has ever been on – top bucking bull in the PBR back to back, with a bull that has scored higher consistently than any other bull that ever bucked in the PBR. Man Hater.
Gene has been my friend for a very long time. In fact, if you know me, you know that I spent 21 happy years riding pens at South Coffeyville Stockyards. I would never have had that job if not for Gene. I filled in for my friend Penny Capps working at Gene’s boot shop when Jimmy Folk came in to buy a pair of boots. That chance meeting and a phone number written on a sales slip from Gene’s boot shop led to my riding job.
I moved to Vinita because C and N Rodeo Company’s stock was here with Curtis and Penny Capps. Gene leased us bulls sometimes. So that’s how we met. That was in 1994.
Sometimes I kept a few of the bucking horses on my pasture. I never kept any bulls, didn’t have the fence for it. Anyway, I can’t remember why Gene’s bull hauler would have been at my house, but one day I got home and it was stuck in my pasture. Nobody was there. Not Gene. Not anyone. But you know Gene wasn’t one to get too up in the bridle about anything. I couldn’t figure out what we were going to do, because back then I didn’t even have a tractor. So I called him and he said “oh, it’ll be ok. It’ll dry up in a couple of days and I can just drive it out.” So, that’s what happened. No fuss. No mess. Just wait.
I would never have imagined Gene would fall in love with dogs – but he did. When the first litter was born, I thought those were the prettiest pups I had ever seen. I kept talking to him about those dogs and I thought they were all spoken for. One day he messaged me and said, “look, I was going to keep this biggest female, but if you want her, I might let you have her. Let me sleep on it.”
I am a pit bulldog lover and I had owned one long before I met Gene. I’ve had one with me always since I was in college. I told Mike I dared to hope I would get that pup. Sure enough, Gene messaged me the next day and said, “if you want this pup come get her – but you might want to come on before I change my mind.” Gene and Lari were leaving with bulls that day – so I sent Mike right over there to get the dog. Her mother is named Dolly and Gene’s other female is named Reba – so my pup is named Loretta Lynn. Gene said he loved that name and we could keep using country music star names as long as they were from that era and no new artists. I had a great time kidding him about what I thought the name of his new business would be – I said it would be perfectly named if he called it Bullrider Dogs.
Which brings me to this horse thing. I had never known Gene to ride a horse. All of sudden, he’s buying all these horses. I guess like most rodeo cowboys he had ridden some as a kid, but I had never seen him horseback in all the years I knew him. He liked blue dogs and the last horse he bought was blue roan. I told Lari if he’d found that horse first he wouldn’t have bought a dozen others.
I’ve told many people the best possible way I could go out is just be riding across the pasture and fall over. That’s exactly what Gene did. He fell off his horse and woke up in Glory. That’s about as good as it gets. The good Lord must have loved him very much to take him that way.
We will miss Gene, but he is in the best of company until we see him again. As many of our old rodeo company are with him as are left here: Curtis and Penny Capps, Alan Keith, Lou Jean Wyche, Scotty Williams and several that worked the back pens are all gone.
My friend Dan Cunningham always used to say he was going to heaven and he wanted everyone to go with him. Gene was the same. He tried his best to minister to us all. It’s paid off for him. His entry fees were paid.