I was born two miles west of the 98th Meridian in Grady County, Oklahoma on September 24, 1933 during the middle of the Great Depression. It was also the first year of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Presidency-a president my best friend and Grandad Dennis C Davis loved.
My first 12 years were happy years exploring the hills of Oklahoma with my dog Scotty. Then when I was 13, old Scotty died, my parents Lloyd and Flora Davis divorced, and I went to live with my Aunt Jewell and Uncle Ted Tracy in the town of Minco, Oklahoma.
My next big move was when I joined the 45th National Guard at age 16. That year I also joined the Baptist Church, and I got my first car. With that car, I found happiness speeding down the road listening to Hank Snow, Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb.
After graduating from Minco high school, I joined the U. S. Air Force where I spent several years in the western part of America-an area I loved the rest of my life.
After the Air Force, I attended college in Colorado and worked on a horse and cattle ranch high in the Rocky Mountains. I then drifted to Nevada for a short time before making a stop back in Oklahoma where I met and married Loretta Kinder on August 12, 1960.
Loretta, being a great wife and mother, changed my drifting to planting roots in Oklahoma City where we raised three children. Will Rogers and our two granddaughters Amanda and Courtney all living in Pevely, Missouri. Pam Boswell, who’s married to Gil, are both doctors and Navy veterans living in San Diego, California with their two boys Cameron and Dylan. Those two gave me one of my most fun days during a snowball fight in Yellow Stone Park in 2009. My son Darron Clint lives in Yukon, Oklahoma with his wife Liz and their four dogs.
Speaking of dogs, my luck was good when this yellow dog that was running down the road jumped into my pickup to cool her hot feet. Since then she has been with me every day through 14 states. Goldie has made my last ten years great.
I’ve been in every town in Oklahoma promoting rodeo through my paper Shortgrass Country News and I have traveled millions of miles promoting country music with I-40 Country News where I made friends from a dozen states and Australia. Without any brothers, friends have been real important.
My local boisterous Channel 9 broadcast aired weekly news of rodeo athletes, and country western entertainment updates. Always a friend to the rugged proud cowboys, I informed listeners of competitive events, most commonly calf roping, team roping, steer wrestling, saddle bronc and bareback bronc riding, bull riding and barrel racing. Each of the events I covered had a colorful story and would be sprinkled with vivid language, as expected!
I belong to the American Legion and the Disabled American Veterans and am a bold Democrat, book author and publisher and an avid history reader. Loretta and I also had a childcare business for ten years and farmed Grandad’s farm west of Minco for 15 years.
I am preceded in death by my grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles and at least a dozen close friends. Two of these friends I had known from childhood to their deaths: Bill Eisenhour and Don Savage. Also my close service buddies, Gerald Brandenberg of Indiana and Dub Holcomb of Arizona. We were together 24/7 for 3 years. And last but not least my seven dogs: Old Scotty, Sundowner, Pop, Pot, Licker, Tina and the last one Goldie.
I also have twin sisters, Rose Mary Lakin and her husband Robert of Edmond and Pat Bruner of Tulsa. And finally a big thanks to Jerry Baker for his help in my final days. I don’t know what’s down the road but I hope it looks a lot like western America, or I’ll come back as a dog. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to run on four legs and be called man’s best friend.
P.S. Dennis wrote a book about his life titled It Hasn’t Been Boring which is what I would say when people asked me”how do you put up with that wild cowboy?’ After 50 years together, I can say my memories with him still keep life from being boring. I will always love him and miss him. Loretta Davis
Funeral services will be 10:00 am on Friday, August 24, 2018 at the Peniel Missionary Baptist Church with burial at 1:00 pm in the Evergreen Cemetery in Minco, OK.
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