It’s easy to spot Rowdy Fewel in the crowd — he’s the tall one.
At 6 feet 6 inches, he never played a lot of high school basketball, though. He spent more of his time on the baseball field and around the livestock show and rodeo arena.
The skills and the lessons he learned there have carried over into his adult life and his career.
Last week, Fewel was a first-time volunteer as a ring steward at the Muskogee Regional Junior Livestock Show’s beef animal competition. Ring stewards line animals up for the competition both inside and outside the show ring.
He has helped with local shows before, but this was his first time as a regional show volunteer.
“They were looking for help,” Fewel said. “I thought, people helped when I was growing up so that I would have the opportunity to show. I was just trying to give back to my community and help the youth.”
His job as an announcer for team pennings and ranch sorting competitions takes him all over the nation, but most of that work is on weekends, so he was able to take a weekday to help here, he said.
Fewel has announced the rodeo-type events for about 10 years. He said he launched the career quite by accident.
“It was just dumb luck,” he said. “I was hurt one night, and I was up at a little old practice in Muskogee and they said they needed someone to announce.”
He asked what he had to do.
“They said you’ve got to be able to talk,” he said. “I said, ‘I can do that.’ It just kind of started from there. It’s just like anything else — you get a break here and you get a break there, and next thing you know, it’s full time.”
Today, he sets up his own sound and computer system and tracks the contest entrants’ time, keeping track of who is coming back for the next round, while announcing the event and playing music.
“I’m kind of like a one-man band.”
Sharing traits of a role model
Rowdy Fewel’s grandfather, Harold Fewel, served as his role model in his life and influences how he and his wife raise their daughter.
Rowdy Fewel lived much of his life on his grandfather’s ranch south of Muskogee. He remembers Harold Fewel as honest and a hard worker.
“If he told you he was going to do something, he would darned sure take care of it,” Rowdy Fewel said.
He said he wants his daughter Karley, 7, to have the kind of values that he saw in his grandfather.
“The values I want to instill in my daughter is that you’re only as good as your word, that would be honesty and truthfulness,” he said. “My wife and I try to teach her the value of a dollar and to be honest and hard working and respectful.”
He and his wife involve Karley in working with cattle and horses, which he believes also carries lessons of responsibility.
Learning life lessons caring for animals
Youngsters who are involved in showing animals are not as likely to be getting into trouble as those who don’t have the responsibility of taking care of an animal, Fewel said.
That’s one of the reasons he enjoys volunteering to help at livestock shows.
“Just seeing those kids being involved with the cattle industry, knowing they’re out there doing something with their family, rather than being out on the streets all night,” he said. “It’s a very good family-oriented event.”
He hopes his daughter will be in the show ring in a couple of years.
“It teaches you responsibility, it teaches you values,” he said. “You know you’ve got to take care of those animals twice a day every day, whether you want to or not. Whether you want to go to a basketball game or something else, you’ve still got to take care of the animals. It’s your project.”
Fewel also learned at one stock show when to hold on and when to let go.
He remembers showing a heifer at the Muskogee Regional Livestock Show one year, when the heifer decided to take off on her own.
“I thought everything was going good and the next thing I knew, she had broke and run and was dragging me across the ring,” he said. “She wasn’t going to slow down and I wasn’t going to let go. Me dragging beside her just made it that much worse. She finally ended up winning. I finally turned loose.”
The pursuit of happiness
One of the best things that ever happened to Rowdy Fewel was when he married his wife Terra, he said.
He remembers that she was working at First National Bank when they met.
“I always like to tell the story that I met her and asked her to go out with me and she said no,” he said. “I just kept making more deposits and finally, I deposited enough money that she’d go out with me.”
Terra Fewel has switched careers and now works at a local Drug Warehouse.
