Reba McEntire, 69, reveals she was a real-life ‘cowgirl’ on her family’s ranch in Oklahoma before stardom

Reba McEntire is a country music legend, but before she embarked on her singing career she worked on her family’s ranch in Chockie, Oklahoma.

‘I didn’t play cowgirl growing up, I was one,’ Reba, 69, explained, saying that everyone in her family was actively involved in the ranch’s operations.

‘My family lived on an 8,000-acre ranch in Chockie, Oklahoma, where my father ran several thousand cattle a year.

‘I began working on our ranch at age 5,’ the Fancy singer – who performed with Post Malone at the ACM Awards – recalled. 

‘If Daddy needed a driver to move grain in his pickup truck, he came in and got whoever was there. ‘

Seen as a young woman on her family’s ranch

‘I’d be on my knees to work the steering wheel. He’d put the truck in granny gear, jump out and off I’d go,’ the Happy’s Place star told the Wall Street Journal.

Reba and her two sisters Alice and Susie and brother Pake lived in a small grey house with their parents Clark and Jackie.

There was only one bathroom, but the Turn on the Radio hitmaker said that wasn’t a problem.

‘With the girls – Alice, Susie, Mama and myself, we’d all be in there at the same time, and there never was a problem,’ The Voice judge shared.

‘We loved each other’s company,’ she added noting that their ranch was so remote there were no nearby kids to play with, so the siblings grew extraordinarily close.

In addition to being a cattle rancher, Reba’s dad also competed in rodeos and toured with the rodeo circuit from June to September, so running the ranch fell on the shoulders of herself and her siblings.

‘Daddy was gone rodeoing between June and September,’ she explained. ‘Running that big ranch while he was away fell to us kids. 

‘We also had a hired hand, Louie Sandman, and Grandpap, John McEntire, who was a champion steer roper himself.’

On the set of one of her music videos

‘I didn’t play cowgirl growing up, I was one,’ Reba, 69, explained, saying that everyone in her family was actively involved in the ranch’s operations. Seen here on October 28, 2024

‘I began working on our ranch at age 5,’ the Fancy singer – who performed with Post Malone at the ACM Awards – recalled. ‘My family lived on an 8,000-acre ranch in Chockie, Oklahoma, where my father ran several thousand cattle a year’

 ‘If Daddy needed a driver to move grain in his pickup truck, he came in and got whoever was there’

Reba and her siblings got up very early to complete their chores on the ranch before going to school. 

‘In my teens, in the fall, Pake and I would gather the horses in a 40-acre patch while Daddy fixed breakfast,’ McEntire recalled.

‘We’d get them saddled and head back to eat. After, we’d hop in the truck, load the horses into a trailer and take them to help steer the cattle into the area where they would be weighed and sold,’ she said.

‘Then we’d go to school with Mama. She was the school secretary.’