Longhorn photos sought

It’s been a dozen years, but Oklahoma celebrated a hundred years of statehood back in 2007, and one of the ways Pawhuska marked the milestone was by running a hundred longhorns down Kihekah Avenue.

Osage County rancher Ron Reed remembers because he organized the procurement and running of the longhorns. Reed got the steers from someone in Fort Worth, Texas, he said.

With help from the Pawhuska Chamber of Commerce, Reed is looking for photos of the event. He already has some photos in-hand, but he’s looking for more.

The purpose of the photo search, Reed said, is to provide images to a western artist to produce a painting to be displayed publicly. Reed said the site for the hanging of the painting hasn’t been determined, but he added that prints of the painting may be made available for purchase.

“I don’t know of any other town in Oklahoma that ran a hundred steers down the street,” Reed said, recalling how he organized the event when Mike McCartney, who was the director of the Pawhuska Chamber at the time, encouraged him to do something special for the Oklahoma centennial; something different than any other community in the state would be doing.

“There were thousands of people there,” Reed said. The steer running took place in May 2007, he said. Debbie Reed, Ron’s wife, explained the steers ran from the north of Kihekah Avenue to Main Street and turned onto Main where The Pioneer Woman Mercantile is now located.

Anyone who may have images of the steer running, and who is willing to share them for purposes of helping with the painting, should contact the Pawhuska Chamber of Commerce at 918-287-1208.