In Memoriam
Gary dale Owens 1938-2021
One of Gary's dreams was to buy land in the area where he had gone hunting when he was growing up. That dream came true in 1969 when they bought land on The Palouse Highway and started growing hay and raising cattle. He was a true renaissance man; a cowboy, a farmer, a breeder, a franchise owner, a father, and a friend. We miss him dearly and look to honor his legacy through our stewardship of the farm.
Gary was born in Spokane, Washington, but moved back and forth between Spokane and Woodward, Oklahoma. The family made its final move from Oklahoma after the Woodward tornado of 1947.
Gary attended Lindbergh high school in Valleyford and was active in football, basketball and baseball. The friendships he made during these years lasted his entire life. He met his high school sweetheart, Jo Ann Carlson at Lindbergh. Gary and Jo Ann got married in 1958 and recently celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary in August.
While still in high school, Gary did farm work with his family on the Perry place when they were sharecroppers. This land later became the Hangman Valley Golf Course. While on the farm one of his early hobbies was raising rabbits. He loved to recount the story of how he bred Flemish Giants, and would select the bluest of each litter, until he eventually had a blue rabbit. He was very disappointed when he saw another blue rabbit at the Interstate Fair. This would prove to be just the beginning of his interest in genetics, bloodlines and breeding animals. During his senior year of high school, Gary was in a bad farming accident when his tractor rolled on him and he was trapped under it in Hangman Creek. After graduating from high school, Gary attended one semester of college at WSU, but dropped out, because he wanted to marry Jo Ann and get to work in the business world. After he healed up from his tractor accident, he worked at the Department of Agriculture and unloaded train cars filled with grain. He also worked at the East Sprague Drive-In Theater and became the manager of Favorite Theaters.
Gary and Jo Ann joined some business partners and invested in the A&W on Monroe. He bought land, formed Owens Construction, and built a second A&W at Five Mile. He continued to build more restaurants through the 60’s and 70’s in the Spokane area at Lincoln Heights and north Division, as well as out-of-town locations in Vantage, Biggs Junction, Lewiston and Moscow. He and Jo Ann would load the kids in the camper, and the family would live near the build site until it was ready to open. Gary’s involvement in the A&Ws increased when he became the President of the National Association of Concessionaires. Gary and Jo Ann made friends with A&W owners all over the United States and looked forward to seeing them at the annual franchisee meetings. Gary ran the A&W at Expo ’74 (International Exposition on the Environment, Spokane 1974) and his involvement with Riverfront Park continued in later years as the concessionaire for the park. He opened hot dog and popcorn wagons and the Charlie Russell Restaurant and gift shop in the U.S. Pavilion and bought a train to add as an attraction at the park. He always looked forward to the 4th of July/Good Neighbor Day at the Park. He ran the A&W booth at the Interstate Fair for many years, beginning in the days as an employee of Favorite Theaters.
There was concern about whether there would be enough hotel space and lodging in the Spokane area for Expo visitors, so Gary and some real estate partners purchased local homes and apartment buildings to use as hotels during Expo ’74 and then converted them back to rentals after Expo. Two of the buildings were the historic Cambridge Court, and the Knickerbocker.
One of Gary’s dreams was to buy land in the area where he had gone hunting when he was growing up. That dream came true in 1969 when they bought land on the Palouse Highway, and started growing hay and raising cattle. Gary was preparing to build a small barn for his riding horse, when a neighbor saw what he was doing, and asked if he would rather buy an entire horse farm with some brood mares and studs. From there Gary built Owens Farms into a competitive, and wildly successful horse breeding, training, and racing business, with outstanding studs like Flag Officer, Maheras, and Second Pleasure. He joined the board of directors of Playfair Race Course, and the Washington Horse Breeders Association. For two short stints, he was tapped to come in, reorganize, restructure and manage the operations at Playfair. Gary and Jo Ann traveled extensively around the United States hauling their horses to various horse farms and tracks around the country. He especially loved to visit the farms in Kentucky.
In the 1980s, Gary bought the Orange Julius franchise for the Spokane area and opened multiple locations in local malls and the downtown Parkade building. He opened the China South restaurant in the Lincoln Heights shopping center. It was immediately popular and had to close in order to build a second kitchen only a week after it opened.
During this time, Gary and Jo Ann enjoyed spending time in Palm Springs, California with fellow A&W friends from around the United States. They spent more and more time there, eventually considering it their second home, a winter haven. They enjoyed being snowbirds for thirty years. They spent their days swimming, riding bikes, dining out, and taking walks. But his favorite activity was the time-honored, illicit tradition of fishing out lost golf balls from the pond behind their condo, preferably at dusk.
In the late 1980s, Gary was introduced to an Italian breed of cattle, called Piedmontese. He had a very progressive and knowledgeable attitude about bloodlines from his years breeding race horses and he brought that attitude with him when he transitioned back into the cattle industry. In 1987 he started out by purchasing some Captain semen and used it on his Simmental herd. To say the least, he was quite impressed with the resulting calves. So, he repeated that in '88,'89, and '90. In May of 1990 he implanted his first fullblood embryos, and by 2000 had raised well over 200 embryo calves in addition to those from natural cover.
While Gary was growing the Piedmontese herd, he took multiple trips up to Canadian Farms. When he traced the pedigrees of the animals that he thought were exceptional they all led back to Banana and Renee 7R. Altogether he bought around 200 embryos out of Banana, Renee 7R, and their daughters, before eventually purchasing the pair. These two, in addition to their top daughters, formed the foundation for Owens Farms' flush cow herd.
In 2001 Gary formed North American Piedmontese Association (NAPA) seeking to unite regional associations within the United States, as well as to establish a stable registry for breeders in both the USA and Canada. In "retirement" he is proud of the growth and success that the breed, and association have experienced. In 2014 Gary was made the first inductee into North American Piedmontese Association's Hall of Fame.
Just prior to the new millennium, Gary and a group of business partners bought a small farm community bank and expanded to Spokane. That bank now has multiple locations, and is now known as State Bank Northwest.
Due to health issues, Gary started to semi-retire from all of his business interests, including selling his herd of cattle keeping only the nitrogen tanks. It left Owens Farms with several thousand units of semen and several hundred embryos, two of which are original Brindisi x Banana.
Shortly thereafter, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. After several years of dealing with the effects of Parkinson’s, he had deep-brain stimulation (DBS) implant surgery in Spokane. He became an outspoken and passionate advocate for this surgery. It gave him a new lease on life and he jumped back into farming. In 2013, he used his favorite embryos to rapidly build a new herd of cattle with his oldest grandchild, Justin.
Between all of his business interests over forty years, it is estimated that Gary employed around twenty thousand individuals. Many employees have shared their stories and memories with us of how Gary and Jo Ann helped employees beyond the work day when they faced a family or life challenge.
In addition to his business and farming interests, Gary loved to hunt and fish. After his DBS surgery, he looked forward to getting back into hunting and proudly claimed one buck every year. In his later years, Gary started reading voraciously and loved non-fiction American history. He loved music his entire life. He only stopped singing when the Parkinson’s affected his vocal cords.
To his very last days he was still getting in the tractor to feed cattle, and driving his sided-by-side through fields to check on the herd. Throughout his 52 years on the family farm, he always referred to it as Paradise. Under his stewardship the land was rejuvenated and cleaned up, hundreds of dead and diseased trees replaced by thousands of new pine, fir, spruce, tamarack, and giant sequoia. Meadows of dense brush and weeds turned into gorgeous and healthy pastures for the cattle and wildlife. His love for the land can be seen throughout every acre of the farm.