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While Clark McEntire traveled across America winning world steer roping titles in the late 1950s, his wife Jacqueline stayed behind in Chockie, Oklahoma to keep their cattle ranch alive. Clark won world championships in 1957, 1958, and 1961, staying on the rodeo circuit for months at a time to pay for and expand the family land in Atoka County. At home, Jacqueline taught at a rural school, kept the ranch books, and raised four children: Alice, Pake, Reba, and Susie. When Oklahoma winters froze the pastures, the schoolteacher did the work of a ranch hand. Jacqueline hauled hay through the snow, carried tools out to smash thick ice on the ponds and water troughs so the cattle could drink, and took a wrench to frozen water pumps when they broke down. If the heating stove quit working inside the house, she repaired that too before doing the laundry and fixing supper. Reba and her siblings grew up waking before daylight in the cold to help their mother work the herd before catching the school bus, and they never once heard her complain about the workload or her husband being gone. Once the outdoor chores were finished and the house was warm, Jacqueline sat with the children over their schoolwork and taught them to sing country harmonies. Those winters in Chockie stayed with Reba McEntire throughout her decades in country music. Whenever her own career grew difficult, she measured her grit against the memory of her mother quietly breaking ice for the cattle and fixing the stove without a word of complaint.

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WHILE CLARK MCENTIRE TRAVELED THE RODEO CIRCUIT WINNING WORLD TITLES, HIS WIFE JACQUELINE STAYED IN CHOCKIE, OKLAHOMA BREAKING ICE FOR THE CATTLE AND TEACHING REBA TO SING.

Long before Reba McEntire became one of country music’s most enduring voices, she learned what endurance looked like on a working cattle ranch in southeastern Oklahoma. In the small community of Chockie in Atoka County, daily survival depended on relentless physical labor long before the sun came up.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, her father, Clark McEntire, spent months at a time on the road competing as a professional steer roper. He captured world championships in 1957, 1958, and 1961, staying on the rodeo circuit to pay for and steadily expand the family land across Atoka County.

While Clark chased titles across the country to build their ranch, his wife Jacqueline held the household and the property together at home. Having set aside her own early hopes of singing country music, she taught in a rural schoolhouse, worked as a school librarian, kept the ranch books, and raised four children: Alice, Pake, Reba, and Susie.

When freezing Oklahoma winters settled over the pastures, the country schoolteacher stepped directly into the work of a full-time ranch hand. Jacqueline hauled heavy bales of hay through the snow and carried tools out to the ponds and water troughs to smash through thick sheets of ice so the cattle could drink.

Nothing on the property could wait for warmer weather or another pair of hands. When frozen water pumps broke down outside, Jacqueline took a wrench to the machinery herself, and if the heating stove quit working inside the house, she repaired that too before doing the laundry and fixing supper.

All four McEntire children grew up sharing that daily rhythm of work without hesitation. Reba and her siblings woke before daylight in the cold to help their mother work the herd across the pastures, finishing their morning chores just in time to catch the school bus.

Through all the months her husband spent on the highway and all the freezing mornings in the pasture, Jacqueline never once complained in front of her children. She treated every broken pump, frozen pond, and late-night chore as simply the work that needed to be done for the family.

Once the outdoor chores were finished and the house was warm again, Jacqueline turned the evening hours toward education and music. Sitting with Alice, Pake, Reba, and Susie over their schoolwork, she taught them how to find country harmonies, hold their vocal parts, and keep rhythm together.

Those lessons at home and in the back seat of the family car on long drives to rodeos soon carried the children onto local stages. Pake, Reba, and Susie began performing at rodeos and dance halls across Oklahoma as the Singing McEntires, blending the discipline of ranch work with the harmonies their mother had taught them.

Even as Reba enrolled at Southeastern Oklahoma State University to study elementary education like her mother, those early years in Chockie shaped the strength of her voice. That foundation carried her into the arena at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City in December 1974, where country artist Red Steagall heard her sing the National Anthem.

After recording her first Nashville demo in March 1975 and signing with Mercury Records that November, Reba brought a ranch hand’s work ethic to Music Row. Through early singles that stalled near the bottom of the charts and years of hauling gear to small dance halls with Pake and Susie, she kept pushing forward.

Across five decades of hit records and sold-out arenas, Reba always measured her own grit against the winters of her childhood. Whenever her career grew difficult, she thought of her mother quietly breaking ice for the cattle and fixing the stove without a word of complaint.

Long before country music crowned Reba McEntire a star, a schoolteacher in Chockie showed her how to endure the cold and keep singing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4OCaBKm53s

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At age twenty, Reba McEntire sat in a roadside restaurant on the way to Nashville and stirred her ice cream sundae until it melted completely into soup. It was March 1975, and she was riding hundreds of miles from her family ranch in Chockie, Oklahoma to record her first demo with help from country singer Red Steagall. Until that trip, her life had revolved around working cattle with her father, studying at a local college to become a schoolteacher, and singing beside her brother Pake and sister Susie in the Singing McEntires. Facing professional producers in Nashville without her siblings left her throat so tight with nerves that she could not eat. Across the table, her mother Jacqueline did not rush her or tell her to be brave. Years earlier, Jacqueline had set aside her own dream of singing country music to teach in a rural schoolhouse and raise four children. Watching her daughter stare into the bowl, she quietly drank her coffee and gave Reba all the time she needed. When she finally spoke, Jacqueline offered her a way out. She told Reba that she did not owe her mother a dream, and that they could turn the car around right then and head back to Oklahoma if she was not ready. Knowing she was free to go home took the pressure off the room. Reba finished the drive, recorded the demo that brought her first contract with Mercury Records in November 1975, and carried the memory of that melted sundae and her mother’s quiet patience onto the biggest stages in country music.

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Two years after her marriage ended in 2015, Reba McEntire finally went on a first date after meeting a retired geologist in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Since separating from her husband and manager Narvel Blackstock at age sixty, Reba had thrown herself into touring and gospel music, expecting to remain single for the rest of her life. During an August 2017 trip to the mountains with her friend Kix Brooks and his wife, Barbara, she was introduced to Anthony “Skeeter” Lasuzzo, a retired oil geologist and wildlife photographer. When Reba returned to Jackson Hole a few days later, Skeeter invited her to dinner for her first date in two years. After thirty-five years in a partnership where marriage and music business contracts were constantly mixed together, being with someone outside the entertainment world gave Reba room to breathe. At sixty-two, she could sit across from a partner without talking about revenue or tour schedules. For nearly six months, they quietly traveled back and forth between Wyoming and Nashville before walking the Grammy red carpet together in January 2018. Over their two years together, they traded industry parties for snowy mountains in Wyoming and Montana, landscape photography trips to Iceland, Italy, and Africa, and major milestones including her Kennedy Center Honors in December 2018. On social media, fans often saw Reba through Skeeter’s camera lens, relaxed and smiling outdoors without heavy stage makeup. In November 2019, Reba shared that they had quietly parted ways a few months earlier as her busy work schedule and their different lifestyles pulled them apart. Unlike the heartbreak of 2015, their two years ended in warm friendship, restoring her faith in love just months before she reconnected with Rex Linn in early 2020.

When Reba McEntire confirmed her divorce on December 17, 2015, she shared the news beneath a smiling photo from Rome surrounded by the women who helped carry her through it. Four months earlier, in August 2015, Reba and her husband and manager, Narvel Blackstock, announced they had separated after 26 years of marriage and 35 years of working together. Their divorce was finalized on October 28, an ending Reba had not wanted that cut even deeper when Narvel soon began dating Laura Stroud, a Nashville realtor from Reba’s own circle of acquaintances. At sixty, Reba was suddenly left in her expansive Cherokee Dock home on Tennessee’s Old Hickory Lake without her marriage or the management partner who had guided her career for over three decades. Rather than leave her alone in that quiet house, close friends including longtime co-star Melissa Peterman, Janine Dunn, and loyal female staff members stepped in with home-cooked meals, constant humor, and travel plans. On mornings when the grief felt too heavy to face, her friends paired warmth with firm encouragement. Reba later called them angels who dried her tears and then told her plainly that she was strong, she could get through it, and they had taught her better than to give up on herself. Family closed ranks around her at the same time. Still mourning their father’s late 2014 passing, her sisters Alice Foran and Susie McEntire-Eaton joined her in prayer and in the recording studio, while Kelly Clarkson stayed fiercely loyal to Reba both at home and on stage. Backed by that circle of women, Reba stepped out of Starstruck Entertainment in early 2016 to form Reba’s Business Inc., taking command of her own career after 35 years and pouring her healing into the gospel album Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope.

Separated by more than 1,300 miles in March 2020, Reba McEntire and Rex Linn fell in love over morning FaceTime calls they named Coffee Camp. Just weeks after reconnecting over dinner in Los Angeles in late January 2020, Reba rushed home to Oklahoma where her mother, Jacqueline McEntire, passed away on March 14. Nationwide pandemic lockdowns immediately followed, canceling Reba’s tours and leaving her grieving alone on her family ranch while Rex isolated at home in California. Unable to fly between March and June, Rex started a daily morning video call across two time zones. Every day, he set his alarm between 5:00 and 5:30 a.m. Pacific Time so he could be ready with a cup of coffee in front of his iPad by 7:30 a.m. in Oklahoma, never missing a single morning. To bring a smile into her quiet house, he called her “Tater Tot” after the dish she loved at their January dinner and even had a custom tater tot shirt printed to wear on screen. As they later shared on her Living & Learning podcast, those hours of honest conversation about their childhoods, old heartbreaks, and values allowed them to fall completely in love before ever holding hands or sharing a first kiss. When travel restrictions eased in June 2020, Rex admitted he felt as nervous as a young man driving to see the woman he had known as a friend for nearly thirty years. The moment they finally embraced in person turned three months of phone screens into a lasting life together. Years later, Rex still marks their anniversaries by looking back on those spring mornings of 2020, and the two still hold Coffee Camp every day at home or over FaceTime whenever touring and filming pull them apart.

Reba McEntire and Rex Linn stayed friends for nearly three decades after meeting in 1991, until one late dinner in January 2020 changed the rest of their lives. They first crossed paths while filming the 1991 Western television movie The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw alongside Kenny Rogers. For the next 29 years, they remained friendly colleagues who caught up in passing, until overlapping roles on Young Sheldon brought them to the same Los Angeles dinner table in late January 2020. That night stretched from a local restaurant to a late stop at a wine bar, where Rex nicknamed her “Tater Tot” after watching her light up over a plate of tater tots, and she called him “Sugar Tot” in return. What touched Reba even deeper was his quiet empathy as he asked about her hospitalized mother, Jacqueline, a kindness shaped by losing his own mother in 1998. On March 14, 2020, Jacqueline passed away from cancer at 93 just as pandemic lockdowns stranded Reba at her Oklahoma ranch and kept Rex in California. Every morning from March through June, Rex woke up at 5:30 in California to FaceTime Reba at 7:30 in Oklahoma for a daily ritual they called “Coffee Camp.” While she mourned in isolation, he had gifts and comfort food delivered to her porch and even ordered a custom tater tot shirt to wear on their video calls just to make her laugh. After a painful 2015 divorce that left her expecting to stay single, Reba fell in love again at 65 through hours of honest conversation across a phone screen. Once travel opened in June 2020, they reunited in Nashville, went public that October, and have since shared both their daily lives and the television screen on Big Sky and Happy’s Place.