OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE GOES SHAGGY

By Ruth Nicolaus, PRCA Great Lakes Circuit
Posted Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Muskogee, Okla.: (November 17, 2009) - “We don't let our hair grow long and shaggy,, Like the hippies out in San Francisco do.”

These words, made famous in the song “Okie from Muskogee” by Merle Haggard, aren’t true for one Muskogee resident, bull rider Blake Rowan.

Last week Rowan, age 23, got his first haircut in 20 months.

Why the long, shaggy hair? Especially for a bull rider, when rodeo cowboys aren’t known for long hair?

For Rowan, it is a gift to someone less fortunate. He had let his hair get a bit long in the spring of 2008, and one night, while watching a St. Jude commercial, it struck a chord with him and he thought, “I’ve let it get this long, I think I’ll grow it out and donate it.”

Rowan did a bit of research and found out that Locks of Love, an organization that provides hairpieces to children with long-term medical hair loss, accepted hair. He also discovered that hair had to be ten inches long before it could be donated.

So he started on his mission, and caught some flack for it, too. “My grandpa, he is 100% old school, ex-military, and he said, ‘Grandson, you look so much better with short hair.’” And Rowan’s bull riding buddies teased him, too. “They’d joke with me,” Rowan said. They would say, “if you’re not doing good in the bulls, you could get into the barrel racing.”

But as people understood his mission, they became accepting. “They think it’s great,” Rowan said. “I actually had two people at a rodeo tell me they were going to do the same thing.”

Rowan has been a bull rider since 1998. He competed in the Oklahoma Junior Rodeo Association and now is a member of the Pro Rodeo Cowboys Association. In 2008, he was the Prairie Circuit Bull Riding Champion.

And now the bull rider is on his second head of hair for donation. Just last week his aunt cut off all 10 ½ inches, and Rowan looks to repeat his gift. “I’ll start over from scratch,” he said. “As long as I can keep producing hair, I’ll keep donating it.”