Remembering Jon Bowerman

We were saddened to hear about Jon Bowerman's death on October 19th at his ranch near Antelope. He was 86 years old.

Saddened might not be the right word - surprised is probably the emotion I'm looking for.

I just saw Jon at a volleyball game in Fossil a couple of weeks ago. Of course, he was sitting courtside in his cowboy hat, conversing with a couple of locals.

Jon was one of a kind. His advocacy for youth rodeo and sports in the area will be remembered fondly. Jon was an exceptional athlete, a veteran, teacher, coach, author, poet, cowboy, and much more - all rolled into one.

Without a doubt, Jon was a bit of an enigma. Coming from a prestigious family with a famous name never seemed to suit him.

When we moved back to Oregon in 2019 and purchased The Times-Journal, we interviewed Jon. He was honored as the Grand Marshal that year and was in his element - holding court with locals by day and announcing events during the rodeo in the evening. Jon said his first memory of the Wheeler County Fair and Rodeo was being bucked off by a calf when he was five.

Truthfully, Jon's life could be made into a movie.

Jon enrolled in the US Marines after graduating from high school and went to Central America as a military attaché.

"I was supposedly with the U.S. State Department but was really doing clandestine training with different Central American groups," Bowerman said. He later went to Laos and Cambodia in the early 1960s under similar auspices.

In 1963, Bowerman was honorably discharged from the Marines and moved back to Oregon and enrolled at the University of Oregon a short time later. Enrolled part-time, Jon continued to travel the world, this time with science as his mission. He traveled to Ecuador with the National Science Foundation, where he lived in a thatched hut for a time in the Amazonian village of Limon Cocha.

Jon bounced around for a while, but his heart was in Central Oregon. He purchased a ranch near Antelope and at age 37, decided to start competing in rodeos.

"My great-great grandfather died of a broken neck by being bucked off a horse," Bowerman told me in 2019. "My family wasn't exactly supportive."

Jon later suffered a broken neck at a rodeo but didn't let it slow him down.

The son of the legendary Oregon Track & Field coach and Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman, and the grandson of Oregon's thirteenth Governor, Jay Bowerman – Jon could have been a city boy who didn't like to get his hands dirty. But that wasn't Jon.

Jon was in his element working with horses and cows on his ranch. He loved helping younger kids get into rodeo and seeing ranching traditions continue in the area.

Jon told me he felt a calling while serving as a chaplain at high school rodeo events. Behind the chutes, kneeling and praying with the kids was where he felt most at peace.

Jon will be missed; we wish him happy trails in the great beyond.