Larry Leon Gift, 70, of Thedford, Nebraska passed away January 14, 2021, in Lincoln, Nebraska. He was born May 25, 1950 in Arnold, Nebraska to Wm. Floyd and Betty (Anderson) Gift. His dad was a mechanic and later worked for the county as a road maintenance man. His mom was a stay-at-home mom who kept him and three other siblings in line.
Leon graduated from Stapleton High School in Stapleton, Nebrask ain 1968 and went to work the next day for Ken Davis, foreman at the Peter Kiewit Cattle Company ranch. Leon loved checking large pastures on horseback, breaking horses, and working cattle. The winter of 1970-71, he and two other guys were responsible for the care of 5,000 calves. In 1972, he was promoted to a foreman position and put in charge of the North Ranch where he was responsible for calving 650 head of cows.
When he became engaged to a schoolteacher, Leon moved to Thedford, Nebraska and worked for Emory Daly when Emory was battling cancer. He enjoyed feeding cattle with a team of horses and doing most of the ranch work horseback as that was what he had been doing from 1968-1973 when he worked for Kiewit. He also worked at the Thedford sale barn.
Leon also did ranch work for several people in the Thedford area, was self-employed as a fence contractor, day-worked, and broke horses. When he worked at Pearson Livestock Equipment as an iron worker, he would go to work early so he could leave early to ride colts while checking cattle at the forest for ranchers. He would get up early enough to ride horses he was breaking for people before going to another job. For 30 years, Leon day-worked for John Warren at the Paxton Ranch.
He married Rosalea Boyer on August 10, 1974, and they adopted two children, Ryan and Ginger, and the family made their home in Thedford, Nebraska.
When the kids got old enough to be in 4-H, Leon became a 4-H leader, and he enjoyed the horsemanship and reining classes and worked hard to teach those skills as well as horse conformation. Joe Finney and Leon hauled kids to numerous events and taught them how to rope competitively and handle cattle. Joe and Leon organized a snaffle bit futurity, ranch rodeos, and team ropings during the Thomas County fairs. He spent several years in leadership positions. He was an officer on the Thomas County Fair Board, a director of the Thedford High School Rodeo, a state director for the Nebraska High School Rodeo, and helped produce the Thedford Youth Rodeo.
Leon enjoyed team roping and roped competitively at North Platte, Stapleton, Thedford, Burwell, Arthur, Fuch’s Arena, and many other places. He also participated in ranch rodeos. He was a member and officer of roping clubs and enjoyed putting on ropings.
His ranch rodeo team was composed of Bruce Switzer of Burwell, Nebraska, Joe Finney of Seneca, Nebraska, and Stan Clark of Burwell, Nebraska. He was more pleased when his horses received the “Best Horse” award than when he got the “Best Cowboy” award. The last year they competed the team won the right to compete at Fort Worth in the 1989 National Ranch Rodeo competition.
Leon purchased three young geldings in the fall of 2014 and spent a great amount of time training and spending time developing them. Leon was preceded in death by his parents, his grandparents, his father-in-law and mother-in-law, Kenneth and Maude Boyer, and brother-in-law K.J. Boyer.
He is survived by his wife Rosalea; son, Ryan (Abby Barnes) of Rio Rancho, New Mexico; daughter, Ginger (Todd) Carr of North Platte, Nebraska; sisters Doris (Tom) Sweet of Glenrock, Wyoming; Sylvia (Don) Jividen of Geneva, Nebraska; brother, Keith (Annette) of North Platte, Nebraska; six grandchildren, Maddy, Cameron, Sierra, Gatlyn, Wesley, and Remmie Carr, and numerous nieces and nephews.
A celebration of life will be held May 23, 2021 at the Thomas County Fairgrounds.