QUENTIN LEE (STUB) CURREY 1906-1993

 

Stub Currey was born August 21, 1906, at Lakeview, Oregon.  His father Nolan Currey married Vestina Wise.

The family moved back to Harney County and Stub went to school at Andrews, the south end of Harney County.

He once said he was something like 14 or 15 years old when he worked at the Bullhead out of Winnemucca, Nevada.  Bill DeLong told of working with him at Quinn River in 1931, and Stub later confirmed this.

He worked under Bill Thomsen who was the Vaquero boss for the Miller and Lux ranches in Nevada.  When the company sold out in Nevada they later hired Bill to run the Buckaroo outfit at the Whitehorse ranch and later the Island Ranch and Stub worked for him at both locations.

Stub married Rita Steele March 3, 1934.  Shortly after that they worked for Lloyd hill in the Crane, Oregon area.

There was a period when he worked at the Hines Sawmill near Burns, Oregon.   This was not a job that appealed to him so when the job of Buckaroo boss at the Island Ranch was offered to him in 1936 he was not long accepting.

In the spring of 1940 the company sent him to the Whitehorse Ranch to run it. Stub and Rita stayed there until it sold in 1945.

At the same time Jim Pogue had bought the Alvord and Mann Lake ranches and Stub went to work for him where he was in charge of the ranch operation and the cattle.

There was several more ranch jobs before he went to work for the government at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge south of Burns in 1959.  One of his duties there was counting the different rancher’s cattle as they came into the refuge for the fall and winter pasture.  He held this job until he retired in November 1974.

Stub was a person that everything he did he did well and nearly always made it look easy.  He was an outstanding roper and a good hand with both a snaffle bit and Spanish bit.  He was equally as good working and classing cattle.

He had a marvelous, quick sense of humor, and was very modest about his abilities.

Among some of the men he worked with were Tom Hayes, Ross and Bill Thomson, Roy Clark, Frank Larenzano, Shirley Scoggin, Waltzy Elliot and Dale Heyland.

Stub passed away June 25, 1993.

 

Quentin Lee (Stub) Currey was inducted into the Buckaroo Hall of Fame in September 1996.