McAlester Union Stockyards: It's a family tradition
Sep. 3—Husband and wife Lindsey Grant and Julie Sherrill Grant stand on a metal catwalk where they can look down on pens of cattle as the bovines mill around at the McAlester Union Stockyards.
It's the day before the weekly Tuesday sale and already some of the pens are abuzz as the cattle, mostly calves and yearlings, emit a steady chorus of moos as they try to get used to their new, temporary surroundings. What may sound like a cacophony of discordant sounds to some is music to the ears of the Grants as they take it all in from their overhead observation post.
Being around bellowing bulls, mooing cows and other livestock became a way of life for Julie Sherrill Grant as she grew up — as it also did for other members of her family.
Lindsey Grant recalls that while he served in the U.S. military overseas with the 445th as a member of the Oklahoma National Guard during Operation Desert Storm, there were certain things he missed about being back home.
"When I went to Desert Storm, one of the things I missed most was the sound and the smell of the stockyards," he said.
Running McAlester Union Stockyards is a family tradition for the Sherrill and Grant families — starting in1974 and continuing to this day.
Julie Grant's parents, Kenny and Linda Sheriill, purchased the McAlester Union Stockyards along with partners Max and Pauline Kinyon back in 1974. Before the Sherrills and Kinyons purchased the stockyards, the facility belonged to five different commission companies. After starting with the partnership, the Sherrills eventually became sole owners in 1984.
It didn't take long for the way of life around the stockyards to catch Julie's interest. It started back during her childhood growing up around the facility and continues to this day. She remembers catching the bus after elementary school — which would drop her off not at home, but at the stockyards, where she felt is where the action was — and still is today.
"I grew up loving it," Julie said. "I've always loved it."
What did she like so much about the stockyards?
"Just the people, the good hardworking people," Julie said. "The customers that came here, the buyers. It was always a fun place."
She started helping at the stockyards at an early age, though looking back, she thinks that may be a charitable view of her activities at the time.
"I thought I was helping — I was probably in the way more than I was helping," Grant said, with a trace of humor in her voice.
Back in those childhood days, did she ever daydream about someday owning the McAlester Union Stockyards? Julie said felt she would have a role of some sort, but not the one she eventually achieved.
"I thought I was going to work here," Julie said — but she never dreamed she, her siblings and her husband would one day become owners of the busy facility.
LEARNING THE ROPES — AND BOOKS
After graduating high school, Julie attended two years of college at Oklahoma State University. Completing her basic courses after two years, she was trying to decide on a major when when she got a phone call from her father. Kenny Sherrill told her the stockyards' longtime bookkeeper, Frances Turney, planned to step down. He had an idea of who would be the ideal person to step up to the role after Turney left.
"He said Frances was going to retire; she could teach me the books," Julie recalled of her conversation with her father.
She then knew what direction her studies would take. Following those first two years at OSU, Julie moved home and commuted to Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant to complete her college degree. At the same time, she received a real-life education in bookkeeping from Turney. It all came naturally to Julie, who already had an interest in the field.
"I liked numbers and accounting," she said. Julie filled the role and liked it, but one day got an offer to take even a higher position with the company. Fast-forward a few years, and Julie became one of the owners of the McAlester Union Stockyards.
"In 1999, dad sold it to me and my brother and sister," she said, referring to her brother, Mark Sherrill and her sister, Laura Sherrill.
Mark Sherrill, who was a veterinarian, died from a heart attack when he was only 45, Julie said. Soon afterward, Julie's husband, Lindsey Grant, began to take a more active role with the stockyards.
Today, the owners are Julie and Lindsey Grant, along with Julie's sister, Laura Sherrill.
IT'S LIKE HOME
Julie said her father, Kenny Sherrill, tried to accommodate the children around the stockyards. He figured they needed something more than fences on which to climb and play while they were there with their parents or grandparents, so he decided to put together something a bit more elaborate.
"Dad put in a playground here," Julie said, which gave children a place to play while at the stockyards. After her children grew up and had children of their own, another generation came along to continue the tradition. "I raised my kids here and now my grandkids are here," said Julie.
Now, some of the Grants' adult children are continuing the tradition of growing up to work at the stockyards, including their daughter, Katie Buckner, who like her mom and dad, works at the stockyards full-time.
"Katie's like my right arm," Julie said. "She does everything." Katie is married to Justin Buckner, who operates the trucking company J B Services and assists at the stockyards when available.
Julie and Lindsey Grants' sons, Lane and Seth, also help from time-to-time.
Lane Grant, is with the McAlester Fire Department. Like most firefighters he has one day on and two days off, so he helps when he can during his off-time, Julie said.
Seth Grant, has Bullet Truck Repair, which is on Standard Road. He also helps when needed.
"If we have a truck break down, we give him a call, " Julie said.
Family friend Cathy Haynes operates the McAlester Union Stockyards Cafe, which is usually open one day a week, from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. on Tuesdays, for sale day at the stockyards.
Julie pauses a moment while looking for the right words to relate the appeal that McAlester Union Stockyards holds for herself and other family members and friends. After a few seconds, she has it.
"It gets in your blood," Julie said.
She is so involved in the livestock industry that in 2018 the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry selected her as a Significant Woman in Oklahoma Agriculture — an honor she did not expect.
Julie said she knew there was a meeting scheduled related to Women in Agriculture at the McAlester Campus of Eastern Oklahoma State College. "My daughter said we ought to go to it," she recalled. During the meeting, Julie received the Significant Woman in Oklahoma Agriculture Award.
"I was shocked and humbled," she said. "They surprised me with it."
The Grants' daughter, Katie Buckner, is involved in a women's agriculture group as well. She's been elected president of the recently-formed Pittsburg County Cattlewomen's Association.
McAlester Union Stockyards is as much a home away from home for Katie, as it is for her parents.
"It's like home," she said, adding "I'm up here more than I'm at home. Customers and a lot of the employees are more like extended family."
She is not kidding when she says he grew up at the stockyards — making her first visit soon after she was born. "After mom left the hospital, this is the first place they brought me," Katie said.
Like her mother, she grew up helping with whatever was needed at the stockyards, hitting a milestone on her 16th birthday. "I started getting paid when I was 16," she said.
COWBOY CHURCH — AND MORE
For years the McAlester Union Stockyards held its weekly sales every Monday. Now, the weekly sale is set for Tuesday, after the family agreed to make the change. When the sale day came on Mondays, they needed to spend a lot of time at the stockyards on Sundays to get everything ready for the big sale the following day.
By moving the sale day to Tuesdays, they were able to free up more time on Sundays for church and family time for both themselves and their employees.
The Grants may have surprised themselves again when they decided to start a Cowboy Church.
"We felt led to do that," Julie said, giving her husband, Lindsey Grant, lots of credit for helping get the church started.
Julie said George Toma, who lived in the Durant area at the time, had contacted her father, Kenny Sherrill, about seeing if there was any interest in starting a cowboy church in the McAlester area. A group met and discussed the possibilities, which Julie said inspired her husband, Lindsey.
"My husband had felt he was called on some kind of mission," she said. When he heard about the cowboy church, he knew that was it, she said. Others were inspired as well.
"God called everybody," Julie said.
Lindsey Grant contacted Jason Adams from the Wilburton-Talihina area who helped with organizing a cowboy church in McAlester.
It began in earnest when a relatively small group of individuals started meeting at the Pittsburg County Cattlemen's Association Building at the Pittsburg County Fairgrounds, near the Southeast Expo Center. Eventually, those attending the services decided members of the growing congregation needed a church building of their own. From there, God supplied what was needed, Julie said.
It resulted in the Kiamichi Cowboy Church building off State Highway 31, which Julie said is near the new Fed-Ex building, across the road from the Steven Taylor Industrial Park.
It now has quite a congregation. "We're up to having from 80-to-100," Grant said of the church, which Grant said is "Bible-based." Mitch Arteberry is the pastor, with musician Curt Krigbaum providing music every other week, she said. Services are at 10:30 a.m. every Sunday, with Bible Study at 6:30 p.m. every Sunday and Wednesday night.
In addition to their regular worship singers, the Kiamichi Cowboy Church sometimes features special guest singers or groups doing gospel music.
Plans are now underway to start what is being called Recovery Ranch near the church, which plans call for Bain Durant, who had the vision for the facility, to operate. It's designed to be a year-long program to help who have been addicted to drugs or alcohol get on the right path. It's not a treatment center in that participants must already be off drugs or alcohol to get into the program, Julie said.
How close is it to becoming a reality? "We're getting ready to pour the concrete," said Julie.
Also, a Christian men's fellowship meeting is held at 6:30 p.m. on the first and third Thursday of every month at the stockyards, Julie said.
