Both Reeder’s kids graduated Nucla High School, Shannon and Shane. Shannon Reeder was newly married when her mother passed, and Reeder was glad his late wife lived to see that. Shane was still in school. Reeder said it was a difficult time for him and his son at home.
He also said it’s really something: He couldn’t have gone to a Houston Astros game and found a handful of other men who’d lost their wives, but there at The Hitchin’ Post in Norwood, Colorado, where he spent a lot of time, there was Randy Marsing, Mark Vandenberg and Monte Snyder, all widowers.
Reeder did find love again in a friend. He’d met Sherry Reeder in Denver during his wife’s health crisis, and they connected after Linda’s death. Sherry was living in Rapid City, South Dakota, and had just been through a divorce. They began speaking on the phone and started to visit each other. Sherry moved down to the West End in 1996.
“We hit it off,” Reeder said.
Reeder’s son Shane moved to Dodge City, Kansas, on a rodeo scholarship. He’d been riding bulls his junior and senior year of high school, all over the state. Reeder said he’d accumulated a trunk full of trophy belt buckles. Shane won Rattle the Rockies and the Ridgway rodeo. He’d had the high average in the Colorado Pro Rodeo Association and joined the Pro Rodeo Cowboys Association. Shane now runs a company he started, Superior Brooms, and also owns a coffee shop with his wife, just outside of Wichita.
Sherry and Bobby Reeder were married in July of 1998, after a branding at Weimer’s cow camp. They wanted to marry sooner, but that year Jim Garvey, a very dear friend, had passed.
Sherry worked in the real estate business until 2007, then went to work for Telluride Ski & Golf for just over 17 years.
Bobby continued with West Montrose County. He’d been semi-foreman and then lead man. He was eventually assistant superintendent for the road and bridge department in Nucla and remained there until 2019.
Many know the Reeder property in Redvale, which they’ve been in since 2000. Reeder had four acres in Nucla by the coal mine previously, but the mine wanted his property. They ended up buying that, and that’s how Reeder came to Redvale.
They’ve loved it: views of the San Juans, La Sals, Lone Cone, the Uncompahgre Plateau. Over the years, Sherry had parties, as she was involved with Angel Baskets and more. Bobby said Telluride folks would come down and be blown away by the views.
Yes, they’ve got the old heirloom apple orchard too, plus the old barn that has since blown down, on the former Shenandoah site.
Bobby said the old barn lost its structural ability when all the hardwood was taken out of it and used for the house additions. But, in the past it housed a hardware store, grocery, feed store, “the ladies of ill repute” and, later, a school. It was moved over the years.
Bobby thinks his home was built in approximately 1913, but had work done in the 1930s too. The existing kitchen to back porch was original, and Jimmy Naff lived there. Later, Mary Naff and her family did, part of Brown Ranches near Telluride. Eventually, the living room and front rooms were added with the old barn wood.
The Reeders have since bought the 40 acres behind them and the 40 acres adjacent. They have 100 acres total now, though they started with just 27.
Reeder never ran cows on his own place. He likes to say he “helped other people go broke in the cattle business,” though he kept seven head of horses at home.
He helped Garveys a lot in the 1990s, and he liked to be mounted pretty good.
These days, he smiles when he says he’s been helping his grandson, Jake “Shotgun” Gordon go broke. Jake is Shannon (Reeder) Rayborn’s son. And, Shotgun’s making a pretty good go of it with 59 head of cows now.
