Clark and Jackie McEntire will tell you exactly what's on their minds. Such effective communication has helped them work together throughout their almost 50 years of marriage to build a successful stocker operation and raise their family. Their brick home sits atop a hill outside Stringtown, Okla., overlooking a green valley and rolling hills. Brahman-cross yearlings graze peacefully, soaking up the warm, southeastern Oklahoma sun, and the McEntire Ranch stretches as far as the eye can see. Through memorabilia and photographs, their living room walls tell a family history rich in rodeo, music and family values.

"I never did expect much," Clark says. "I wanted to be a cowboy, a rodeo cowboy." Clark McEntire is a former three-time, World Champion Steer Roper. He won this title in 1957, 1958 and 1961, and he was the Reserve Champion Steer Roper in 1954. He entered his first amateur roping contest at age 12 in Ada, Okla., turned professional by age 17 and at 19, won the Pendleton Round-Up All-Around Cowboy roping contest. "Every penny he brought in either went for a yearling or an acre of land . . . and the grocery bill," Jackie says.

On July 4, 1951, Clark entered a calf roping in Carrollton, Texas, with 77 entries and won a Ford car. "We couldn't afford two cars so I told Jackie to go see if her brother, Dale, would trade 80 acres on Boggy Creek, between her mother and sister, for the car and some cash to boot. And that's the way he wanted to trade," Clark says. "I went to Pendleton, and by the time I came back, she'd already moved in."

By 1949, Clark was the 5th highest-paid steer roper in the Rodeo Cowboys Association. He won $1,222 that year. His biggest year ever was in 1957 with $5,184. In 1984, he was inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame. "If I'd had money, I wouldn't have rodeoed as long as I did," Clark says.

His bull-headed determination and hard work paid off in the rodeo arena and on his cattle operation at home, too. He passed these traits on to his four children as well, and they worked as hard as anyone on the family ranch. Lessons learned from their mother and father and the bumps and bruises of ranch life taught the McEntire clan the importance of family and led them down their respective paths in life.

With the cattle business in their blood, Alice and Pake now both ranch with their own families in Oklahoma. And sources say Alice always was a better hand at working cattle than any man Clark hired. Susie is the co-host of Cowboy Church on RFD-TV and travels around the country singing Christian music. Reba has risen to the top of the country music industry. But no matter how many autographs she signs or how many No. 1 songs she has, Reba has never forgotten her roots or the daily routine of an Oklahoma cattle ranch.

"By the time I was 6, I was gathering cattle and doing it from before daylight until after dark by the time I was 7," says Reba in her book, Reba: My Story. "There was a time when my Daddy, us kids, Grandpap and a ranch hand took care of 3,000 head of cattle by ourselves from morning till night, then would come in and doctor 200 head."

Jackie soon became the full-time hired hand after the kids were grown, and she'd ride with Clark to their various pastures to feed the cattle."I was used to hard work, and it was tough matching him sack for sack. But I enjoyed it, especially being outdoors," Jackie says. "I also enjoyed spending time with him because up until then we hadn't spent an awful lot of time together. -- from The Cattleman "The Ranch That Rodeo Built" by Kristen Tribe