A LOVE FOR STETSON HATS

Born Lavonna Koger, Shorty was raised in Fairfax, Oklahoma, and has lived in the Oklahoma City area since 1955. The youngest of four children, she was the runt of the family, so her brothers and sisters nicknamed her Shorty. During the ’60s and ’70s, Koger ran barrels and participated in all-girl rodeos. However, after her father died, she didn’t have a facility for keeping horses and had to give it up.

But all the while she was drawn to the iconic cowboy Stetson Hat. “I just had a love for Stetson Hats,” Koger said. “Back then in the ’60s and ’70s, a large percentage Stetson Hat came in with open and clear crowns, and that means you have to know how to design them. That’s when I instructed about myself the best way to crease Stetson Hats. It absolutely was just trial and error, just as soon as I went to rodeos, they would most definitely have me get a green tea kettle taken out and crease hats, and that happens to be practical ideas on how it all began. The other thing we’d do is turn on the take a shower real hot as well as shape our hats using this method. All of us young girls would stay in motel rooms and suites together in the course of the rodeos due to the fact that we didn’t have hardly any money.”

Koger in addition rode bulls for a couple of years, but then injured her hand. Before turning out to be a touring haberdasher, in the past due ’60s, she owned a small amount of Western a warehouse in Moore, Oklahoma. Later on, she went on the streets selling in Modern western stores for a business enterprise away from Fort Really worth, as well as journeying across seven-and-a-half states carrying three or four product lines. Koger launched junior rodeos, as well as with a small business partner had a variety of rodeo stock. She managed to get the much higher introductory push to get deeply into business for herself due to the fact that her brother previously had a bad Stetson Hats practical knowledge. “My brother had dispatched off a couple of Stetson Hats to have them on display renovated, but then again they came back messed up. He said, ‘You fully understand, as much as of your choice to mess with Stetson Hats, you will want to see what kind of business you are able to do cleaning Stetson Hats,’ and even I thought, ‘What a great idea.’ ”