Larry Michael Duggan, 79, of Canyon, Texas, died peacefully in his home on February 7, 2026.
Born on January 5, 1947, in Hobart, Oklahoma, Larry grew up as one of four big brothers to their one little sister. His childhood was spent on the family farm. Youth sports included high school basketball and the early years of rodeo, competing in calf roping, bareback riding and bull riding.
He went on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Animal Science from Oklahoma Panhandle State University where he met his future bride, Barbara Ann Romer. The young couple planted roots in Canyon, Texas in 1972 where they raised their three children.
Larry competed in youth, college and professional rodeo as a bull rider before turning his attention to the single steer roping event where he earned a qualification to the 1980 National Finals Steer Roping in Laramie, Wyoming. Larry actively competed in single steer roping and team roping into his early 70s.
What started as an idea for a hobby – learning the art of saddle making at night school at the Texas State Technical Institute in Amarillo – turned into a five-decade career of building custom saddles for clients that ranged from the casual roper to world champions to the Shiek of Dubai. He returned to TSTI as an instructor for a year and taught several of the top saddle makers currently working in the industry today. He opened Cowboy Saddle Shop in 1972 and since then, he created 773 works of art – all unique to each customer's specifications and all crafted by him alone. Many of his customers were repeat buyers and along the way became close friends.
Larry was a prankster and always enjoyed a good laugh at the results of someone blowing on a coyote call and getting baby powder all over their face. He would save $1 bills and use them to buy his seat at the local poker game, knowing all 100 of them would have to be counted by hand.
When competing at the steer ropings, he was known for carrying Dum Dums in his shirt pocket and passing them out to the rodeo kids knowing their faces would get sticky and soon be covered in dirt. He would just smile. So many memories shared by those now grown-up rodeo kids (and his nieces and nephews) include mentions of the Dum Dums. The blue ones were the best – unless you were the rodeo mom left with clean up.
Larry loved to read books and was a regular visitor to the Canyon Library.
He enjoyed going fishing and if given the choice, would take the longer scenic route to get there instead of major highways. There were always fishing poles in his horse trailer, and he knew all the good places to cast a line while traveling the rodeo road. The last several years he made multiple trips to Lake Texhoma to fish with his children.
Larry is survived by his wife of 57 years, Barbara; their children, Jody (Shelly) Duggan; Casey Duggan; Mikey Jo Duggan and their granddaughter, Jadyn Duggan; brothers William Rollie (Mary) Duggan III and Greg (Kathy) Duggan; sister Kathy (Elbert) Franklin and numerous nieces and nephews.
He is preceded in death by his parents, William Rollie Duggan Jr. and Marjorie Carpenter Duggan; brother, Steven Duggan and nephew, Andrew Duggan.
The family appreciates the outpouring of love and condolence messages they have received since Larry's passing. If you had the pleasure of knowing Larry, then you couldn't help but love him and that little twinkle in his eyes when he smiled.
