DOWNING, DONALD JOE AND GAYLE (DALY)

Donald Joe Downing was born 1950 to Marion and Olena (Pat) Downing. He grew up on the “Flying A'' Ranch, located between Arnold and Dunning, Nebraska. Joe graduated from Halsey-Dunning High School in 1968. Joe enlisted in the United States Army and reported for duty in Sep-tember of 1970.

May 21, 1971 Joe was united in marriage to Gayle Elaine Daly, daughter of Byron and Wanda Daly. Gayle graduated from Staple-ton High School in 1971.

We spent almost a year in Germany, returning to the United States in April, 1972. Joe took an early leave from the Army, exchanging the rest of his time for duty in the National Guards.

We lived in Dunning and Joe worked at Mike McGinns and I worked as a bookkeeper at Van's Ranch Service. In September of 1972 we moved to the “Flying “A'' Ranch. Here our first child was born; Jillana Jodell on 1975.

In November of 1976, we left the ranch and moved to Rapid City, South Dakota where Joe trained horses under Roy Yates and later trained for Stan Barthel in Kearney, Nebras-ka.

On July 7, 1977 Joe became foreman of the Dumb-bell Ranch, located in Cherry County at Hyannis, Nebraska. Here our second daughter, Nancee Jo was born on 1978. Jillana started kindergarten at Redmill School in 1980. While on the ranch we purchased some leather sewing machines and tools and began making tack and chaps and repairing boots in February of 1981.

We made a decision to go into boot repair full time and moved to Mullen, Nebraska in June 1983. Joe's Leather Shed opened on June 13 for business and was located in the back of the Johnson-Vinton Feed Store. During this time, I worked at Pioneer Memorial Hospital as an assistant in Medical Records. Later I started working at the Hooker County Tribune.

In June of 1985, Joe and I attended a boot making school in Vernal, Utah. A little while after that, Joe designed a lace-up cowboy boot and moved into the Lowe building in February of 1986, to begin promoting and producing what we called the “Original Sandhills Packer''. In June, I left the Tribune to work full time at the boot shop.

The name was changed in May 1987 to “D Boot Shop'' where we still do boot repair and build custom boots, both the traditional western boot or the lace-up packer.