This Breeder Profile, written by Marlene Hooks was originaly printed in the Longhorn Round-Up News Paper. We would like to now share it with our online readers.

      Hey, folks, got a minute?  There’s a feller I want you to meet.  His name’s Lonnie and he’s fifth generation American.  His German ancestor landed in Philadelphia, as a teenager, just in time for the Civil War.  There were no citizenship requirements for joining up. In fact, the recruiters were waiting on the docks to snag any likely-looking young man.  A soldier’s life probably wasn’t what the lad had in mind as he made the dangerous journey to the “promised land.” Not only did he survive the fighting, but he made friends with the Runyan boys from Illinois.  With the end of the conflict, they took to the roads for the long trip home and just naturally took their buddy with them. The same tenacity that carried that first Shan through an ocean voyage, a war and the daily grind of turning a wilderness into a paying farm is still present in the Shan descendents. He planted his roots deep into the fertile soil of his adopted country and carved out quite a life for himself and his heirs. The Shan farm of the 1860’s is still farmed today by the Shan family.   

       Lonnie was born in southern Illinois but as a three year old, he moved to St Louis with his mother.  He, like so many, had become a child of divorce. When his mother remarried, they moved to Ohio to be closer to his step dad’s family.  Later, it was back to St. Louis with summer vacations in Illinois.  Time spent at the farm was a combination of work and play.  Lonnie is seven years older than one brother and ten older than the other so he kept to the company of cousins who were close to his age. August was the usual time slot for his visit, the planting was done and the harvest was weeks away so there was time to enjoy the company of the Shan clan.  There were always horses (or pigs) to ride, fish to catch and creeks and ponds to swim.  All play and no work was never the Shan way so Lonnie also put in time helping to clear fields.  Sometimes he was allowed to drive the tractor or truck but usually it was grunt work, picking up the smaller stuff or dragging the larger to the burn pile.

      There is one story that has become a legend at family get-to-gathers.  It was over a hundred degrees when the crew broke for lunch and went down to the little crossroads store.  Lonnie, in an effort to cool off, drank two quarts of chocolate milk.  That’s right, two.  Back at the field, the heat and milk began a power struggle and Lonnie lost¼.he lost a lot for a long time.  It was too far to take him home so he got to ride on the tractor while the other boys had to continue with the manual labor.  After all these years, his cousins still accuse him of getting sick on purpose to avoid work.

      Lonnie was always interested in art but found little help with developing his talent.  His self taught skills were already ahead of the teachers available to him in Junior High or High school.  He wanted to pursue a Fine Arts degree in college but to satisfy his parents, “Can you make a living with that?”. He majored in Art Design.  Immediately after graduation in 1984, Lonnie loaded up the car and headed to Dallas.  He was planning on LA but wanted to see Dallas first.  “I figured if it was good enough to be featured in a TV show, I needed to see it before I started west.”  He fell in love with the city and went looking for a job.  Within two days, he was employed and not living in his car anymore. His job involved newsprint layout and paste up. He was making a living and adding to a skimpy resume, but the big plus of the job was what took place after hours.  The boss owned race horses and Lonnie got to ride them.  “That was a few pounds ago but it was wonderful to get paid for doing something that I’d do for nothing.”  With a job that basically paid double, Lonnie was living high in Big D.  His art was on the back burner as he and his friends “partied hardy.”

      After a fast two years, Lonnie moved up to an ad agency where he worked on full color magazine ads.  With only one year under his belt, he made a really big move.  American Airlines became his world for the next ten years.  Computer graphics had come of age and Lonnie was designing computer generated slide presentations for AA meetings -worldwide.  Thanks to American he traveled the world but was always glad to get back home.

   In 1990, Lonnie decided to stop doing his impersonation of ’wild child’ and take some watercolor classes.  He had done some work with them but needed some professional instruction in dealing with the tricky medium.  With his technique honed, he began again to paint in earnest. He joined the Southwest Watercolor Society and the Texas Watercolor Society.  He had his work displayed in traveling exhibits and won numerous awards.

      As his focus changed from work to art, Dallas lost some of it’s appeal and Lonnie bought his first land, fifteen acres near Ennis.  At this time, he met Stan and Ruby Rogers who turned him on to Longhorns.  On January 1, 1994, he took delivery of 6 cows and a borrowed bull.  With the first calf that hit the ground, Longhorn fever hit Lonnie.  He started helping Ed and Marsha Frady with their show string, he took an AI course and bought a tank and stocked it with semen.  He was excited to be getting calves from so many good bulls.   Lonnie had some cattle in partnership with a California man and as with lots of things in life; the deal worked well until the man transferred to Austin and wanted the cattle closer.  Lonnie got a place in the edge of the hill country, Bartlett, and discovered over time that he didn’t want to own cattle with anyone.  He bought out the herd and eventually went almost out of the business.  Lonnie returned to his first love.  He was visiting race tracks, photographing horses and talking to people. Jockeys and grooms were always curious and would ask, “Who you work for? A paper or a magazine?  If you get a good one of me, I want a copy.  OK?” As his circle of contacts grew, so did the demand for his art work. Word of mouth is the best advertising and the most reasonably priced, so that’s what Lonnie relies on.  “I stay as busy as I want to.”

      Recently, Lonnie bought a new place near Thorndale, Texas.  The house is finished and there are Longhorns in the pastures.  Seems the Longhorn fever came back on him.  It is a pesky little bug and almost impossible to totally shake.  Lonnie is once again traveling to Longhorn events and remarked on the big difference between jockeys and longhorn breeders, “Jockeys want to see your pictures and Longhorn breeders want to show you theirs.” Among those who wanted to see his pictures and hang his work on their walls are John and Christy Randolph, Don Limb and Kim and Robert Richey.

The Butler Museum of League City, TX gave him the grand tour, even behind the scenes,  then commissioned him to a five painting series. Lonnie has completed two paintings of the set of five. The two were presented to museum curator, Jennifer Wycoff Van Der Wal at the Bluebonnet Classic in Brenham on April 2, 2005. The finished work features Fox Tail and FM Graves 52.  The others in the series are Bevo, Beauty and Miss John Wayne.

       Lonnie works from photos he takes of your animal so every canvas is individually unique. Every Longhorn breeder should have a family portrait of their favorite. For anyone interested in artwork, Lonnie sometimes trades paintings for cattle.  Can’t hurt to ask, you might like the answer.

The Richey's herd sire, R3 Dylan

CONTACT INFO

Lonnie Shan

(512) 269-9037