Comanche Tribal Member Lives Life on the Road with Professional Bull Riders

Comanche native Laken Tosee is a truck driver for Professional Bull Riders.

She started with the Lawton Rangers Rodeo, a part of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association.

“They had reached out and asked if I…if anyone wanted to drive to them so I reached out to Josh and he set me up, so I’ve been driving on and off for them since August,” Tosee said.

She said her favorite trip was to New York City for a sell-out show at Madison Square Garden.

“The drive was a little hectic because all of the streets are like one way, so you have to go so many streets up before you can even make it back to where you need to get,” Tosee said. “And just being in that city. I’m a small-town girl from Oklahoma and being up there and getting to experience that…was definitely a memory.”

She said Wyoming was pretty, but the wind and ice made it difficult to drive through; however, she enjoyed going through the snow and green areas. 

“Whenever I made the drive from New York City to Chicago, we drove through Pennsylvania and just all of the trees out there, the trees and was still snowing out there so that was even better,” Tosee said.

She also enjoyed leaving Nevada and traveling through the mountains to California.

Tosee said she’d gotten the hang of it after two trips. Tosee said she’d been a truck driver for many years.

“Actually, outside of PBR, I drive trucks in the oil field anyway so I’ve been driving for the past five years,” she said. “So, it’s nothing new to me, just different surroundings, landscapes, like mountains everything like that. It’s just a lot different from being in a little car and then being in a truck.”

Tosee said they’ll sleep in the truck whenever they make long drives.

“We were just in Sacramento, California and we made the drive from there to [Tulsa] and we got here…Tuesday evening and left out Monday morning from Sacramento so we drove all night,” she said. “So, whenever one driver is driving the other one’s in the back in the sleeper and we sleep and get our 10 hours of sleep before we can start driving again and then we stop, fuel up, and switch drivers and then that’s how we make the drives in two to three days.”

Tosee said the team drivers also share responsibilities at the main event.

“The guy that I just drove from Sacramento with, he’s actually is the gateman, so he pulls the gate at the shows,” she said.

Tosee said others run the show's production, such as the big screens, lighting and audio. Tosee will help with the sponsorships and pull the shoot boards at the show's beginning.

“During rider entries, or the introductions, where all of the smoke and the fireworks and all of the fire are out on the arena floor, they’ll have the riders walk out and then they’ll have…usually the top five will either stand on the chutes and they’ll spotlight them,” she said.

Tosee said staying connected to her heritage is hard when she’s on the road.

“Since I’ve worked in the oil field, I haven’t always been able to make it to powwows or anything like that,” she said. “But every chance that I do get to, I try to go home and go to as many as I can. With me being on the road and everything it might just be once every two months or something, but outside of that…my family has always been cultural and traditional, not just with powwows and…all of the regalia and everything, because we taught growing up…how to make our own regalia and dresses and all of the way that you do it and the way that you don’t. And it’s not just for the powwow circle, it’s also our Native American church, we were raised with that and also, on top of that, our horse culture.

Tosee said her family helps when she can’t take her son on the road.

“Just thank you to them,” she said. “I love you guys.”