PENDLETON — Randy Severe was big on life.

The veteran saddlemaker never went long in conversation before throwing his head back for a delighted laugh. Severe, who died Sunday morning, Nov. 21, from the effects of COVID-19, often found humor in his world.

One story involved rodeo cowboy Larry Mahan getting bucked off in Severe’s saddle shop. That day, Mahan, a six-time world champion bull rider, tested a saddle by hopping aboard one that was sitting on a saddle rack.

“He stuck his feet in the stirrups,” Severe said, telling the story in a recent video. “When it started tipping, he couldn’t get out of it and it bucked him off, right there in the shop.”

On the video, Severe put his head back and laughed. Not a loud guffaw or a belly laugh, but delighted all the same.

Those who knew Severe will miss that laugh, along with the easy way he listened intently to everyone, treating each like the most important person on earth.

Severe spent almost two months on a ventilator in a Portland hospital struggling with the effects of COVID-19, which severely damaged his lungs. Upon his death at age 70, friends and family are focusing not on how he died, but how he lived.

Over the years, Severe built upward of 230 trophy saddles for champions of the Pendleton Round-Up. Severe is known for his artistry. Requests for saddles stream in from all over the place, but his priority was crafting trophy saddles for his hometown rodeo, where he had volunteered since he was a boy. As a man, he served as a Pendleton Round-Up director for 10 years, the last two as president.

Severe’s shop is a step back in time. The smell of leather permeates this domain of cowhide and wood. Hundreds of tools line the walls, along with old photos, antlers, straps, stirrups and buckles. An ancient guitar hangs from a peg. The instrument is a gift from country singer Bonnie Guitar to his uncle Duff Severe, who taught his nephew to make saddles. Severe often took the instrument down to play.

Generations of Pendleton Round-Up cowboys have stayed at a bunkhouse on the second floor of the saddle shop. Randy’s uncle Duff, who operated Severe Brothers Saddlery with Randy’s father Bill Severe, started the tradition when a couple of rodeo cowboys mentioned they couldn’t find a place to sleep. World champion saddle bronc rider Casey Tibbs is credited with christening the bunkhouse Hotel de Cowpunch and hanging a sign.

Cowboys pay nothing at Hotel de Cowpunch except for a signed photo of themselves that hangs on the wall. Saddle bronc rider Cody DeMoss has stayed at the bunkhouse every Round-Up since 2004. Severe befriended the cowboy, fixed his banged-up saddles and taught him about life and leatherwork. The saddlemaker, DeMoss said, had a soft spot for cowboys.

“He would drop what he was doing for a cowboy in need,” DeMoss said. “He might be working on a $25,000 or $40,000 saddle for a client, but if a cowboy came to him with a torn-up bronc saddle, he’d drop everything to help.”

DeMoss said the hole left by Severe’s death is huge.

“Humanity has lost a fine human,” he said.

As a boy, Severe spent a lot of time in the family saddle shop, learning braiding techniques and making belts and wallets. Uncle Duff wouldn’t let him build saddles until he was married. After high school, he left Pendleton for a time, working on ranches in Arizona, Nevada and Oregon. He left for a season and got back in time for Round-Up. The ranch work was great preparation for making saddle gear.

“You get to understand the stress and strain that goes on a saddle and that beautiful squeak,” he said.

Eventually he met Rosemary and popped the question. After their honeymoon in 1974, Duff met Randy on the doorstep and said, “It’s time.”

Duff schooled Randy in the art of saddle making. Bill taught Randy’s brother Robin how to craft the trees that serve as the saddles’ skeletons.

Friends and family are struggling to imagine a world without Severe. Carl Culham and Bill Quesenberry remember their friend and fellow Round-Up board director as an easygoing cowboy who exuded calm and reason, even when dealing with tough issues. Severe acted as an ambassador for Pendleton.

“He lived and breathed Pendleton,” Culham said.

“He helped put this community on the map,” Quesenberry said.

Severe presided over the Round-Up Association during the rodeo’s centennial year. Often board sessions lasted until past midnight, Quesenberry said, after which Severe went back to the shop for a few more hours to work on trophy saddles.

Both men enjoyed Severe’s sense of humor. Culham told the story of a layover at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport during a trip with Severe and a couple of other directors. They noticed Severe stop and chat with a woman who held a piece of paper in her hand. They watched him dig out a pen from his pocket and sign the paper. When Severe got back to the group, Culham asked, “What was that about?”

“People sometimes mistake me for Garth Brooks,” Severe explained. “It happens every once in a while.”

Severe did look a little like Garth and it wasn’t the only time he signed autographs, said family members. They said they will miss that easy sense of humor, along with his omnipresent smile, unruffled calm and ability to fix anything. As a father, his daughter Jodi Thackeray said, he was “firm, but loving” to his two sons and three daughters. After the punishment, “he came back to tell us he loved us and was proud of us.”

Randy, Rosemary said, was the fun grandfather, making his grandchildren stilts and presiding over “stilt wars.”

Ryan and Jarad Severe learned from their dad’s work ethic.

“He’d work his fingers to the bone,” Ryan said. “He’d never complain about it.”

“He taught us to work hard and serve others and to be happy doing it,” Jarad said.

All of them will miss Randy’s delight at simply being.

“He was big on life,” Jodi said of her father. “He loved just living life.”

Severe died on Sun, Nov. 21, morning surrounded by his family. Daughter Darla Phillips added a final update about her father on Facebook.

“Heaven just gained an amazing man,” she wrote, “to which we will all be grateful for, for the rest of our lives.”

Ride on, cowboy.