Stories About Steve

Neighbor Steve Walker was a best friend back when this picture was taken and continued to be a best friend for the rest of my life. Elizabeth and I were always very excited when Steve would show up in San Francisco and allow us to become part of one of his amazing journeys.

On one of these travels Steve continued north to the Yukon where he pushed a bale of hemp out of an airplane somewhere near White Horse. Nobody journeyed through life like Steve. What courage he showed, and what an astonishing ability to communicate with any human he met. Steve was watching my son play one day, long ago, in Uvalde. He came to me and said in all seriousness, “Your son is a very loving child.” Well, Steve knew what it was to be a very loving man. And this loving skill is how he was able to live such a fantastical life so full of amazing journeys.

Now my dear friend Steve is born again into that undiscovered country from which no traveler returns, as Shakespeare didn’t exactly put it. For reasons you would understand I cannot join you and say goodbye. But the main regret I have is that I will not get to meet the loving people that only Steve would know.

Will Huddleston
August 21, 2026

Steve was a true South Texas cowboy without the cows and outdoorsman, one of the last of his kind. When I first met him in the Fall of 1973 to Spring of 1974, his uniform never changed: blue jeans, a rugged leather belt with a knife sheathed on the side of his belt, a blue jean jacket over a white cowboy shirt, boots, and that cowboy hat. I was 24; Steve was 25.

In the first years after I met him, we took a number of trips through South and Central Texas and northern Tamaulipas. He always waxed poetically about his pack trips through the Sierra Madre, “where the parrots fly through the pines,” he would say. We spent many nights around the fire swapping tales. Steve and I shared the importance of having good stories and sharing them. He was one to watch the land and the men in it, recording in his mind the colorful stories of men carving homes and ranches out of the wilderness and the predators and prey struggling to survive in nature’s labyrinth.

As a young man, he not only sought out history and stories of the wild and the land—he sought to make good stories out of a life of adventures. His art was how he lived his life and shared it with others. I’ll never forget one such story, when we were coming back one day from Tamaulipas in his Jeep. At the Brownsville Bridge, the customs agent spotted dove feathers in the back and sent us to secondary inspection. The CBP officer opened up Steve’s canvas bag and pulled out Steve’s pistol. With his eyes widened, the officer exclaimed, “What the hell is this?” In a matter-of-fact manner, Steve replied, “A Smith and Wesson .357 Model 27.” Even more excited, the agent asked Steve, “Do you know what they would give you for this in Mexico?”—meaning many years in the penal system. Steve replied, “Only worth a couple hundred over here, but I could get about three hundred and fifty dollars for it in Mexico.” Always pure dry humor with Steve, and always quick on the draw. When the agent next asked if he had any doves hidden in the panels of his Jeep, Steve smiled and said, “Now, if I was going to smuggle doves back, do you think I’d be so sloppy as to leave feathers in the back?” The agent just smiled and waved us through. Steve had so many such stories but those were only his to share.

I remained in and around the Valley for several years, and Steve and I would meet and swap stories or go fishing on the Arroyo Colorado or Laguna Madre. After I moved away, we saw each other infrequently, but we’d touch base and share stories about jaguarundi, that giant legendary fish, and those giant legendary bucks. His stories, which he told on TV, no doubt inspired countless people to live their appreciation of the outdoors and conservation of the gifts that God has given us. Steve was one of the people who certainly helped inspire me. I will miss his laugh and listening to his stories.

My regrets and prayers go out to his family, whom I want to thank for sharing such a wonderful tribute to Steve in creating the website, the heartfelt obituary, and his YouTube videos. His TV life was after I no longer lived in the Valley, and his shows are mostly new to me. I have begun watching them and am grateful his shows—and the technology to connect to them—exists and can reconnect us with Steve.

Barry Hogan
Hogan Wilderness Retreat, Harwood, Texas · August 23, 2026

Steve’s family has written a beautiful obituary for him. To tell what Steve had done over his lifetime would have filled several hundred pages. I could fill a chapter myself about the adventures of surviving Cummings Jr. High School.

Les Hodgson, his brother Larry, and Steve were part of the hood in those days. After some time at Brownsville High, Steve and I were invited (although it sounded more like a demand) to attend Schreiner Institute in Kerrville to complete our high school education. At the time, Schreiner was a military school affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. Again, I could fill another chapter about surviving military school.

One such adventure has gone down in the laurels of school history as the best prank ever. Steve, his roommate, and another couple of inmates ran a homemade Schreiner flag up the flagpole at the public high school and affixed it so it could not be easily lowered, requiring a fire truck. Of course, this only fired up the local boys to retaliate.

Our adventures carried over to many hunting and fishing outings in Texas as well as Mexico. When traveling in Mexico, I found that Steve made many friends with the owners and workers at the farms and ranches we hunted near. He was well liked wherever we went, having the gift of making friends easily. My dad loved Steve, and in his later years they would enjoy spending hours spinning tales about their adventures in Mexico.

Steve was all of the things mentioned in his obituary and many, many more.

Rest in peace, my friend.

Bobby Ostos
August 17, 2026