Charlie Battles: Rodeo Career, Children, Death & Obituary

Charlie Battles is best remembered as Reba McEntire’s first husband, but his life was much bigger than his connection to the country music star. Before marrying Reba, Charlie had already served in the U.S. Army, built a successful career in rodeo, won major steer-wrestling championships, and become well known within the rodeo community.

Born in Oklahoma in 1945, Charlie spent much of his life around ranching, livestock, and competitive rodeo. He married Reba McEntire in 1976 when she was still building her music career. Their marriage lasted about 11 years and covered the period when Reba transformed from a young Oklahoma singer into one of country music’s biggest stars.

After their divorce in 1987, Charlie remained connected to the rodeo world. He later owned a PRCA rodeo livestock company, remarried, and continued living a ranch-centered life. His final years changed dramatically after he suffered a severe stroke in 2006.

Charlie Battles died on April 21, 2013, at age 68. His obituary remembered him not simply as Reba McEntire’s former husband, but as a military veteran, champion steer wrestler, father, grandfather, rancher, and lifelong rodeo man.

Charlie Battles

Who Was Charlie Battles?

Charlie Battles was an American professional rodeo competitor, steer wrestler, rancher, military veteran, and livestock businessman.

He became especially successful in steer wrestling and won championships during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He later qualified for the PRCA National Finals, establishing himself as a serious competitor long before the public knew him as Reba McEntire’s husband.

Charlie’s connection to Reba began through the rodeo community. Both understood ranch life, horses, livestock, and the culture of competitive rodeo. Their shared background brought them together during the years when Reba was still trying to establish herself as a country singer.

While Reba eventually became internationally famous, Charlie remained strongly attached to rodeo and ranching throughout his life.

Charlie Battles’ Early Life

Charles Warner Battles was born on March 9, 1945, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

His parents were Earl Battles and Ocey Battles Pack. He was raised mainly in the Oklahoma community of Talala with the help of his mother and grandparents.

Charlie grew up in an environment where horses, agriculture, and rural life were familiar parts of everyday living. That background later became central to his identity.

He also had siblings, including a brother named Jim Battles and a sister named Roxey Podpechan.

Unlike celebrities whose childhoods become heavily documented after fame, Charlie’s early years remained relatively private. What is known suggests a traditional Oklahoma upbringing followed by an early transition into military service.

Education

Charlie Battles attended school in Talala and Oologah, Oklahoma. There is no reliable record showing that he attended college or completed a university degree.

Instead, Charlie entered the United States Army in 1962, beginning a completely different chapter of his life while still very young. His military service provided much of the formal training and structure of his early adulthood.

Charlie Battles’ Military Service

Before becoming a rodeo champion, Charlie Battles served in the U.S. Army. He enlisted in 1962 and completed basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.

Charlie later spent more than two years stationed in Germany, where he served as an Armor Intelligence Specialist. After completing his three-year enlistment, he received an honorable discharge on July 7, 1965.

This part of his biography is often overlooked because most articles immediately focus on Reba McEntire. However, Charlie had already lived overseas and completed military service years before meeting the woman who would make his name familiar to country music fans.

After leaving the Army, he returned to Oklahoma and turned his attention toward rodeo.

Charlie Battles’ Rodeo Career

Rodeo became one of the defining parts of Charlie Battles’ life. After his military service, he began traveling and competing professionally, with steer wrestling becoming his strongest event.

Steer wrestling, also called bulldogging, requires a competitor to chase a steer from horseback, jump from the horse, catch the animal, and wrestle it to the ground. It demands strength, timing, horsemanship, and courage.

Charlie became highly successful. He won IRA Rodeo Association steer-wrestling championships in 1968, 1970, and 1971.

Those victories established him as a respected competitor within rodeo circles. His career reached another important point in 1974, when he qualified for the PRCA National Finals.

By the time Reba McEntire became part of his life, Charlie was therefore not simply a local rancher who occasionally attended rodeos. He had already built a serious competitive record of his own.

Was Charlie Battles a Rodeo Champion?

Yes. Charlie Battles was a successful championship steer wrestler. He won the IRA Rodeo Association championship three times, taking the title in 1968, 1970, and 1971. He also qualified for the PRCA National Finals in 1974.

Some websites broadly describe him as a “world champion,” but the more accurate description is that he was a three-time IRA champion steer wrestler and PRCA National Finals qualifier.

Those accomplishments help explain why Reba, who also grew up around rodeo, viewed Charlie as an important figure in that world.

Charlie Battles First Wife

Before marrying Reba McEntire, Charlie Battles had already been married. His first marriage began in 1966. Reba later identified Charlie’s first wife as Sherrie when discussing the early stages of her relationship with him.

Charlie and Sherrie had two sons together before their marriage ended. The exact details of their divorce are mainly known through Reba’s later recollections rather than a public account from Charlie or Sherrie.

Because of that, dramatic claims about exactly what caused the end of Charlie’s first marriage should be treated carefully. What is certain is that Charlie was already a father when he married Reba.

Charlie Battles Children

Charlie Battles had two sons, Lance Battles and Coty Battles, from his first marriage. When Reba McEntire married Charlie, she became stepmother to both boys. Charlie and Reba did not have biological children together.

This often causes confusion because Reba later became a mother during her second marriage, and her larger blended family has received considerable public attention.

During her marriage to Charlie, however, Lance and Coty were the children in the family. Charlie remained a father throughout his life and was later also a grandfather and great-grandfather.

How Charlie Battles Met Reba McEntire

Charlie and Reba met through the rodeo community. Reba had grown up on a ranch near Chockie, Oklahoma, and competed in barrel racing while also pursuing music.

Charlie was already an accomplished steer wrestler. Their shared connection to rodeo gave them an immediate understanding of each other’s lifestyle. Reba later described Charlie as her first great love.

At the time, she was still far from the level of fame she would eventually achieve. Her early recording career was developing slowly, and rodeo remained an important part of her life.

Charlie, meanwhile, had already experienced success inside that world. The relationship eventually became serious enough for them to marry.

Charlie Battles and Reba McEntire’s Marriage

Charlie Battles married Reba McEntire on June 21, 1976, in Stringtown, Oklahoma. Charlie was 31 years old, while Reba was 21. That gave the couple an age difference of approximately 10 years. Their marriage began during a very different stage of Reba’s career.

She was not yet the country music superstar audiences know today. Instead, she was a young singer working to establish herself in Nashville while still remaining closely connected to ranching and rodeo.

Charlie continued traveling through the rodeo circuit, while Reba’s recording commitments gradually increased. For several years, the marriage combined two demanding lifestyles: Charlie’s rodeo career and Reba’s growing music career.

Life Together on Their Oklahoma Ranch

Ranch life was a major part of Charlie and Reba’s relationship. Both understood livestock, horses, physical work, and rural Oklahoma culture. Their shared background helped create a lifestyle that felt familiar to Reba, even as her music career began requiring more travel.

She later remembered that she and Charlie enjoyed rodeoing and ranching together. Those years were not defined only by concerts and record contracts.

For much of their marriage, Reba still lived between two worlds: the ranch-centered life she had grown up with and the increasingly demanding entertainment career that was pulling her toward Nashville.

That balance became harder to maintain as her popularity increased.

Charlie Battles Role in Reba McEntire Early Career

Charlie was present throughout some of the most important years in Reba’s rise. During their marriage, Reba released early albums, developed her touring career, became a Grand Ole Opry performer, and gradually gained recognition within country music.

Charlie was involved in parts of her professional life and reportedly helped with scheduling and aspects of her performances. However, Reba’s career eventually began expanding at a pace that changed their relationship.

By the mid-1980s, she was no longer simply a promising country singer. She was becoming a major star. That meant more touring, more recording, more business decisions, and increasingly less time for the ranch-centered lifestyle that Charlie preferred.

Why Charlie Battles and Reba McEntire Divorced

Charlie Battles and Reba McEntire divorced in 1987 after approximately 11 years of marriage.  According to Reba’s later interviews, one of the biggest tensions involved her rapidly growing career.

After she won the CMA Entertainer of the Year award in 1986, Reba said Charlie wanted her to reduce her workload and spend less time touring.

Reba ultimately decided she could not step away from the career she had worked so hard to build. She later described the situation in simple terms: she chose her career over the marriage. However, their relationship was likely more complicated than that single explanation.

Reba has written about other personal and professional tensions between them, but most detailed accounts of the divorce come from her perspective. Charlie did not publish an equally detailed public version of the marriage.

For that reason, it is more accurate to say career conflict and growing differences contributed to their divorce rather than claiming one specific event ended the relationship.

Reba McEntire Life After the Divorce

The 1987 divorce became a turning point in Reba’s personal and professional life. She moved away from Oklahoma and placed even greater focus on her career in Nashville. That same period produced the album The Last One to Know, which reflected some of the emotional pain surrounding the breakdown of her marriage.

Reba’s career continued rising. She eventually built a business empire that included music, touring, television, film, merchandise, and other ventures. She later married Narvel Blackstock in 1989 and had her son, Shelby Blackstock, in 1990. Charlie, meanwhile, followed a much quieter path after their separation.

Charlie Battles Life After Reba McEntire

Following the divorce, Charlie remained connected to the lifestyle that had always defined him. He continued ranching and participating in rodeo. Charlie owned a ranch near Stringtown, Oklahoma, and remained involved in rodeo competition until around 1993.

His professional rodeo days gradually shifted into business. Rather than leaving the industry, he found another way to remain involved.

In 1995, after moving to Detroit, Texas, Charlie purchased a rodeo livestock operation. He named it the Charlie Battles PRCA Rodeo Livestock Company. The business allowed him to stay closely connected with professional rodeo even after his years as a major competitor were largely behind him.

Charlie Battles Marriage to Donna Granger

Charlie eventually found love again. He married Donna Granger in 1998 while living in Texas. Donna became an important person during the final years of Charlie’s life. Their marriage lasted until his death in 2013.

Unlike his marriage to Reba, Charlie’s relationship with Donna received little national media attention because neither was living a celebrity-focused lifestyle. Donna remained by his side through his serious health problems and cared for him after he suffered a disabling stroke.

Charlie Battles Stroke and Final Years

Charlie Battles’ health changed dramatically in 2006. He suffered a severe stroke that left him totally disabled. The effects were long-lasting. Following the stroke, Charlie and Donna relocated from Texas to Sulphur, Louisiana, where Donna continued caring for him.

Charlie lived with the complications of the stroke for approximately seven years. His final years were therefore very different from the physically demanding rodeo career that had defined much of his earlier life.

A man once known for wrestling steers and competing at major rodeos became dependent on others for care. Donna remained an important source of support during that period.

Charlie Battles Death and Cause of Death

Charlie Battles died on April 21, 2013, at the age of 68. His cause of death was reported as heart failure combined with complications related to the major stroke he suffered in 2006.

It is therefore slightly inaccurate to say only that Charlie “died from a stroke.” The stroke had severely affected his health and left him disabled, but his final cause of death also involved heart failure.

Charlie died in Louisiana after spending his final years there with his wife Donna. His death came more than 25 years after his divorce from Reba McEntire.

Charlie Battles Obituary

Charlie Battles’ obituary offered a much fuller picture of his life than the label “Reba McEntire’s ex-husband.”

It remembered him as Charles Warner Battles, an Oklahoma-born man who served in the U.S. Army, competed successfully in professional rodeo, raised a family, ranched, and later owned his own rodeo livestock company.

The obituary also documented his military service in Germany, championship steer-wrestling years, PRCA National Finals appearance, sons, grandchildren, siblings, and marriage to Donna.

At the time of his death, Charlie was survived by his wife Donna Battles, sons Lance and Coty, brother Jim, sister Roxey, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

His graveside service was held at Mimosa Pines Cemetery North in Louisiana. For readers who know him only through Reba, the obituary reveals something important: Charlie had his own long history in rodeo and ranching that continued well beyond their marriage.

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Charlie Battles Age, Height and Appearance

Charlie Battles was 68 years old when he died. His exact height and weight are not reliably documented in strong public records.

Historical photographs show Charlie as a strong, athletic man, which fits the physical demands of professional steer wrestling. However, exact body measurements published on celebrity websites should not be treated as verified unless supported by an official rodeo record.

Charlie Battles Net Worth

Charlie Battles’ exact net worth was never publicly disclosed. He had several possible sources of income during his life, including:

• professional rodeo
• ranching
• livestock
• rodeo business operations

His later ownership of the Charlie Battles PRCA Rodeo Livestock Company also suggests that he remained commercially involved in the rodeo industry.

However, there is no reliable public record showing the value of his property, business assets, investments, savings, or debts. Online estimates that place Charlie’s wealth at a specific figure should therefore be treated as speculation.

Reba McEntire’s later fortune should also not be used to estimate Charlie’s personal net worth. Their marriage ended in 1987, and their finances took separate paths afterward.

Charlie Battles Legacy

Charlie Battles remains connected to country music history because of his marriage to Reba McEntire, but his own accomplishments deserve attention. He served his country. Charlie became a championship rodeo competitor. He qualified for the PRCA National Finals. Charlie raised two sons. He worked as a rancher. And he later owned a rodeo livestock company.

His marriage to Reba happened during a fascinating period in both of their lives. Charlie was already established in rodeo, while Reba was only beginning the climb that would eventually make her one of the most successful women in country music.

Their paths ultimately separated, but rodeo remained central to Charlie until late in his life.

Lesser-Known Facts About Charlie Battles

• Charlie Battles’ full name was Charles Warner Battles.
• He was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1945.
• He joined the U.S. Army in 1962 and served in Germany.
• His military position was Armor Intelligence Specialist.
• Charlie won IRA steer-wrestling championships in 1968, 1970, and 1971.
• He qualified for the PRCA National Finals in 1974.
• Charlie had two sons, Lance and Coty, before marrying Reba McEntire.
• He and Reba had no biological children together.
• Charlie was around 10 years older than Reba.
• Their marriage lasted about 11 years.
• He continued working in rodeo after their divorce.
• Charlie later owned the Charlie Battles PRCA Rodeo Livestock Company.
• He married Donna Granger in 1998.
• A severe stroke in 2006 left him disabled.
• He died in 2013 from heart failure and complications related to the stroke.

Frequently Asked Questions About Charlie Battles

Who was Charlie Battles?

Charlie Battles was an American professional rodeo competitor, rancher, military veteran, and businessman who was also known as Reba McEntire’s first husband.

When was Charlie Battles born?

Charlie Battles was born on March 9, 1945, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

How old was Charlie Battles when he married Reba?

Charlie was 31 years old when he married 21-year-old Reba McEntire in 1976.

When did Charlie Battles marry Reba McEntire?

Charlie Battles and Reba McEntire married on June 21, 1976, in Stringtown, Oklahoma.

How long were Charlie Battles and Reba married?

They were married for approximately 11 years, from 1976 until their divorce in 1987.

Why did Charlie Battles and Reba McEntire divorce?

Career differences were an important factor. Reba later said Charlie wanted her to slow down her growing music career, while she wanted to continue touring and performing. Their marriage also experienced other personal and professional tensions.

How many children did Charlie Battles have?

Charlie had two sons, Lance Battles and Coty Battles, from his first marriage.

Was Charlie Battles a professional rodeo competitor?

Yes. Charlie was a successful steer wrestler who won three IRA championships and qualified for the 1974 PRCA National Finals.

Was Charlie Battles in the military?

Yes. He served in the U.S. Army from 1962 to 1965, including more than two years in Germany.

Did Charlie Battles remarry after Reba?

Yes. Charlie later married Donna Granger in 1998. They remained married until his death.

When did Charlie Battles die?

Charlie Battles died on April 21, 2013.

How old was Charlie Battles when he died?

He was 68 years old.

What was Charlie Battles’ cause of death?

Charlie Battles died from heart failure and complications from a serious stroke he had suffered in 2006.

What did Charlie Battles’ obituary say?

His obituary remembered him as a U.S. Army veteran, championship rodeo steer wrestler, rancher, businessman, father, grandfather, and husband. It also documented his decades-long involvement in professional rodeo.

What was Charlie Battles’ net worth?

His exact net worth was never publicly confirmed. Specific figures published online should be considered estimates rather than verified financial information.

Final Thoughts

Charlie Battles may always be widely recognized as Reba McEntire’s first husband, but that description captures only one chapter of his life.

Before Reba became famous, Charlie had already served in the U.S. Army and established himself as a championship steer wrestler. He later built a life around ranching, rodeo competition, and livestock business ownership.

His marriage to Reba lasted from 1976 to 1987 and unfolded during the years when her career was growing from modest beginnings into major country music success. Their different priorities eventually contributed to the end of the marriage.

Charlie continued following his own path after the divorce. He remained connected with rodeo, started a livestock company, remarried, and spent his final years with Donna Granger.

After suffering a disabling stroke in 2006, his health declined significantly. Charlie Battles died in 2013 at age 68 from heart failure and complications related to the stroke.

His obituary makes his broader legacy clear: Charlie Battles was not only Reba McEntire’s former husband. He was also a decorated rodeo competitor, Army veteran, rancher, father, businessman, and lifelong member of the American rodeo community.