A professor in the OU Religious Studies Program will release the first academic study on cowboy Christians on February 15.

Dr. Marie W Dallam decided to research the cowboy Christian community after finding there was no academic information on the cowboy church.

“It was new. It takes a while for people to notice new religious forms,” said Dallam. The cowboy church is rooted in and unique to the Texas and Oklahoma plains.

Silas B Maple is a sophomore at OU from Antlers, OK, population roughly 2,500. Maple says the cowboy church is central to the small-town communities but widely unknown elsewhere.

“They do their baptisms in a stock tank and gather in a big, metal stockyard building,” said Maple. “Everyone can relate to one another based on the fact they all live the rancher/cowboy lifestyle.”

Many OU students from rural towns grow up with a connection to the cowboy church but

there is no representation of the cowboy church on campus.

The Baptist Collegiate Ministries at OU said while there is nothing on campus for those in the cowboy church, they often refer students to the Union Baptist Association for cowboy church services in Norman.