When Gene Coan was a senior at Dublin High School, he took an agricultural co-op class that required him to find a parttime job in an agricultural field. He began working at a dairy, which set him up for a nearly two-decade career in dairy farming.
Coan graduated in 1981, and continued working at dairies in the area. He worked for David Fine’s dairy, Fine Meadow Farm, for a while. “He really knew the industry well, I learned a lot out there,” Coan said.
After working for Fine for several years, Coan took a job with the Texas Dairy Herd Improvement Association as a milk tester. In 1982, Coan bought some cattle of his own and started working for Joe Mac and Donna Riley, Rose Hill Dairy near the Dublin airport.
He enjoyed working with the animals, but the ups and downs of the industry eventually got to Coan. “Help was hard to find and the milk prices would get really good for a while and then they would get bad for a long while,” he said. “It’s just a roller coaster and I got tired of that.”
Coan sold his dairy cows in 1997 and started a new job as a truck driver. “My dad was a truck driver and I always said I wasn’t going to drive a truck,” Coan said. “But I’d be darned if I didn’t.”
Some of Coan’s relatives started a company called Armstrong Trucking, and Coan started out driving for them. He soon found that he loved the work. “I liked to drive, I liked the people I was associated with, and I liked seeing different parts of the country,” he said. “I covered a lot of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi.”
Coan even bought his own truck. He thought it would help the business, “but it turned out to be a piece of junk,” Coan said. “It nearly put me out of the trucking industry.”
To cover his losses, Coan took a job at Ingram Concrete, a concrete company based in Brownwood. “I hauled rock and sand to plants all around the area,” he said. “We had plants in Hamilton, Clifton, Brownwood, Comanche.”
Coan worked there for nearly three years, until his diabetes began acting up, and he had to start taking insulin. A Texas law prohibits drivers to be on insulin, so Coan had to find another profession. He ended up finding a job in sales, selling New Holland tractors.
After a year of selling tractors, he started selling life insurance for ( American NationalInsurance) in 2008.
Coan sold life insurance for over a decade. Now, he’s on the verge of starting a new job working for Titlemax. He will be helping people out with loans on their car titles. “I’ll be talking to people, finding out what they’re wanting to accomplish, what they need the money for and things like that, and trying to help them out,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to help people.”
Coan is looking forward to the change. After he had to quit truck driving, he had a hard time finding something he felt passionate about. “If I hadn’t had to quit driving because of my diabetes, I would probably still be doing it,” he said. “I enjoyed it that much. It’s been hard to find something that gets me going, but I’m hoping this job does. It’s a really good company, and I’m hoping to retire from there.”
When he’s not working, Coan enjoys competing in 3D archery tournaments. He first learned to shoot a bow when he worked at Fine Meadow Farm in 1982. One of the other employees brought a short bow to work, and Coan began practicing with it. “I got to where I could hit what I was aiming at on a pretty regular basis — and then I didn’t touch a bow again until 2011,” Coan said.
That was the year Coan found out about 3D archery tournaments. “There are tournaments where the targets look just like an animal you would hunt out in the wild,” he said.
He spent years traveling for tournaments during the January-July season. Last year, an elbow surgery prevented him from competing, but he hopes to get back to shooting this coming January.
Coan has been married to his wife, Tammy Coan, for 34 years. “We went to high school together,” he said. “We were out in the rodeo arena in Dublin one night before school started my senior year, and she came walking by,” he said. “I told a couple of friends that I was going to ask her for a date. It took me a couple weeks before I got up the nerve to do it, but I did and then we dated for a long time and finally got married.”
The Coans have no children, but they enjoy hosting exchange students when they get the chance. “We’ve hosted eight over the years, all from Europe,” Coan said. “They come and stay with us for ten months, for a whole school year.”
Coan still stays in touch with some of the students, even years later.
Throughout his life, Coan has worked hard to overcome his own self-doubt. “I know I can do a lot of things, but I have to get past me in order to get there,” he said. “I have a tendency to myself that I can’t do it.”
Coan’s advice to Dublin graduates is to find ways to broaden their horizons. “Get all the education you can get,” he said. It doesn’t have to be college. It can be a trade school or anything. Find something you love, and do it.”
As a loyal member of the Double N Cowboy Church, Coan also emphasizes the importance of faith. “Keep God in your life, in your marriage, and in your heart,” he said.
Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other grads, email publisher@dublincitizen.com.