Stephen Mathus Gose, Jr. (Steve) was born February 3, 1930 in Wichita Falls, Texas. He was the younger of two sons of Stephen Mathus Gose (Sam) and Cecilia Adickes Gose. Steve had a great childhood with the support of numerous relatives and friends. As a youth, he developed a love for football, fishing, and horses -- all of which he apparently tried his best to pursue every day. He attended Crockett Elementary School and Wichita Falls High School, then entered the University of Texas in Austin in 1948. There he studied geology and soon met his wife to be, Margaret Hastey. In 1950 they married and moved back to Wichita Falls.

Steve began his career with his father in the real estate business, but by 1951 he had made the decision to follow his lifelong dream and move into the oil and gas business. Throughout his business life, he established a pattern of buying up mineral leases in anticipation of drilling, developing or leveraging them into other frontier areas. In 1959, he turned to the Arkoma Basin of Eastern Oklahoma and Western Arkansas. There he put together a large lease inventory and brought a massive new natural gas play to life. Most of these wells are still producing and many have produced in excess of 100 billion cubic feet of gas in their lifetimes. Throughout the rest of his life, Steve had the vision to change geography in search of the next big opportunity. His work took him from Texas and Oklahoma, to the Rocky Mountain Basins including Canada, Oregon, Nevada, and eventually Argentina.

In the 60’s Steve began playing polo. His love for the sport grew from an early fondness for horses through his marriage to Marty whose father and brother played and mentored him, to the point in the late 70’s and early 80’s when he built and operated the largest polo club in the country at that time, the Retama Polo Center. The US Open Championship was held at Retama from 1979 through 1986 along with the National 8 goal Championship and many other prestigious tournaments. Players from around the world came to participate in polo that was fast and fun and Steve always played on teams that were quite competitive at the highest levels of the sport. He is a 4 time winner of the US Open, 2 time winner of the Gold Cup, and many of the other top trophies in the sport. In 1997, Steve was inducted into the Polo Hall of Fame.

He and Marty moved from Wichita Falls in 1976 to San Antonio and lived there until 1996, when he decided to “work the basins of the Rockies.” He pursued his love of fly fishing there through the properties he bought and their waters which he nurtured the rest of his life.

Steve is a past-president of the Texas Thoroughbred Breeders Association and founder and Board member of the Associated Republicans of Texas. He is a former Governor of the Southwest Circuit of the United States Polo Association, he was named an Honorary Alcalde of the City of San Antonio, and also served as Mayor of Selma, Texas. Steve recently completed an eight year term as a board member of St Vincent’s Healthcare Foundation in Billings.

Steve is survived by his wife Marty, his sons and their wives Matt and Leigh, Tom and Martha, his daughter Martha and her husband, Chris; grandchildren Stephen, Ty, Marianna, Christopher, Kate, Amanda, Clair, and Phillip; great-grandchildren Jack, James, Julia, Grady, Mila, Hastey, Brevin, Frankie and Laurel.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in Steve's name to the St. Vincent Healthcare Foundation, 1106 N. 30th St., Billings, MT 59101. Steve's family is forever grateful for the extraordinary care and love the St. Vincent nurses and doctors showed during Steve's lifetime.