Joyce Sharp and Horses

text by Lynn R. Miller of Singing Horse Ranch
photos by Kristi Gilman-Miller

If you spend time around Central Oregon livestock circles you are bound to run into a sweet, quiet, lovely and strong woman with excellent hands and a good team in harness. That woman is Joyce Sharp.

Joyce has been helping with the Small Farmer’s Journal auction for decades. She has worked clerking at the livestock auction yards all around the area. Twenty five years ago Joyce and her husband Jack Bissell joined us to help mow our first Singing Horse Ranch hay crop. They showed up with teams and mowers and joined three others to work for two days to cut down 100 plus acres. It was hard work and Joyce stuck with all of us through to the end.

From that first shared working we have enjoyed her steadfast friendship and courage. After Jack passed on, Joyce married legendary horse trainer John Sharp. John and Joyce were fixtures all around cowboy country with her teams and John’s training workshops and clinics including helping with the BLM wild horse adoption programs.

A few years back John Sharp passed away and Joyce now spends her days caring for the ranch known as John Sharp’s Corral with a small herd of cattle and 20 some head of horses. Joyce rides a magnificent dapple grey Quarter horse she calls Levi and drives a Haflinger/Belgian cross team. Besides being an active part of the local Mounted Posse she does lots of parades and events like the Dufur Threshing Bee.