Leo O. Barnes passed away at Holdenville General Hospital on Tuesday, April 5, 2011, at the age of 86 years.

Leo was the son of Oscar & Ella (Akins) Barnes, born on April 21, 1924, in Sasakwa, Oklahoma. He grew up wherever his family lived, in various parts of Oklahoma, California and Texas, mostly Oklahoma. He became at a young age the man he would be all his life, an all-American truck-driving cowboy.

Leo enjoyed nothing more than watching the white line on the highway fly past from behind the wheel of his semi truck. He started driving the big rigs in the early 1940s, when he was in his early 20s, hauling various loads cross-country for various companies. He married Kazuko Bethany on August 16, 1974, in Seminole, Oklahoma and lived for several years in Seminole and later in Choctaw, Oklahoma, driving gasoline trucks for Star Oil, Red Rock and Oklahoma Tank Lines. He was known on the road by his CB handle of 'Snake', and known also for winning the Driver of the Year award for logging more than 2.3 million miles of driving without an accident. He retired in 1990, after more than forty years of driving.

When he retired, Leo & Kazuko moved to rural Holdenville, their home for the past 21 years. Leo loved the outdoors. He enjoyed building fences and barns, he enjoyed hunting and fishing. He enjoyed nothing more than watching the ground fly by from the saddle of a fast horse. He was a 32nd degree Mason of Myrtle Lodge in Oklahoma City. He loved his family, and his love of trucking is carried on in truck drivers scattered throughout his family across three generations. He spent his life doing what he loved most, and enjoyed life to the fullest.

He is preceded in death by his parents, Oscar & Ella Barnes.

He is survived by his beloved wife of 36 years, Kazuko, of the home; six children, four grandchildren, seventeen great grandchildren, and five great great grandchildren; two sisters, Oleta Sanders and Bonnie Jean Blackwood, and one brother, Don Barnes; nieces and nephews, other relatives, and many friends.

Funeral services will be Friday, April 8, 2011, 3:00 p.m. at Fisher Funeral Home's Lillye Chapel, and Leo will be laid to rest in the Lamar Cemetery. Rev. Dave Blackwood is the officiating minister. Pallbearers are Jim Ussery, Ronald Woody, Charlie Akins, Robert Akins, Mason Davenport and Bob Farinelli.