Family searches for clues to a missing farmer’s location

(NewsNation) — A rural Oklahoma community is desperate to find a farmer who simply disappeared one day, rattling the community and leaving them searching for answers.

Bruce Benson, a farmer who never lived outside the one-mile area where he grew up, disappeared one day, and his wife can’t find any clues as to where the 69-year-old might be.

Benson’s new boots sit by his chair, as if waiting for him to come home. He was getting all the wear he could out of his old pair, a source of pride for his wife, Maxine Benson.

“He had his old Red Wing boots on because he saved, you know. I mean, we didn’t throw nothing away, before it was time to throw it away,” she told NewsNation.

Sitting with their son Grady, Maxine Benson can’t quite believe she’s in the house she and her husband shared for five decades, talking about why he isn’t there.

“You don’t think it’ll ever happen to you. These things don’t happen in Cotton County. I’ve said that before. It’s the unknown,” Maxine said.

In November 2022, Maxine left Bruce home alone while she went on a girls’ trip to Branson, Missouri. That night, Grady got a flat tire on the plow and Bruce drove his pickup truck out to help.

”I was getting a tire out of the barn, and he pulled up there and shined his lights, so I could turn the lights on in the barn,” Grady said.

Bruce said goodbye from inside his truck.

”I told him I’d see him tomorrow,” Grady said. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Bruce had a relatively new phone, but he insisted on getting a flip phone, so when Maxine’s texts weren’t returned, she wasn’t worried. At least, not at first.

”The next morning, I tried again, and then nothing. So, I called him,” she said.

Grady was also looking for his father.

“So, I come back over here. I came up to that door, knocked on it. I could see his boots in here and now seeing it was early morning, I thought he’s probably still in bed. I’ll make a few rounds, take some cattle, and come back by,” Grady said.

While making those cattle rounds, Grady saw Bruce’s pickup parked right where it belonged.

“I come back through, knocked on the door. And when he still didn’t come to the door, I was, you know, getting this feeling something’s not right,” Grady said.

Maxine and her friends hurried home. Soon, they had much of Cotton County, Oklahoma, searching for Bruce.

His unlocked truck contained keys, his cellphone and his wallet, with $200 cash inside.

Maxine and Grady never believed they’d be sitting in the house six months later, still not knowing where Bruce is.

As the months passed, Maxine’s Facebook posts changed from farming and family to efforts to find her love in time for their 50th wedding anniversary in July.

”The thing my mom has said to me, the day we got married, is always take care of your man. And I’ve tried to do that,” Maxine said.

Grady has been tending to both his ranch and his parents, as well as helping look after Bruce’s 91-year-old father.

”He wouldn’t just up and leave, you know, this place, everything that he’s ever known, only place he’s ever been,” Grady said.

Everything still sits in place, ready for the much-loved farmer to walk back through the door.

“A lot of people said, ‘How can you stay there by yourself?’ I said, easily. I said for 50 years, there’s nobody can run me off this hill. Nobody. They’ll have to carry me away from here. And I’ll never give up looking for him. Never,” Maxine said.

Bruce Benson is 5-feet, 11 inches tall and weighs between 180 and 190 pounds. He was last seen wearing a white-collared shirt with thin green stripes, Levi jeans and his glasses.