When Texas hill country native Jacob Fuller began his college education at Northwestern Oklahoma State University in Alva, he found what he feels is his life’s calling.
With a background of competing in FFA livestock events back home in Texas, Fuller said that once he started college, he quickly discovered a love for veterinary medicine, and specifically, caring for large animals including cattle and horses.
“It wasn’t until I began my undergraduate education when becoming a veterinarian sparked my interest,” Jacob said. “I began shadowing a rural mixed-animal veterinarian and learned what large-animal medicine was and what all it entailed, and I fell in love with it.”
He has navigated his way from Alva to Stillwater and now to Hugo, where he is currently working as a full-time veterinarian at the River Valley vet clinic in the southeastern Oklahoma town.
Jacob said that while he was growing up in his rural hometown community, he was an active FFA member, competing in livestock judging and range judging in addition to showing pigs. He said he has always enjoyed being around animals.
Jacob earned his undergraduate degree from NWOSU, then after his job-shadowing experience at a vet clinic, he began pursuing his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree at OSU. He said the program at OSU was mostly small-animal focused with a small amount of large-animal programming, but he said that if a student had an interest in practicing large-animal medicine, they were able to take those courses as electives.
When it came time to begin looking for veterinary externships to gain hands-on experience, Jacob focused on clinics that were hiring a full-time veterinarian.
“We use the externships as a working job interview while in vet school,” Jacob said. “I was having a tough time finding a clinic that was looking for a large mixed-animal practitioner.”
He said most places are not willing to hire someone who is solely a large-animal practitioner, and when he did find a clinic hiring for such a position, most opportunities were either exclusively bovine- or equine-focused and not aimed at mixed large-animal medicine.
Jacob began his search for a clinic to join for his externship by visiting a clinic in Okmulgee that was hiring, and they suggested that he look into the River Valley vet clinic in Hugo. He shadowed Dr. Eastwood, one of the full-time veterinarians at River Valley, and then later transitioned into a full-time position upon his graduation from OSU.
As one of three veterinarians at the clinic, Jacob plans to focus primarily on the large-animal portion of the clinic, specializing in equine and cattle.
“You have to be a lifelong learner and be teachable,” Jacob said. “I’m still looking up research papers throughout the day trying to figure out if I’m providing the best treatment or if there is a better option. We’re constantly learning and changing.”
Even though Jacob has found his dream position at a rural veterinary clinic, he continues to expand his skills and knowledge to grow as a professional. Jacob has expanded his education by completing a course at the Oklahoma Horseshoeing School. He is also planning to take an animal acupuncture course and has additional plans to take courses in chiropractic medicine and physical therapy for large animals.
As Jacob pursues his veterinary medicine dreams, he is not the only one in his young family with an interest in large-animal medicine. His wife, Siona, whom Jacob met at NWOSU, will graduate from Oklahoma State University in May 2026 with a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree.
Siona said she hopes to lean into the orthopedic side of large-animal medicine to be able to provide surgical care to rural patients.
“I got into a love for orthopedics when I worked for a doctor during undergrad,” Siona said. “I want to be able to give rural patients the options of either performing the surgery myself or going to a specialist.”
Siona will join the team of veterinarians at River Valley upon her graduation from veterinary school in May. The Fullers plan to stay at the River Valley vet clinic in Hugo with a long-term goal of opening their own large-animal practice in the Forgan area where Siona grew up.
With backgrounds in rural areas, the Fullers want to give back to rural communities and help farmers, ranchers and rural residents through their veterinary care services.
Jacob said the kind of people who rely upon the services that large-animal veterinarians provide are the hardest-working people who often do not receive the recognition they deserve, and it is an honor and a privilege to work with them.
“Growing up in a rural community and not having access to any veterinary medicine is what put a passion in me to give back to rural communities,” Siona said.
Jacob is the inaugural recipient of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture’s Large-Animal Veterinarian Scholarship. The OKFB Foundation for Agriculture seeks to address the decline of large-animal veterinarians in rural areas, which affects farmers and ranchers, by offering the scholarship.
The $15,000 scholarship is awarded to a student who is studying veterinary medicine at OSU, which is the state’s only school of veterinary medicine, and who has intentions of working as a large-animal veterinarian in Oklahoma.
The Fullers are just the beginning of a new generation of large-animal veterinarians who want to give back to rural communities, and the OKFB Foundation for Agriculture Large-Animal Veterinarian Scholarship is helping Jacob and Siona do just that.
“I came from a small, rural town,” Jacob said. “I like the close community feel in a small town, but I also wanted to be the valuable person that comes with being in a
small town.”
