Gina Howse made the trip from Calgary to Edmonton to spend the holidays with her three children, but a stop outside of Rogers Place this week turned her holiday upside down.
“I parked in this very same spot here, walked in, not even 35 minutes later came back to my truck, I noticed something was different,” Howse said.
She said someone broke into her truck and stole several gifts that were inside.
Among them were three replica rodeo buckles she had made to mimic the championship buckle won in 1960 by her father, Joe Howse, who passed away in 2016.
“It’s horrible. I haven’t been able to sleep, it took me a bit to be able to pick up a phone and call the kids and tell them this is what happened,” Howse said.
And this isn’t the first time the family has had a rodeo buckle taken.
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Back in 2018, the original was stolen out of her sister’s truck in Calgary.
That buckle was returned after Global News covered the family’s desperate search.
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Howse said the replica buckles cost several thousand dollars and finding someone to make them was not easy.
“It’s not the amount of money — it’s the history, it’s the memories and you took something away from me and my children that we’re always going to remember as a sad day,” Howse said.
Howse said the truck doors were locked and she is working with police to hopefully get them back.
‘My dad’s buckle seems to be some sort of magnet for thieves or something, for something like to this to happen again and to repeat itself, I just can’t understand,” Howse said.
She’s hoping the story of stolen buckles will once again have a happy ending.
“Please give me my buckles back so I can give them to my kids,” Howse said.
If you recognize the buckles or know where they may be, contact police.
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