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story by Steve Alexander, Blaine County Journal; PRCA, and Siri Stevens

Bob Ragsdale was an all-around Montana cowboy, competing in steer wrestling, as well as calf roping and team roping. He qualified for the National Finals Rodeo on 22 separate occasions. Bob never won a world title, but his impact on rodeo has been profound.
He was the Montana High School All-Around Champion in 1956, and became an official member of the PRCA in 1961. He was one of only six left-handed tie-down ropers to qualify for the NFR, and he did so for 15 consecutive years from 1961-75. In that 15-year span, he finished as high as fourth in the world, and never lower than ninth. He competed at the NFR in steer wrestling five times, with two qualifications in team roping as well. Bob earned nine Top 10 finishes at the NFR in the all-around, including a second-place standing in 1972. He continued his support of rodeo by serving as the Vice President (1971-72) and President (1973-75) of the Rodeo Cowboys Association, and is credited as the one to propose the association include “Professional” to the organization’s formal title in 1975. – courtesy of PRCA
Bob was born October 23, 1936 in Harlem, Montana. His father, Slim, always had horses and the family split their time between farming and living in town. “Wherever we were living dad would have horses and they would wander from north of Harlem to the Canadian border.” Bob’s mom told a story about a man coming to the house to see if Bob would round up some horses for him. When the man was introduced to Bob, and saw that he was just a little kid, the man said, “those horses are big,” to which Bob replied, “I’ll take a big rope.”
Bob competed in the Montana High School rodeo. “Back then there was no divisional or regional rodeos, you went to state for a tournament that anyone could enter so long as you preregistered. I won Montana All Around and went on to the high school Nationals in Reno. I placed in a couple of events, but no wins.”
In October, right out of high school, Bob went to the Toots Mansfield Roping School in Texas. “He was a great guy; he showed me how to ‘flank’ a calf. At the time most professional ropers were legging calves. That immediately took a couple of seconds off my time.” To cover the expenses of getting to Texas and paying for the roping school Bob and his dad went to the bank in Harlem and borrowed $300 for the month-long school.
Bob met his wife, Ree, through high school. “We both went to the high school rodeos.” Ree and Bob married in December 29, 1956, after he completed the roping school and returned to Montana. “It was a pretty busy year.” He worked in the oil fields in the winter and that next summer, in 1957, went back into rodeo, working in Yellowstone Park and the following summer at the Cody Night Rodeo. “It was a rodeo,” Bob said, “but it was really a tourist show. We would work maintenance on the grounds for half the day, then do the rodeo show. They were looking for a calf roper, bulldogger and bareback bronc rider. That was 1957 and it was the last time I ever got on rough stock in the rodeo.”

In 1958 the couple welcomed twin girls, Cathy and Cindy; then another girl, Jamie, in 1961.
“With plans to ‘fill my permit’ with the RCA (becoming a member of the Rodeo Cowboys Association, later the PRCA) at the end of the rodeo season in 1961,” Bob said, “I won big at a rodeo in Caldwell, Idaho. The RCA representative for that region was waiting for me and said, “You had better have your permit before you show up at the next RCA rodeo.” Members of the RCA resented non-members winning and reducing members’ chances to go to the year-end national rodeo.”
He moved his family to Chowchilla, California, in 1961 at the invitation of a farmer/rancher who also was a roper. “Dan Branco had a place where we could keep horses and practice roping.” They saved enough money rodeoing to buy a place there and that was home until just a few years ago when they retired. They now spend winters in Bakersfield, California and summers at their place in Landusky, Montana.
Beginning in 1961, for the next fifteen years, Bob made his living roping calves, steer wrestling and team roping. “I followed the money to choose rodeos. In the 1960-70’s I’d go to 90-100 rodeos a year. If I got into a slump I’d do a small rodeo to earn some money and get back on the RCA (PRCA) tour for the bigger rodeos.” He drove a station wagon and it was equipped with a grub box. “We’d camp out – the twins were small enough they could sleep in the front seat and Ree and I slept in the back.”
Because Bob roped left handed, he had to have horses that were comfortable seeing the rope on their left side. “A horse could be startled if it wasn’t used to a left-handed roper, which meant I had to have my own horse, sometimes more than one horse to keep up with the rodeo schedule.” He said often Ree and the kids would be driving one rig, pulling a horse trailer toward an upcoming rodeo, and he would be pulling a different horse to another rodeo on his schedule.
He not only competed, he gave back to the industry through his service as an office holder and active volunteer in a number of rodeo associated groups and as a spokesperson for rodeo. After that, he continued competing in the National Senior Pro Rodeo Association, winning three All Around titles, four calf roping titles and one ribbon roping title.

In 1983 Mac Baldrige, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Ronald Reagan, organized an ‘exhibition’ rodeo for the President and selected guests. He asked Bob to rope in the exhibition which was staged in an arena just outside Washington, DC. Bob also helped create Friends of Rodeo (FoR), a non-partisan group that responded to animal rights issues. “Through FoR we did a better job of telling our side to the media and even instituted ‘chute tours’ so critics and media personnel could see reality about animal treatment.” Bob served as President of FoR and was on governing boards of several other rodeo related organizations, including the Senior Pro Rodeo executive board, during the 1990’s.
From 1973 to 1981 Bob worked for Sears as a consultant for the company’s western wear brand of clothing. “There were several professional cowboys interviewed and I was chosen to help Sears with their western wear line of clothing.” He described his role as “helping Sears clothing buyers and designers meet with rodeo fans and cowboys to see what kinds of clothing they were wearing or would like to see available. I even went to some of the markets with the Sears buyers to help choose the clothing for the next year’s catalog.” Bob often was photographed in Sears western wear for their catalogs and in 1973 was on the cover of the annual western wear catalog.
In the last two decades he’s been recognized with a number of inductions into rodeo related organizations: the St. Paul Rodeo Hall of Fame, St. Paul, Oregon (2001); the Senior Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame (2001); the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City (2003) and The Montana Pro Rodeo Hall and Wall of Fame in Billings. His latest accomplishment happened a few weeks ago in Colorado Springs, where he was inducted into the PRCA ProRodeo Hall of Fame. “It was a great event. I had no idea what to expect – I’ve never been to one before. This was the best one – it was developed by the professional cowboy.”
Bob and Ree saw the world through his rodeo career. Cathy Watkins, one of their twin daughters remembers going to Hawaii with her parents as a result of Bob’s rodeo career. “After Denny (Cathy’s husband and a professional team roper) and I were married we were visiting mom and dad and a guy drove up into the yard. He was from Hawaii and wanted dad to come to Hawaii and teach a roping school. We all went to Hawaii and while dad taught ropers the rest of us were treated to the sites of the islands. I think it was at that point I realized just how special my dad’s role was in rodeo-he was known all over the world. My sisters and I got to see a lot of things and meet a lot of interesting people because of his career choice.” As to interesting people, Cathy told about meeting a fellow teenager she and her sister met while traveling with their dad. The teenager played the guitar and the girls all sang together. The guitar player was Reba McEntire, whose dad and older brother were both accomplished ropers. “Of course none of us kids, at that time, had any idea of how Reba would develop into a famous singer and actress.”
For Bob, the biggest change in rodeo is in the rodeo competitors and the amount of money they make. “When I first got into professional rodeo, most of us were cowboys. The competitors now are truly athletes, devoting their lives to the sport and continually doing things to improve their ability to compete.” In the old days, “We often had to work other jobs between rodeos to keep our families going.”
And the winnings have increased. “When I was RCA All Around runner up at the NFR in 1972, I think first place for All Around paid about $40,000. That number now is in the neighborhood of $300,000-400,000.
“Whatever I’ve been able to accomplish has been through rodeo. I tore my knee up in 1976, and started looking for other things to do. But I had put enough away and then I got into the construction business. Everything I was able to do was because of rodeo.”

In 1957, Ken Adams was the year-end NIRA Bull Riding Champion. The Arizona cowboy qualified four times for the CNFR and competed there twice when it was held in Colorado Springs, Colorado. As a college student on a shoestring budget, he used his winnings to buy books while attending Arizona State University, and his experiences inspired him to start a scholarship for the NIRA Bull Riding Rookie of the Year four years ago. Since then, the NIRA Alumni have created a scholarship for the rookie of the year in each event, and in 2017 alone, they contributed $10,500 in scholarships to the CNFR.
Born in 1933 to Kenneth and Gladys Adams, Ken was the second of three boys. His parents had moved from Missouri during the Great Depression, and while en route to California, Ken’s dad was offered a job driving delivery trucks in Arizona. The family stayed and made their home near Phoenix, and Ken got his first job riding horses with a girl his age at a livestock auction nearby when he was 11 or 12. “I hadn’t ridden at all to speak of – we just started riding whatever horse we could a hold of,” Ken recalls. “We got a dollar apiece riding horses for them back in the ‘40s. I guess people thought it was a pretty good horse if a couple of kids could ride it, but anyone could ride in that ring.”

Not long after that, Ken started riding calves and cows in junior rodeos around the area, catching a ride with anyone who had a car. “I think the first time I ever won money, I was riding cows. The horses didn’t show up to the rodeo, so I got into cow riding. Someone would give you tips, but mostly they just let you get on and learn. There were no schools, and I didn’t have anybody I traveled with that was older, so all of us were pretty much in the same boat. I think the opportunities to learn are much improved now, and the biggest thing to me is videotaping performances to watch them and learn.”
Ken continued riding roughstock in the bareback and bull riding, though he won the most riding bulls. “I think at the time I had really good balance, and it was easier to find bull ridings than anything else.” Ken also worked on two or three ranches during high school, including the Boquillas Ranch, which now belongs to the Navajo Nation and is in the top 25 of the largest working cattle ranches in the United States. “I gathered horses for them, and then I’d enter rodeos and hope I learned something every time. The Palace Bar in Prescott was like an employment agency. Ranchers who needed a cowboy would go in there, or if you needed a job you went in there,” says Ken. He also worked at the copper mine in Baghdad, Arizona, for several months, living on site and hauling debris from the mill, but he hadn’t been there long when he was drafted into the Army during the Korean War. Although the cease-fire was signed by the time Ken finished basic training, he still shipped to South Korea where he drove supply trucks. “There was not much glamour in our jobs, unless you wanted to eat! Seoul was pretty much a mess – it had changed hands four times, but those trucks we had could go pretty much anywhere. All the roads were narrow and dirt, and in the summer they were very dusty. They had huge trucks, but the ones I was driving were three axles.”
Ken was discharged from the Army in 1955, and he enrolled at Arizona State University in 1956, majoring in animal science. Though he had dropped out of high school, he finished his GED in the Army, and he joined the rodeo team and competed in the West Coast Region. He even tried his hand at steer wrestling. “I wasn’t too good in timed events. I told everybody I had a record in the bulldogging – I was in the bulldogging seven or eight times and never got a flag,” Ken says with a laugh. He was helped along the way by college teammates John Fincher and Jon Nickerson. Ken enjoyed rodeoing in California and as far north as Klamath, Oregon. He was also a member of the RCA when a membership cost $10, and on summer breaks, he competed in Colorado, Utah, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri, though many of his favorites were in Arizona, such as Phoenix, Prescott, and Tucson. “Some of the little towns didn’t have anything (like motels) to sleep in, so we’d sleep in the back of a car. You stayed in rooms when you were prosperous, and we’d split rooms with three or four people usually.”

Ken met his wife, Sharon, at school, and they were married after he graduated and she finished her teaching certificate. “We got married in July of 1960. I’d been teaching school for a year, and Ken won second in the bull riding at Prescott, so we had enough money to get married,” says Sharon. After he finished college, Ken was a brand inspector for several sale barns, then went into the crop spraying business with his brother-in-law before finding his niche in the animal health business selling medicine. Though Ken quit rodeoing not long after they were married, he stayed involved with rodeo by judging several of the law enforcement rodeos a college friend of his organized, along with jackpot bull ridings. In the late 1970s, one of Ken’s friends Stan Harter, a college champion tie-down roper, asked Ken to be the manager of the PRCA Turquoise Circuit when the circuit system was just getting started. Ken served on the board for three or four years and helped put on the finals, along with soliciting saddle donations. “The Turquoise Circuit Finals Rodeo was in Phoenix at the fairgrounds, and for some reason, there was a mix-up one year and all of the trophy saddles got shipped to our house!” says Sharon. “Each saddle came in a big box, and we had them everywhere in the house because we couldn’t leave them outdoors.”
Ken became involved in the NIRA Alumni when he attended the NIRA reunion in Rapid City, South Dakota, in 1997, the 40th anniversary of his NIRA bull riding championship. The following year, his friend Stan Harter was waiting for a kidney transplant, and he asked Ken to represent him on the NIRA Alumni board during the annual meeting. Together, Ken and NIRA founder, Evelyn Bruce Kingsbery, put together the 50th Anniversary Reunion of the NIRA in 1999, and Ken was president of the NIRA Alumni from 1999-2001. Sharon served as the NIRA Alumni secretary for 12 years, and Ken continues to serve on the board of directors. He hasn’t missed a performance of the CNFR since he started attending 20 years ago. When he started raising money for his bull riding rookie of the year scholarship, his plan was to ask former champions to donate $100 each, and by the next year, donations were coming in to provide scholarships for all nine college rodeo events, including team roping header and heeler. “I never had a scholarship, and even the year I won, I was never offered a scholarship,” Ken explains. “They’re giving quite a few scholarships now, but I just thought the rookie scholarship was something somebody wasn’t already covering.”
When they’re not off to the next CNFR, Ken and Sharon make their home in Phoenix, not far from where Ken grew up. They have a son, Ira Adams, and daughter, Adrienne Schiele, and her husband, Mark Schiele, while Ken and Sharon’s two grandsons, Mike and Matt Schiele, live in California. Ken stays current with rodeo via television and never misses a rodeo or bull riding, while he wrote and published a book of short stories about rodeo called “Rodeos, Pig Races & Other Cowboy Stories.” He and Sharon continue their passion of supporting the NIRA and alumni, and they are searching for all NIRA champions, top finishers, faculty, and board members from years ending in eight to join them for the 2018 Annual Reunion.