Category: Back When They Bucked

Pat Litton was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her dad was an ex-farmer that worked for the state and had a garbage route. “He later went into construction with his dump trucks and helped build airports during the war,” explained the 88-year-old from Gillette, Wyo. “We traveled all over. I went to 17 high schools. I got to know a lot of people and do a lot of things.” She had one brother and one sister – they both passed from cancer.
She went to college at Black Hills Teachers College for two summers and became a teacher. “I started teaching at 17, right out of high school. Teachers were hard to find. I taught in the Inya Cara school on the HK Divide, above Moorcroft.” She had 10 students in all 8 grades, including one that was the same age as she was. “I can remember when I went out to teach – it was quite a walk up the hill to school and I never went to town because I didn’t drive.” The opportunity developed her love for teaching and kids. “We had a great time together, we could use our imaginations.”
She has gone to the WNFR every year since 1974, when it was still in Oklahoma City. “I would go down with the high school association and secretary the rules committee meetings.”

She met her husband, Bob Isenberger, at the corner drug store in Gillette where she was working. “He worked for the Moore family, and came in and there was a glow around his head,” she remembers. “It just hit me like a ton of bricks.” He was at a dance she was at and they danced. “The school I taught was a skip and jump from the ranch he was working on and we started going together.” They were married within four months. The couple settled at Nine Mile Ranch and lived in that sheep wagon that first year. She and her husband lambed 3,000 ewes and Pat loved it. “The guys couldn’t get me out of the lambing pen.” Bob rode saddle broncs and bareback horses and competed in bull riding. “They used to say about him that none of the neighbors’ calves were safe – he was either riding or roping them.” The couple took a summer off and rodeoed. Pat had every intention to start barrel racing and team roping. “I would get so nervous that my feet would shake out of the stirrups, but I was pretty fleet footed and I entered the cow milking race because I could run. I was an ok ranch horse back rider, but not a rodeo horse back rider. I love horses and love to ride.”
After the summer, Bob took a ranching job and Pat continued to time local rodeos. Mike was born in 1954 and, Lee, was born in 1956. Mike was killed in a trucking accident on his 20th birthday, August 2, 1974. “Lee and I had just taken off to secretary a steer roping in Thermopolis.” She had checked into her hotel room and got the phone call.
Pat got involved through Bob with the Wyoming High School Rodeo Association; he was serving on the Board. Pat was recording times and word got out. Bob was roping calves and team roping and they spent every weekend rodeoing; the boys started with the high school rodeo. Pat ended up getting involved with the Fair Board in Gillette and ended up timing through that as well. Both boys were involved in 4H and Pat was a 50 year 4H leader. “I just liked working with kids. They are the most honest individuals.”
The couple also produced the Little Cowpokes rodeo at their house, an event for kids age four through junior high. “We did that for 13 years, and quit doing that after Bob was killed.” Bob went to Douglas to get a part for a water pump in January of 1974. He waited for the bus to come in with the part and he was 12 miles out of Douglas and in a white out. He was off the road and over corrected and rolled the pickup and was killed. “The boys were terrified; they were both in high school. If it hadn’t been for rodeo, I don’t know how I would have survived. There was always something I had to do – it was my salvation. I have a love affair with rodeo and the people involved with it.”

Pat became the National Director for Wyoming High School rodeo in 1975 and was instrumental in developing the point system. “Before the point system, you had to win the state finals in order to get to the Nationals. Some kids didn’t do good at the Finals and so couldn’t make it to Nationals. Scott Redington and I worked on it – the system was set up so that it was consistent too. When I think about how many hours it took us to put it together. There had been others that had tried to come up with something, but we had to come up with something that was consistent and fair to every state. That was the hardest thing. We made the presentation to the National Board.”
Pat met Gene Litton, who was serving as the secretary/treasurer for the National High School Rodeo Association. “I wouldn’t let myself get serious about him,” she remembers, but the couple ended up getting married on February 15, 1980 and had 30 years together before he passed away.
“We were responsible for the first computerized rodeo,” said Pat. “Gene was secretary treasurer for the National High School and we had started computerizing, and he came to Wyoming to visit us when we had our state finals because of the good reports on our team. We built the National High School office at our ranch in 1980,” she said.
Pat was the first member of the National High School Rodeo Association Foundation – her number is #1. “The Foundation gives scholarships every year and our goal was to have every senior that applies for a scholarship gets one and I think they did that last year.”

She has moved to a retirement home in Gillette. “I hope that I have accomplished everything that God wanted me to accomplish and that in some small way have touched a lot of lives. I guess I had so much help throughout my life from so many people and I hope that I never said anything that was harmful about anybody. All that I’ve wanted in my life was respect – and being liked.” The Governor dedicated one day a year as Pat Litton Day. “I think about all the things I was able to do and am glad to have been able to do it.”
Pat claims her biggest accomplishment is being a wife and mother. “I hope I’ve been a good role model to all the kids that I worked with and that I have instilled some spark in the lives of the youth of America.”

 

story by Merrill A. Ellis

Logan Adams grew up in a rural Texas community. Actually, he was born on his grandparent’s Carpenter Ranch which is nestled outside of the Texas Hill Country town of Medina. His other grandparent’s ranch on the Adams side of the family was just down the road. The Texas raised cowboy had a passion for riding, roping, and the western way of life. He attributes this to his numerous uncles who taught him these skills while tending to the ranches. Even though he learned these abilities at a very young age, he never participated in a rodeo during his youth.
He was always a competitive athlete. While in high school he enjoyed participating in every sport offered. He even was a Texas state qualifier in discus, an all district football player and captain of his football team.
“The entire community followed us to our football games. The joke was the last one out of Medina should turn out the lights,” Logan stated with a smile.
Football was his passion. After being recruited by the Sul Ross State University Lobo Football team he continued to excel in sports. One of his friends at SRSU was the famed, Dan Blocker, who enjoyed an illustrious career on the TV show, Bonanza.
After a year of football at Sul Ross, the football coach decided to take a job at Southwest Texas College in San Marcos. He asked Logan to be a part of that football team and he did. While at Southwest Texas College, he began to dabble in the sport of rodeo.
“The coach told me I had to quit football or quit rodeo due to eligibility reasons. So, I decided to pursue rodeo,” stated Logan.
In a matter of fact, while on his first date with his late wife, Mabel, he won the steer wrestling at a rodeo in San Marcos. He had met her through his first cousin, Betty Ann Carpenter. She and Mabel were suite mates at Baylor University.
“Yep, Betty Ann grabbed my winnings and took it upon herself to make sure we all had a good time that night,” Logan stated with a smirk.
The rodeo world has a unique way of luring young men and women into its sport. And it did just that to Logan.
Being raised in Bandera County he had numerous Rodeo Cowboy Association (RCA) World Champions to idolize and ask questions about their roping expertise.
The late Ray Wharton, 1956 RCA World Champion Calf Roper, was Logan’s selected mentor.
“He got me started by encouraging me to rope and really practice with determination. He thought I had some potential and he pushed me to go ahead,” stated Logan.

He continued, “He allowed me to practice on his horses which was a great benefit for a young roper.”
In 1956, Adams was issued a permit by the RCA. He decided that he was ready to compete against the “big boys” of the organization and he entered his first pro rodeo in Kerrville, Texas.
He stated, “One of the biggest moments of my roping career was winning the first RCA rodeo I went to in Kerrville. It was just down the road from my hometown and I had a lot of family and friends there to watch.”
It was not until 1960 after a successful ranching career that he decided to pursue his dream of rodeo.
“I quickly filled my permit at Independence, Missouri. I choose rodeos where I could participate and manage my ranching operation.”
Logan won or placed at almost every major RCA rodeo in the United States roping calves.
In the 60’s, he and his wife, Mabel were featured in the Fort Worth Star Telegram as a unique rodeo couple. Mabel, a city raised girl, was participating in the ranch rodeo barrel race and Logan was roping calves. The two were also showcased in the Houston Post during the Houston Fat Stock Show and Rodeo. This was Mabel’s hometown.
Logan was a skilled match roper. He won 10 out of 12 matches. In 1966, he was recruited by Elizabeth Hopson, to ride her stallion, Montes Joker in the Appaloosa Sweepstakes 10 head calf roping. He won the competition two years in a row.
In 1970, he purchased John Clay Cattle Company, a major livestock marketing firm in the United States.  He has made a life long commitment to the cattle industry.  Weekly he gave the market report to Perry Kallison’s farm and ranch radio show in San Antonio. Kallison was one of the founders of the San Antonio Livestock Show and Rodeo. Logan also maintained his childhood roots in Medina, Texas where he engaged in an active ranching lifestyle.
He has been involved with the Rodeo World in various capacities most of life.  He has judged Miss Rodeo Texas, served on the Bell County PRCA Rodeo Committee, produced the Texas Circuit PRCA Steer Roping Finals and produced the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association (NIRA) Southern Region Finals.
There have been many good calf roping horses purchased throughout the years from Logan that have helped other ropers excel. He always had a knack for taking a horse to the next level in the competitive calf roping arena.
“I quit roping off of a horse at the age of 80. I just decided it was time,” he stated. “This was very difficult time for me because it is something that I have enjoyed doing most of my life.”
Logan and his wife, Mabel were married 60 years before she passed away in June of 2016. As a former deacon of a First Baptist Church, he now spends his Sundays worshiping at 3C Cowboy Fellowship in Salado, Texas.
“I have always been a prayerful man. I know that with God we will get through the storms and he will give us strength,” explained Adams.
One of his greatest passions during his career has been teaching numerous cowboys and cowgirls to rope.  This also carried through to his own three children, Merrill A. Ellis, John Logan and Jimmy, who each had roping careers of their own.
Some of those cowboys he helped included the following: Richard Thompson (deceased)-Texas High School Rodeo Association Champion and National High School Rodeo Champion, Johnny Kirk Edmondson-American Junior Rodeo Association Champion, College National Finals Champion. two times PRCA Texas Circuit Champion, Billy Albin, College National Finals Rodeo Champion, and Roy Angermiller-NIRA Southwest Region Steer Wrestling Champion, PRCA Texas Circuit Steer Roping Champion and Calf Roping Qualifier, and eight times NFR Steer Roping Qualifier.
Logan Adams is pleased to be a Gold Card holder in the PRCA. In 2011, he was inducted into the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame. During his induction speech he stated, “All I ever wanted to be was a cowboy and I am proud to say I am.”

Merrill A. Ellis is the daughter of Logan Adams. She is a graduate of Eastern New Mexico University where she earned a master’s degree in communications and education.She currently serves on the board of the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association Alumni.

Today’s cowgirls don’t know the debt they owe Betty Sims Solt. The New Mexico cowgirl was on the front lines, working to make opportunities for girls and women in rodeo.

At a college rodeo, Solt won the girls’ all-around title, and received a ten dollar watch for her efforts, while the boys’ all-around won a saddle and a scholarship. “I was disappointed when things like that happened,” she said.
She spent much of her high school and college days, and the years afterwards, working for equal opportunities for the young women in rodeo.
Betty was born in 1935, the youngest of six children and the only daughter of George E. and Wahlecia Dell Blackwell Sims. George was a bronc rider who put his kids to work on the ranch south of Santa Rosa, New Mexico, and whose kids loved to rodeo.
Betty was riding by the time she was five, and in high school, competed in the barrel racing, breakaway roping, and the cutting. At the time, breakaway was not a standard high school rodeo event. She competed in amateur rodeos across the state as well, causing the principal to question if she was interested in school. One day, in high school, she was summoned to his office. He had stern words for her: Did she intend to rodeo, or graduate from high school? Her answer: “Sir, I am going to try and do both.” And she did, graduating as class valedictorian. But that wasn’t the end of it. She talked him into buying calves, so during the last class period of the day, which was for athletics, the students could practice roping at the arena on the outskirts of town.
In college at New Mexico A&M (now New Mexico State), she did the barrel racing, goat tying, and flag race, and again, occasionally, the breakaway; it wasn’t a standard event for women yet.

In high school, she also competed in a girls’ event that no longer exists today: the boot and cigar race. The girls put their boots in a big pile in the arena. They went to the far end then, on a signal, ran to the pile, dug out their boots, put them on, and ran back to their horses, tied up in the arena. After mounting, they rode to the other end, where they were to light a cigar and keep it lit as they rode back to the starting point. In 1951, she won the Santa Rosa boot and cigar race and her first buckle.
She got help and advice from her brothers and dad for the 1951 race. As he drove her to school each day, she’d practice lighting her dad’s cigar, even though “I hated that cigar,” she said. After struggling to light it during races, her brother Tom had an idea: he taped together four matches, and “when he struck those matches, I got that cigar lit in a hurry.” She also had a strategy for the pile of boots: she stood back and as the girls threw the boots back, she’d see hers coming and grab them as they flew by.
She and her brothers, all rodeo contestants, were instrumental in starting the first Santa Rosa High School rodeo, with the inaugural event in 1951. One of the prizes for competitors that first year was yearling calves donated by local ranchers.
Betty set records in high school rodeo, winning the breakaway roping at the 1953 New Mexico High School State Rodeo, and setting a state record in the event the next year, which held for several years.

In college, she went on to excel, winning two world barrel racing championships in the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association (1957 and 1958) and fourteen barrel racing titles. She served on the board of directors for girls events in the NIRA, served as a delegate to the NIRA convention in Colorado Springs, and was tapped to serve as vice-president of the American Junior Rodeo Association (1953-1955), which was put together by Al Davis. She also competed in the Southwest Rodeo Association, which included competitions in New Mexico, Colorado and Texas, winning a barrel racing title in 1958.
Through her high school and college years, she was one of the people who fought to make breakaway roping a standard event, and to even out prize money. It didn’t bother her to voice her opinion. “When I saw what was happening, I knew I was going to work (to make it right.) Some of the others kept quiet and went along, but I didn’t want to do that.” She acknowledges that she wasn’t the only person working to make girls’ rodeo better. “I wasn’t the only one, but I was the most outspoken one,” she chuckled. In 1953, the National High School Rodeo Association crowned its first champion; the NIRA had their first champion sixteen years later.
After graduating in 1958 with a degree in animal husbandry, she hoped to go back to the Sims ranch. But drought had forced her parents to sell it. She was offered a job in agriculture research back East, but she didn’t want to leave the West. So she returned to college to become a school teacher.
One of her best and most favorite horses was a sorrel stallion named Sonny. He belonged to a friend of her father’s, and was used by the friend’s son for the barrel racing. When the son advanced past barrel racing, the father told Betty she could borrow the horse, on one condition: “if you can win, you can take this horse. If you can’t win, you can’t have him.” She won on him, never knocking down a barrel at college rodeos. He was also a dream horse for the flag race, too. If she missed a flag, he would circle again so she could get it. Another exceptional horse she rode was Spooks, her sister-in-law’s horse. Spooks was an all-around horse and she won on him in many events, including barrels, goats, and the cutting.
Betty taught for 33 years, most of them in Roswell, and many of them as a reading teacher. She always tried to work rodeo and the western way of life into her subject matter. “I included ranch life and the history of rodeo in school,” she said. For speeches and demonstrations, she would have students show how to saddle a horse or milk a cow, and sometimes they came to school dressed up like cowboys or cowgirls. She enjoyed her students. “We had a lot of fun.”
Betty continued to rodeo till 1960. Her last rodeo was in the barrel racing at the Smoky Bear Stampede in Capitan, N.M., which she won.
In her adult life, she got involved in cowboy poetry, publishing two poetry books with her brother, and starting the movement in Roswell, chairing the Roswell event for several years. She recited her poetry at gatherings across the nation.
She volunteered as a 4-H leader, was a member of the International Reading Association, and is a charter member of the Berrendo Cattlewomen of Roswell. She was inducted into the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1990.

She, along with Evelyn Bruce Kingsbery and Sylvia Mahoney, founded the NIRA Alumni in 1992, to help rodeo alumni reconnect and not lose touch with each other.
Betty has retired from teaching and many of her volunteer roles. Her daughter Georgia Solt Perry, lives with her, and Betty enjoys her grandchildren: Georgia’s son Ethan and daughter Genna.
She looks back fondly on her rodeo life. Some of the best parts of her life were being with family, on the ranch and in rodeo, meeting new people and competing. “I just loved the excitement of rodeo.”

Laces tied snug, tennis shoe cowgirl Pat North Ommert made hundreds of laps around as many arenas throughout the United States from the 1940s to the 1960s, dazzling crowds with her signature one-foot stand and vivid smile. The trick rider, jockey, and stunt double from California traveled and performed extensively, including 56 performances at the Madison Square Garden Rodeo in New York, and riding in Powder Puff Derbies at the Caliente Racetrack in Tijuana, Mexico. Yet her favorite place is still the back of a horse, and her accomplishments, whether astride or beside her equine friends, recently earned her an induction into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas.
Pat was nominated 18 years ago for the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame before her induction in October of 2016. “I know many of the former inductees, so I was very honored,” she says. In 1999, Pat and her husband, Dr. Willard Ommert, received the California Professional Horsemen’s Association Lifetime Achievement Award for their devotion and contributions to the horse world. Pat is also active in preserving horse trails and the equestrian lifestyle in Southern California, where she grew up and continues to live today.
Born in 1929, Pat was the second daughter of Bob and Vera North. A savvy businessman, Bob started Bob North Hardware Store in Bell, California, during the Great Depression, and the store flourished. The North’s home in Bell was eight miles away from the Los Angeles Union Stock Yards, and the vacant lots around Bell and the Los Angeles riverbed offered plenty of riding opportunities. The North family, including Pat’s sister, Laura, shared a love of horses. Vera, Pat’s mother, came to love horses after being sent to the Mohave Desert in 1912 with her younger sister. They boarded with a family to avoid the polio epidemic in Los Angeles and rode a horse to school. Vera later learned to train trick horses from a circus trainer stabled in Bell. She entered the show business, and even performed in the Hawaiian Islands with the E.K. Fernandez Wild West Show in 1934.
Pat’s sister, who had an act with their mother, was married in 1943 and retired from show business. Pat was 14 at the time and performed the Patsy North and Her Trick Horse Rex act through World War II. Her own trick riding career started when she was 16, and she performed in rodeos and fairs around California. She still holds gold card number 1890 with the PRCA. “The trick riding was easy,” says Pat, who trained her own Roman riding and jumping team of horses. “I was an athlete. During World War II, my family moved to some acreage and we raised calves and did all our own work. My Roman riding was the most fun, and I think more spectacular. The hippodrome is one of the easiest tricks, but to do it with grace is something else. The one-foot stand was really my specialty. I consider myself a tennis shoe cowgirl because I had boots, but it was usually tennis shoes for trick riding and even working the trick horse.” Rex, who was half Morgan, was Pat’s left hand horse in the Roman riding, and Juan Monroe, a registered American Saddlebred, was the outside horse. Pat competed in many of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Rodeo Roman races, and even did several publicity shots for the rodeo.
When one of the North’s horses was sick in the 1940s, the regular vet sent his new associate, Dr. Willard Ommert, to make the farm call. Dr. Will and Pat took an instant liking to each other, and they were married in 1947. “Will was my best fan and loved what I did,” says Pat. “Like my dad, he never had a problem with me performing or being in show business. It didn’t make much money in the early days, but it did take care of the horse costs, and it was always fun.”
Pat’s dad had passed away in 1951 from a heart attack, and after Pat and Dr. Will were married, Vera greatly encouraged Pat to continue her show career. Starting in 1951, Pat performed at the Salinas Rodeo with 14 or 15 other trick riders on her horse Shortcake, working her way into bigger rodeos. “Edith Happy and I worked many California rodeos together. She was a beautiful, long-torso lady who did the most beautiful stand ever,” says Pat, who performed at Salinas for 11 years. “I’m delighted that California Rodeo Salinas is using Edith’s hippodrome stand for their poster this year.”
The year 1953 took Pat to New York City and Boston for several weeks, and Dr. Will used some of his vacation time to travel with her and watch several performances. Everett Colborn from Dublin, Texas, co-owned the World Championship Rodeo Company and produced both the Madison Square Garden Rodeo and Boston Garden Rodeo. Colborn’s own rodeo in Dublin became the Pre-Madison Square Garden Rodeo. Following the Texas performance, the entire production, joined by Pat and her husband, boarded the 24 car train for New York, stopping to perform in Fort Madison, Iowa, on the way. Many rodeo and western movie figures including Tad Lucas, Jim Shoulders, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and The Lone Ranger performed in Colborn’s rodeos. Pat rode Quadrille and the trick riders did publicity work for the rodeo. “That was really fun. The head of publishing for Madison Square Garden owned a white convertible, and five of us trick riders were seen around town. We were always in our western outfits,” says Pat. “We had lunch at the 21 Club, saw the premier opening of a movie, visited the Bellevue Hospital, and had a parade. We also had a rodeo parade in Boston. I rode my Roman team and my husband rode in the parade with me. After the parade, they had a Cowgirl Special thoroughbred race in Rockingham Park in New Hampshire, which I won.”
By this time, Pat and Dr. Will’s first daughter, Annie, was three, and her sister, Janie, was born in 1954. In the 1950s, Pat acquired her Screen Actor Guild card and worked in several motion pictures as a stunt double and driver. One of her friends, showman Monte Montana, needed six women for a horse catch scene in “A Star is Born”, starring Judy Garland and James Mason. Pat was one of the six, along with her mentor, Polly Burson, Faye Blessing, Shirley and Sharon Lucas, and Louise Montana. “The last movie I worked was ‘Cimmaron’, and I was in Tucson for two weeks. They needed girls to ride and drive wagons for the Oklahoma land rush scenes. We made money on those shows, but it was a hurry-up-and-wait business. I had kids and horses at home waiting on me, and I thought of how I could use that time to be home riding!”
In the 1950s, Pat also raced horses, even while on tour with the Bob Estes Wild West Show in 1957 in Mexico City. She retired from show business in 1962, and by then, her daughters were showing in the hunt seat division. Pat also showed hunters and jumpers for a time, and when she wasn’t taking Annie and Janie to horse shows, she was traveling and working with Dr. Will. Originally in the cavalry, he was transferred to the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps after the cavalry was dismounted. He worked with Dr. Bob Miller as the official veterinarians of the NFR from 1962- 1964 when it was hosted by Los Angeles, and his renown as a veterinarian was international. He advanced equine medicine in a number of ways, performing the first equine arthroscopic surgery, and even fitting a horse for contact lenses. “Will was the chief veterinary officer for the 1984 Olympics, and he was the vet for a lot of the California horse shows. I was in the horse show world with him,” says Pat. In 1969, the couple moved to Temecula, California, where Dr. Will built the state-of-the-art Los Caballos Veterinary Hospital, the first privately owned equine clinic and surgery in California. Pat managed the neighboring Los Caballos Farm, a facility for resting and retired horses, and they also raised several colts. Pat leased the ranch out several years after Dr. Will’s passing in 2004, and continues to make her home in Temecula.
Now 87, Pat rides daily, boarding her horse a short distance away. She has four granddaughters and five great-grandsons, all of whom learned to ride from Pat. “I feel that it’s so important for kids to learn about the good earth and see livestock. I love seeing kids who know how to sit on a horse and ride,” says Pat, who supports the Pacific Crest Trail. She’s a member of Saddle Sore-Ority, along with the Rancho California Horsemen’s Association since 1970. “I feel so lucky to have been able to experience several different phases of the rodeo world. I feel I had the best of all of it.”

All Bill Smith ever wanted to do was ride bucking horses, and be like his heroes, the Linderman boys.
Smith, a three-time world champion saddle bronc rider, got to fulfill both of his childhood dreams.
The cowboy was born in 1941 in Red Lodge, Montana, and grew up north of Red Lodge in the little coal mining town of Bear Creek. There wasn’t much to do in Bear Creek. “All there was, for anybody to do,” Bill recalls, “was go to school and go to the rodeo on the Fourth of July. The Lindermans were the thing back then, and they were my heroes. All I ever wanted to do, ever since I could remember, was learn to ride bucking horses. It wasn’t about winning, it was to have a chance to ride bucking horses.”
And he did. The family had horses, and he’d ride anything he could catch. Back then, everybody had two or three head and they weren’t penned up; they ran out in the hills together. Bill and his longtime childhood friend, Chuck Swanson, would pen them and ride them all. “We’d ride the two- and three-year-olds, and we’d get bucked off and drug around.” But it didn’t matter. They were cowboys.
As young boys, they’d work on the local ranches, doing whatever they could, just to be cowboys. And they’d ride anything possible. “I spoiled lots of horses,” Bill mused. “Everything I rode, I tried to get them to buck with me.”

When he was a senior in high school, the Smith family: Glenn and Edna and their seven children, moved to Cody, Wyo. It was perfect for a bucking-horse-crazy boy. With the nightly rodeo, Bill started going, “taking his spills,” and refining his bronc riding abilities. In 1961, he bought his Rodeo Cowboys Association card (the forerunner of the PRCA), and that year, won the amateur bronc riding at the Cheyenne Frontier Days. “That was the first money I ever really had.”
From there, he was ready to hit the rodeo road full time. Starting in 1961, he rode saddle broncs across the nation, competing at every big rodeo in the U.S. and Canada and lots of little ones. He won numerous events, and some of them more than once: Houston, San Antonio, Denver, Cheyenne, Nampa, Ida.; Cody, Prescott, Greeley, Colo.; Las Vegas, Dallas, Omaha, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Memphis, Tenn.; St. Paul, Ore. and more.
He loved to be on the road, and was gone most of the year. But home was still Cody, and his nickname reflected that. He was known as “Cody” Bill Smith. “They latched that on to me,” and he liked it.
Smith made the National Finals Rodeo for the first time in 1965, and then every year except one till 1978: thirteen out of fourteen years. Saddle bronc riding wasn’t necessarily easy for him at first. “I wasn’t an instant success. It took me a while to learn. I was never a natural at it.”
His childhood friend, Chuck Swanson, had moved to Cody with the Smiths. Chuck also rode saddle broncs, and was exceptionally good, Bill remembers. But Chuck didn’t hunger to be on the rodeo road like Bill did. “He was a natural, but he didn’t have the bug quite as much as me. He wanted to be a cowboy on a ranch. I didn’t have time for that. There weren’t enough bucking horses for me.”
Bill estimates he competed at about seventy rodeos a year, with his favorites being the ones with multiple rounds. Back in the day, most rodeos would be more than one round, and cowboys would stay several days in one location. He liked Ft. Worth, which was five rounds, San Antonio, which was six, and Houston and Omaha, which each had several rounds.
Bill’s childhood dream of competing alongside his heroes, Bill and Bud Linderman, came to fruition early in his career. He was entered in the Filer, Idaho rodeo, as was Bill Linderman, and it was four rounds. Smith broke his leg on the first horse, but got on the next three. “I didn’t go far,” he said of riding with a broken leg, “but I got on them. I wasn’t about to let my hero see that I was crippled. I’d buck off after three jumps, but I got on.”
He especially remembers some special horses. His favorite and one that stood out far above the rest was the big palomino horse Descent, owned by Beutler Bros. Bill drew him nine times, riding him five and getting bucked off four. “He was the greatest horse I’ve seen to this day. He could jump higher and kick higher than any horse I ever saw.” If a cowboy drew Descent, there was a good chance he’d win the rodeo, and that was true for Bill. He won Nampa on him twice and got bucked off there once. He won Tulsa on him and placed at the NFR on him.
Other horses stick out in Bill’s mind. Trade Winds, owned by Big Bend Rodeo Co. bucked Bill off once and he covered him once. Trails End, a horse owned by Oral Zumwalt, bucked him off twice. On Harry Knight’s Sage Hen, he was the high mark at the NFR, and she carried him to his first big win in 1964 in Dallas. She bucked him off several times, too. “I wasn’t above being bucked off,” he laughs. “I could hit the ground with the best of them.”
Smith missed the NFR in 1976 due to back surgery, and two years later, decided to call it quits. He was invited to a big match bronc riding at Ft. Worth, called the Copenhagen Skoal Match Ride. It paid a huge amount and included bull riding, tie-down roping, and barrel racing, all invitational. He won it, and decided to retire. “I thought, this is a good time to quit.” So he did. He was 38 years old, and “I was starting to slow down. I was still winning, but I didn’t want to keep going till I couldn’t ride anymore.”
After retirement, he and his wife Carole moved to North Platte, Neb. in the summers where he produced the nightly rodeo. He put on 72 performances each summer, seven nights a week, from Memorial Day to Labor Day. It was good, he said, to get him started on life outside rodeo. “That helped me bridge the gap.”
Then he and Carole bought a place in Thermopolis, Wyo. and moved there. They have a semi-annual quarter horse sale, the third Saturday of May and the second Saturday in September. The sale started in 1983, and this May, they will host their fiftieth sale, with 58 geldings, ten yearlings and a dozen started two-year-olds. They are picky about their horses. He buys the geldings, and he, Carole, and Carole’s nephew Reid O’Rourke ride them. The horses are guaranteed, and they take great pride in having good horseflesh.

Rodeo was a good way to make a living, the best, in Bill’s eyes. “They were the best days of my life, right there, rodeoing. When you can rodeo, ride broncs, and win enough to pay your way, there’s absolutely nothing better. You gotta starve to death for a while, but once you get going, you don’t have a boss, and you can tell anybody in the world to kiss your butt and it won’t bother what you win, if you can ride.”
He holds a deep inclination for horses. “Horses are my life, from the biggest Clydesdale to the littlest Shetland pony. I love them all.”
Rodeo may have changed, but he loves the horses. “The horses still buck. That’s the thing that doesn’t change. Horses still buck.”
“I’ve had a great life, a fairy tale life, actually. A little kid from the coal mines, doing nothing but what I wanted to do my whole life.”

Larry Trenary was “hungry” to rope, and it showed. The Arthur, Nebraska cowboy spent the best days of his life, roping with his sons, Bret and Troy.
He was born in 1939, the son of Elza and Erma Trenary, both teachers, who lived five and a half miles north of the tiny Nebraska Sandhills town. He grew up in a sod house, and when his parents bought the ranch where he and his wife Sonja live, they moved there.
A ranch kid, when his family moved to Lincoln, he “hated every minute of it.” The Trenarys spent vacations and summers on the ranch, and Larry spent time with his uncle Lawrence Shaw at Sutherland, Nebraska. Uncle Lawrence was a cowboy who knew how to rope. Larry knew how to rope from growing up on the ranch, but Lawrence smoothed out the rough spots on his skills, and provided a horse Larry could ride.
He graduated from Northeast High School in Lincoln in 1957, and that summer, went to the Nebraska State High School Finals Rodeo in the calf roping, steer wrestling, bareback riding and cutting. He won the all-around and represented Nebraska in the calf roping and cutting at the National High School Finals.
Then a move to California would add to his rodeo repertoire. Larry spent a year in college in Visalia, Calif., and met two fellows: Manuel Macedo, and Bob Wiley. Manuel got him started team roping, heeling for him at amateur rodeos (team roping wasn’t new in California but it was not common in Nebraska). Wiley, who was from Porterville, Calif., roped and tied calves with Larry all night long. In the old dairy barn owned by Manuel’s parents, with the lights on, “we’d tie calves till three or four in the morning, till we got tired,” Larry remembered. “We were learning to be faster all the time, and consistent.”

After a year in California, Larry was back to Arthur, where he had been dating a local girl, Sonja Mickelson. The two tied the knot in 1959, and lived in California for a short time before making their home on his parents’ ranch north of town, where they still live today.
They ranched, but Larry’s parents weren’t rich and didn’t have a lot of land or cattle to give their son. So he supplemented his income with rodeo. He became a member of the Nebraska State Rodeo Association (NSRA) the same year he got married. He also belonged to the Mid-States Rodeo Association (M-SRA).
Larry dominated his events in the NSRA and the Mid-States. He won the NSRA calf-roping title in 1961 and 1963-64, and the heeling title in 1961, 1972, 1978-79, and 1982-83. In 1984, he won the heading title. In 1961 alone, he won the all-around, calf roping and team roping titles and was reserve champion in the steer wrestling. He also won numerous titles in the Mid-States.
Larry competed in the PRCA as well, roping at Denver, Ft. Worth, Cheyenne, Chicago, Pendleton, and other venues, and at USTRC ropings. But he didn’t want to be gone from home that much, so he returned to the NSRA and Mid-States, plus ropings and rodeos in Nebraska and surrounding states. When he turned forty, he joined the Old Timers Rodeo Association (now the National Senior Pro Rodeo) and the Living Legends Rodeo Association. In 1991, he and Tony Tonozzi won the world in the USTRC’s senior division.
His most memorable calf roping horse was possibly the best calf horse ever in the state, he thinks. Old Black “was as ugly as could be,” Larry said. Old Black supposedly came from the wild horse herds in Montana, and was brought to Nebraska by a horse trader. Uncle Lawrence traded two bucket calves for the horse and he and Larry trained him. Old Black was never truly tamed. “He was so wild, he would kick you. You could never trim his tail and hardly trim his feet. He was just an outlaw, but he was a terrific calf horse.”
Larry and Sonja have two sons, Bret, who was born in 1960, and Troy, born three years later. Roping with his boys was his joy. “When my boys got old enough (to rope), that was the finest time in my whole life.” The three were serious students of the sport. They practiced hard, setting up a video camera and watching their runs, to see where they lost time and how to make it up. “We really worked at it, because it was our livelihood.”
The three Trenarys roped everywhere. If there was a good roping, they were there. They competed across Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, anywhere there were steers and a chute. They put on roping schools as well, teaching kids the fundamentals of the sport.
When Troy was seventeen years old, he was hit in the head while playing high school football. The injury put him in a coma for fifteen days. He had been an excellent heeler, Larry said, and three friends came and stayed for days, trying to help Troy rope again, but the use of his right arm was gone. Their son is still alive, and able to lead a normal life, and for that, Sonja and Larry are grateful.
After Troy got hurt, Bret switched from heading to heeling, so Larry, who heeled, lost his partner. He tried five or six different headers, but things weren’t the same. In his last years of roping, he found a good partner: his friend Marvin Mueller.
Bret’s team roping career flourished. He roped professionally for years, qualifying for the National Finals Rodeo in 1987, heading for Allen Bach.
Not growing up with a silver spoon in his mouth was an advantage, Larry feels. “I didn’t have the money to do things, and I had only one really good horse, and gosh, not very good vehicles. I was purt near broke, but kept going because of my roping.” He feels that money isn’t always the answer. To be a good roper, “I think you have to have the ability to stay on track, and the will to win. Money won’t do it. I know so many kids that their folks have a lot of money, and they want to be a great calf roper or team roper. But most of the guys who are really, really good have had to go without things in their life. You can’t give it to them. It just doesn’t work that way. They don’t seem to have enough guts to stay with something that long.
“You gotta be hungry for it, almost like you need the next dollar to eat on. That forces you to try not to make a mistake, because if you make a mistake, you’re not going to win.”
He and his boys were that way, he says. “We were like a basketball team. We trained here at home, and everywhere we went, we watched the good guys. And on the way home, we’d talk about the good guys, and what they’d done that made them so great. We just learned from them.”
The best days of his life were spending time with his boys. “It was everything,” he remembers. “We were learning together. We’d argue and fight, but it would all come out to be the best.”
Larry roped his last calf at the Arthur rodeo in the late 1970s, on Old Black. He quit team roping at the age of seventy, after having been an NSRA member for over fifty years. His roping was as good as ever, but his knees hurt. Two years ago, Larry was inducted into the Nebraska Sandhills Cowboy Hall of Fame.
Larry and Sonja take great pleasure in their grandchildren, Jhett and Mercedes, the son and daughter of Bret and Dede, who live in Salida, Colo. Mercedes, a former college breakaway roper and goat tyer is teaching school in Oklahoma. Jhett, who team ropes with his dad, is a student at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas. “They’re the delight of our life,” Sonja said.

They sold their cow/calf herd a few years ago and now background calves, which Larry enjoys. “It’s not work to him,” Sonja said. “He just loves what he’s doing. We just keep a-going.” Troy lives with his parents and helps out with the cattle work.
The couple enjoyed their rodeo years, and life now, too. “It’s a wonderful life, what we’ve done,” she said. “It’s been a great life. We’ve been up and down the road. I wouldn’t change it for anything, and I know Larry and the boys wouldn’t, either. “We love what we do.”

Jim Ivory admits he’s a gypsy, and that’s part of what has made him enjoy the rodeo world.
The cowboy, who grew up in northern California rode bareback horses at the National Finals Rodeo (NFR) four times, and has worked behind the scenes at rodeos across the world.
He was born in 1942, the son of Ed and Ellen Ivory, in the tiny ranching town of Alturas, California, the third generation of the Ivorys to rodeo. His dad worked on the ranches in the area, and “we were raised in those cow camps in the corner of Nevada, California and Oregon,” Jim remembered. Ed was a stock contractor, gathering bucking and saddle horses from the ranches and hayfields of the country. Jim and his siblings went along when it was time to rodeo. “That’s the only time we went to town, when the rodeos were going.”
He competed in junior rodeos in nearly every event. There was no high school rodeo association then, and kids ages thirteen through eighteen could enter the juniors. The family moved to Redmond, Oregon during his high school years, and he competed in amateur rodeos while in high school.
After high school graduation in 1960, he continued to rodeo. There were plenty of opportunities for it, too. “There used to be a lot of good amateur rodeos around there (California, Nevada, Idaho, and Oregon), and you could win a lot of money.”
By 1962, he got his Rodeo Cowboys Association (forerunner to today’s Pro Rodeo Cowboys Association) permit, and hit the rodeo trail professionally. One of the first pro rodeos he competed in was the Portland (Ore.) International Livestock Show. From there, he headed south to the Cow Palace, where permits weren’t accepted but he was on the labor list.

He rode bareback horses professionally for four years, often serving on the labor list as well. He worked for the Christensen Brothers Rodeo Co., Beutler Brothers, Harry Knight, and Cotton Rosser, and frequently for his uncle, Buster Ivory, who had bucking horses and put on rodeos.
It worked well, riding and working at the events. “The first year I won $9,000 and it was all in the bank, because I had a job all the time.”
Working on the labor list, he did everything, flanking, driving truck, feeding and sorting stock. “I’ve done everything in the rodeo business except announce,” or work as a barrelman or bullfighter, he said. He rode bulls in the amateur ranks a bit but barebacks was his niche.
In 1967, the first year of four that he qualified for the NFR, he traveled with fellow bareback rider Jim Houston. Houston had asked Jim to travel with him, and Ivory was glad he did. “He refined my bareback riding,” Ivory said. “He made me a better bareback rider than I was. He was a great coach.” One year, Houston helped hone the skills of the three top bareback riders: Ivory, Paul Mayo, and Clyde Vamvoras. It was a testament to Houston’s good teaching skills. “He was a heck of a coach, because we all rode different but he had the ability to see what your natural skills were and how to improve what you did,” Ivory said.
Jim’s best year was 1969, when he finished second to the world champion, Gary Tucker.
After the 1970 season, he quit rodeoing professionally. The most rodeos he had competed at during a year was 77. “I didn’t like that much, rodeoing that hard,” he said. He also liked to have fun. “One of my downfalls was I thought I was supposed to have fun, so I didn’t do as good as I should have, but I had a lot more fun than a lot of them.”
He also knew he wanted to quit before he got to where he dreaded it. “I saw some of my old heroes, and they didn’t want to get on. They screwed around in the chute. I said, when this is no fun anymore, I won’t do it.” He could still win, but “it got to where I didn’t really like getting on.”
In 1972, in partnership with Australian bareback rider Jimmy Dix and Jim’s brother-in-law Van Vannoy, he shipped quarter horses, including a Triple A race horse, to Australia. He and his wife Cathy lived there for four years, taking care of them.
In 1975, he and Cathy came back to the U.S, and he worked at the Sunlight Ranch west of Yellowstone. In 1977, he began producing the Cody (Wyo.) Night Rodeo, which he would produce for a total of thirteen years (from 1977-1980 and from 1998-2006).
He also helped his uncle Buster produce rodeos in Europe in 1970, spending three months there as part of Rodeo Far West. The entire rodeo “outfit” was shipped there, including 100 head of saddle horses and seventy bucking horses and bulls. A few times in the 2000s, he took a group of cowboys to Brazil to enter their rodeos: Cody DeMers, Wesley Silcox, and Steve Woolsey, and Lewie Feild, as pickup man, among others.
Jim was part of a unique group: five cowboys at the 1967 and 1968 NFR had been members of the Redmond High School wrestling team: Jim, his brother John (a saddle bronc rider), bareback rider Ken Stanton, his brother Bill Stanton (a bull rider), and Larry Mahan, who did all three roughstock events.
Jim won’t agree that they were tough, but they were: “I don’t know if we were tough or not but we were tougher than some of them.” The Redmond bunch was a good rodeo group. “A lot of really tough rodeo kids came out of that group that I rodeoed with. Jack Thrasher, the Stantons, Buzz Seeley” and others. “We could go to those amateur rodeos and win a lot of money.”

The best bareback horse Ivory encountered was a horse owned by Reg Kesler. Three Bars, a 2004 inductee into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame, “was no doubt the best, rankest bareback horse there’s ever been,” Jim said. “She could throw everybody off, and it always hurt, for some reason. There’s been a lot of good ones over the years but she was unbelievable.” Three Bars was selected to buck at the NFR in three decades and won the bareback horse of the NFR in 1967, 1973 and 1980. Jim got on her twice, getting bucked off both times. “She almost killed me the first time,” he quipped, “and she did the second time.”
While he was on the rodeo circuit, Jim made Pampa, Texas his address, because his uncle Buster lived there. He loved Wyoming and Montana, and he and Cathy moved to Wyoming after marrying.
In his later years, Jim has shared his experience with Chad and Matt Burch of Burch Rodeo, and Chad loves working with him. He has an eye for bucking horses, Chad says, and they have bought many horses from him. “He knows what to look for with a horse. He’s seen a lot of them,” Chad said. “He’s a very smart man, and he’s been successful at rodeo.”
Jim has helped at many rodeos, including those for Burch, Reg Kesler, and Mike Cervi, among others. He’s raised a lot of horses that were sold to PRCA stock contractors and selected to buck at the NFR. Last year, Jim Dandy, a bareback horse whose mother Jim had sold to the Burches, carried Jake Vold to a sixth round win at the 2016 Wrangler NFR.
He and his wife live in Banner, south of Sheridan, Wyo. He still has a half-interest in two studs and three mares, and continues to help the Burches with their rodeos but doesn’t do as much as he used to. When Chad asked him to come to Kaycee, Jim told him he was too crippled to do anything. “I’m just a pretty face,” he told Chad, and Chad replied, “that’s what we pay you for,” Jim laughed.
He and Cathy, who married in 1969, have four children: sons Buster and James, daughter Mandy, and a daughter Kelly Jo, who passed away when she was four years old. Buster lives in Gillette and has two daughters and a son; James lives in Virginia with his two daughters and son, and Mandy is in Australia with two children.
Looking back on his rodeo life, Jim can’t imagine doing anything else. “I really liked to get on bucking horses, and the lifestyle and the people, the freedom and the money. It was a lot better than working on the ranch.
“I’ve been playing cowboy since I was three years old. That’s all I ever did, and I’m still playing it.”

story by Judy Goodspeed

“Going down a cotton row with a hoe or pulling a sack gave me the desire to do better. My dad was disabled from a stroke, but back then there was no such thing as a monthly check. The only solution was all ten of us kids worked, and worked hard, but none as hard as our mother. She worked in the field, managed a large garden, canned, cooked, washed by hand, patched our clothes, and kept a clean house. Even though our clothes were patched they were clean and she would always say, ‘Now you kids act as good as you look.’
“My parents Robert (Bob) Hatcher and Flora Tuel Hatcher were both sixteen when they married in 1920. They began married life on an eighty-acre farm sharecropping for Dad’s father. I was born in 1934, the seventh child at that time, three more came later.
“There wasn’t much time for anything but work, but occasionally when we’d get a break we would ride the workhorses.” Phil loved horses and desperately wanted a saddle horse.
“One of our neighbors had horses and did a little trading. I was about fifteen when I ambled over to his place to see what he had. I only had twenty-five dollars in my pocket but was willing to part with it for a horse. He had a three-year-old sorrel gelding he wanted sixty-five dollars for. We worked out a deal and I paid twenty-five down and pulled enough cotton to pay the rest. That little sorrel made a mighty fine horse.”
The little town of Randlett, Oklahoma had a roping arena and Phil became a frequent visitor. He tried his hand at bronc riding and didn’t do very well, tried bull riding and held on for eight seconds.
“I rode the bull but only because he just ran down the arena. Me and one other boy were the only qualifiers so I won second. I decided right then that I didn’t want to ride any more bulls.”
In 1951 Phil and one of his older brothers joined the wheat harvest. They had worked through Oklahoma and made it into Kansas when it came a big rain. It would be days before the ground dried out enough to get back in the fields.
“Our boss asked if we’d like to go to Cheyenne to the rodeo. That was a turning point in my life. I wanted to be in the arena and made up my mind to become a cowboy.”
Phil began to try bull dogging along with calf roping. He really preferred bull dogging and sought out guys who knew something about the event. He was still working at every job he could find which was mainly farming. His dad had died and his mother and three youngest siblings were living in a house a friend had loaned them. Phil helped her as much as he could.
It was about this time that he began dating Norma Bruce. Norma was also from Randlett and they had attended school together, but really didn’t know each other very well. Phil had dropped out of school after the first couple of weeks in the ninth grade. Norma was in the tenth grade when she dropped out of school. They were married in 1954. Phil bought a travel trailer and they started going down the rodeo trail. Years later after they were in one place long enough they returned to school and got their GED.
“I was still farming but making a few rodeos. Problem was I was riding a green horse, but he wasn’t any more green than me. Finally, Aubrey Rankin started schooling me and that helped a bunch. Aubrey bought a good doggin’ horse from Fuzzy Garner. I rode him some but still wasn’t doing much good. It was hard making a living and having money for entry fees. By this time I had taken the plunge and gotten my RCA card.”
Buster Morgan approached Phil and asked him to ride in a quadrille he had organized for the Woodward Rodeo. Phil told him the only way he’d go to Woodward was if he could enter the bull dogging and he didn’t have money for the entry fee. Buster entered him and suggested that Phil ask Lynn Beutler for a job with his rodeo company. Phil was hired to work on the feed crew making ten dollars a day. It wasn’t long before he was also making five dollars a day on the stripping crew. That job involved removing riggin’ from broncs. Then he started grooming the saddle horses and made five more dollars a day.
“This was the perfect place for me. I loved the work, could park my trailer on the rodeo grounds and be close to Norma. The only problem was the three-week layover between Tucson, Arizona Rodeo and the Phoenix, Arizona Rodeo. We moved to Burkburnett, Texas and I farmed for three weeks. Norma was pregnant so I decided to stay close to home until the baby was born.”
After Wayne arrived Phil and Norma hit the rodeo trail again. Phil still worked for Beutler Brothers, but had moved up to supervisor over the feeding crew. Slim Whaley was another cowboy who worked for Beutler Brothers. One of his duties was to buy the saddle horses used in the show and work as a pickup man during the bareback and saddle bronc events. A pickup man also works the bull riding. His job primarily is to get bulls out of the arena as quickly as possible. There is always a chance for something to go wrong so a good horse is essential. Phil was honored when Lynn Beutler asked him if he would fill in for Slim while he recovered from an injury.
“One thing that helped me decide to take the job was I knew Slim had good, dependable horses. The biggest danger for a pickup man was having to rope a mean bull and drag him out of the arena. For a short time, if the gate man isn’t quick enough, you are in a tight place with a big mad animal.”
Everything was going well for Phil and Norma. He was winning or placing in most of the rodeos he entered, mostly in the steer wrestling but often in the calf roping also. He and Norma decided they would like to buy a place and maybe run some cattle, so they started putting money aside when they could.
“We had saved a thousand dollars when I found a horse that I thought I had to have. Without telling Norma I paid six hundred dollars for the horse. Needless to say she was not happy. I think at that time in my life if I’d had to choose between rodeo and my family I’d have picked rodeo. Fortunately, I didn’t have to do that.”
In 1961, Wayne started to school in Burkburnett, Texas. Phil moved the travel trailer to a friend’s yard and that’s where Norma and Wayne lived until summer. Once school was out the family hit the road together.
Phil qualified for the National Finals in 1962. He was winning and doing well so he decided to quit working for Beutler Brothers and rodeo full time. He was broke by the end of the year, so he went back to Lynn and asked for his job back. Lynn made an exception in Phil’s case because he didn’t usually hire back workers who quit, but he hired Phil.
“Lynn saved my bacon.”
Harry Vold approached Phil and asked him to work for him. Phil explained that he would work for him when he wasn’t working rodeos for Lynn if it was okay with Lynn.
“I needed as much work as possible and I really liked Harry. I stayed busy making twenty-three or more rodeos a year. To this day I think of Harry Vold as Mr. Rodeo. He started at the bottom and worked his way up and is a super nice guy.”
Norma and Phil finally started looking for a place to buy. While visiting Jim and Deloris Smith they found forty acres near Okemah, Oklahoma. We looked the place over and decided that it would serve our purpose. So Phil borrowed five thousand dollars and bought a house and forty acres.
“Being in debt bothered me, but the old man I bought the place from tried to reassure me. ‘He said you’re young and healthy. You’ll have that note paid off in no time.’”

Phil got Norma and Wayne settled and headed to Tucson. After the rodeo, he returned home to wait the three weeks until Phoenix. He loaded up his horse, hooked up his travel trailer and got about to Chandler, Oklahoma when an eighteen-wheeler pulled out in front of him. Phil couldn’t avoid hitting him. His pickup was totaled, his horse killed, and the travel trailer destroyed. Now, he was really in debt, but he picked up and went on.
As it turned out he won the bull dogging at Guymon, Oklahoma, the all around at El Paso, Texas and split the average at Denver with Bill Linderman.
“Now that was one of the highlights of my rodeo life. Bill was my idol and one of the nicest guys I knew. I went home with enough money to pay off my debt. That’s another thing I loved about rodeo, it afforded an old poor boy the opportunity to get ahead.”
In 1972 at Nampa, Idaho, Phil was running some fresh steers to see if they were going to do for the rodeo. The horse he was using was young but had never offered to buck.
“It was a crazy deal. I started to get down on my steer but changed my mind before sliding out of the saddle. When I collected myself to get back seated I must have hit the horse in the flank with a spur. He had never bucked but that didn’t mean he couldn’t. He started pitching and instead of bailing out I tried to ride him. I wound up with a broken, torn up knee.
“I was an upset man. We had no income and I was going to be laid up for a spell. Just when I thought all was lost Norma announced she was going to work at the Wrangler Blue Bell factory in Okemah. Later she began working in the treasurer’s office at the Okemah County Courthouse. We survived.”
Phil was disabled for sixteen months and the doctor said he would probably never jump another steer. Twenty-three months after his accident he won second at Hinton, Oklahoma. He continued to rodeo but stayed close to home until time for Cheyenne rolled around. He had to go, but this time he flew instead of driving.
“It’s every dogger’s dream to win Cheyenne and I came close in 1974. My last steer dog fell on me and knocked me out of the running.”
In his rodeo career Phil entered won the all around at Colorado Springs twice, the bull doggin’ at Albuquerque, New Mexico, Nampa, Idaho, Little Rock, Arkansas, Kansas City, Kansas, Plainview, Texas and the all around at Weiser, Idaho. He made the National Finals in 1962 in the steer wrestling, worked at the Finals as a pickup man in 66, 68, and 70, and was a timed event judge at the Finals in 73, and 75. He retired from rodeo in 1975.
“With Norma’s help I had bought up some more land and leased some so we were running mama cows and doing okay. Wayne had graduated high school and been accepted at West Point. I did some cattle buying for people, hauled cattle, took care of cattle for area ranchers, shod horses and broke colts. In 1986 I decided to sell my mama cows and buy yearlings, that is still what I’m doing now.”
Wayne didn’t go back to West Point after his first year even though he enjoyed attending there. He decided to marry his long-time sweetheart and attend Oklahoma State University for a degree in Horticulture. He and his wife have three children.
“Norma passed away in 2008. I miss her everyday. She put up with a lot, but we were both raised in good Christian homes so divorce wasn’t even considered. She was a good woman and I give her credit for doing most of Wayne’s raising.
“I didn’t leave as big a footprint as some of my contemporaries, but no one worked any harder or loved rodeo any more than I did. I never turned my stock out even if the weather was awful, or I was out of the money. There was no quit in me.”

Dick Hermann served his country well. The former saddle bronc rider and pickup man was in the U.S. Navy for 25 years, five years in active duty, mostly in Vietnam, and twenty years in the Reserve. After he was Seaman Hermann, he became a cowboy.
Dick’s story starts as a farm kid, one of seven children born to Roy and Alta Hermann, in 1948 near Lesterville, S.D., southwest of Sioux Falls. For his twelfth Christmas, his dad gave him a set of harnesses, and Dick hitched up Corky and Princess, two of the saddle horses around the place. “They just looked at each other,” Dick laughed. His grandpa tied them together so they couldn’t split apart, and Dick trained them as a team. He remembers pulling his sisters on a toboggan on the lake near the house, behind the team. “I’d cut the corners a little sharp, and roll the girls out” of the toboggan. “They’d laugh till somebody got hurt and then it wasn’t fun anymore.”
There were plenty of chores to do on a dairy farm, and Dick couldn’t participate in after-school sports. When he was a junior, he quit school. “I wasn’t much of a school guy,” he remembered. He did odd jobs, and youthful energy started getting him into trouble. A friend suggested they join the military. “We were going to get into trouble if we didn’t.”
He joined the Navy in 1966, because the Marine and Army recruiter weren’t around. “The only guy there was the Navy recruiter,” Dick said. “I said, if I don’t have to milk cows, I’ll join the Navy.” Uncle Sam sent him to Vietnam for three years, and he returned to the States in 1970.
After getting home, he went with a friend to a rodeo, where he got on a bareback horse and broke his arm. But the experience was worth it. It was a rush, and the rodeo bug bit him. He needed a place where he could work and get on as many bucking horses as possible. Someone recommended he talk to stock contractor Erv Korkow in Blunt, S.D., so he did. “I said I’d try it for a while, and I ended up staying for 30 years,” he joked.
For the first couple years, Erv wouldn’t let him get on bucking horses. He worked, making $75 a week, plus board, which was good money, better than he had made in the military.
Then he found out about the nightly rodeo held in Cody, Wyo., for six weeks during the summer. He quit work and went to Cody, where he met up with world champion saddle bronc rider Bill Smith and his nephews Jack Wipplinger and Tom Wipplinger from Red Lodge, Mont. Smith coached them in the finer points of riding saddle broncs, and Dick’s rodeo competition career began. He competed in Cody and area rodeos, becoming a member of the Rodeo Cowboys Association (the predecessor to the PRCA) in 1972 (his permit year) and often slipping off with his buddies to the Canada rodeos.
But every fall, he’d be back to the Korkow Ranch. At that time, Erv didn’t have any fall rodeos, but he had a trucking company, so Dick hauled cattle all winter. And every spring, after helping with the rodeo school Erv put on at the ranch, he’d be off to rodeo again.
Erv and his wife LaFola were like second parents to Dick. He “treated me good,” Dick said. “He treated me like one of his boys. He’d chew on you once in a while, but that happens to everybody. He was a good man.”
And Erv always took Dick back on the labor crew each fall. “I’d go back to the ranch, and Jim (Erv’s son) would tell him, ‘Dick’s back in the bunkhouse’ and I’d pick up where I left off.”
In the 1980’s, Dick started working as a pickup man. He was in Dallas, at a Steiner rodeo, on the labor list. Tommy and Bobby Steiner wanted to know if Dick would come to Austin, to work for them, and in Austin was where he first picked up.  The Steiners were bucking horses at the ranch when the pickup man didn’t show up. Would Dick pick up? He agreed to, even though he never had before.
That fall, at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City, Erv talked Dick into returning to South Dakota the next year, to pick up for Korkow Rodeo Co.
As time went on, he purchased a semi-tractor and used Erv’s trailer to haul a load of bucking horses and bulls to rodeos, plus ride broncs and pick up, all at the same event. In addition to working for Korkow Rodeo, he also picked up for Jim and Steve Sutton.
Dick credits Jim Korkow with teaching him the finer points of picking up. “He was good,” Dick said of Jim. Picking up “is all about timing, being at the right place at the right time. By watching other people, I learned. And I had different people point out different things, which I appreciated.”
In 1986, he broke his arm in June, and his leg a month later. Lying around, the realization hit him: what would he do for finances if he was seriously hurt? “I realized I had to do something different.” He decided to go into the Naval Reserve, serving one weekend a month and two weeks a year.
Dick served until 2006. In 2002, he decided to quit as a pickup man. He knew he was to be deployed in 2003, to Iraq. He and forty others were sent to train in Italy for two weeks with the Marine Corps. After the training, the group was sent home, which disappointed Dick. “Gol dang, I wanted to go.”
Since his retirement in 2006, he enjoys his home in St. Onge, S.D. in the summers and in Phoenix in the winters. He has a team of Belgians that he uses to pull wagons in the parades for the rodeos in Deadwood and Belle Fourche, S.D.

In Vietnam, Dick was one of a four-man crew on the PBR river gun boats: patrol river boats. They were little gun boats, as Dick explains, 28 feet long, and ten feet wide, with a forward gunner, driver, an M60 gunner, and a 50 caliber gunner. The job of the PBR in Vietnam was to search and destroy. Dick was on many PBR patrols with the Navy SEALS, the Green Beret, and the Army, and two of those missions nearly killed him.
Twice his life was in peril on the patrol river boats. On June 21, 1968, the boat he was in was completely destroyed, killing two of the men. He and one of his original crew, plus two new members, were assigned a new PBR, and two days later, the new boat was damaged to where Dick got blown over the side of the boat. It was 3 am, so dark a person couldn’t see the jungle tree line. When he came to the water’s surface, another boat ran over him, causing serious injury. The secret to surviving was staying in the middle of the river; the enemy was on the beach. Dick treaded water for so long his legs cramped up. He was the only survivor of the four in that incident. He nearly lost his life, but he can joke about it now. “I drank half of that dirty old river. It took me all these years of drinking beer to get rid of it,” he laughed. Out of the four men who were part of Dick’s original boat crew, he was the only survivor.
For his bravery, he received the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, and the Navy Commendation Medal, with Combat V and the Gold Star. At one time, his days in Vietnam troubled him at night. But the dreams have subsided. “The nightmares ain’t nearly as often as they used to be.”
Rodeo has provided him with a lifetime of recollections. “I got a saddle bag full of memories and friends that all of the money in the world can’t buy,” he said. He loved riding saddle broncs, and watching bucking horses. “When I got tapped out on one, it was like poetry in slow motion. You’re so engrained in what you’re doing, you don’t even hear the whistle. There’s nothing better than watching a good horse that bucks.”

Because of his high school ag teacher, Glen Bird began riding bulls.
The Weatherford, Texas man began his rodeo career at the behest of Mr. William T. Woody, ag teacher at Peaster (Texas) High School, a career that would end up with six International Pro Rodeo Association (IPRA) titles and the high respect of his fellow cowboys. As a child, Glen attended rodeos with his granddad, who loved them, especially the bull riding.
He rode calves on the family ranch then continued the sport when he was in high school.
Mr. Woody had competed as a bull rider at Sul Ross University in Alpine, Texas, and he saw potential in his student. Because Glen couldn’t drive, Mr. Woody would enter him in the FFA rodeos held across the state and drive him there. And because many of the FFA rodeos hired professional stock contractors, the bulls were extra rank and the high school kids turned them out, not wanting to get on them. “Mr. Woody knew all them stock contractors,” Glen remembers, “and he’d tell them stock contractors, ‘Look, these bulls are turned out and this boy I brought with me will get on them.’” So Glen ended up getting on five or six bulls at each rodeo. He may not have got them rode, but he was willing to get on them.
He remembers one time at a rodeo in Gainesville, Texas, where Adrin Parker was the stock contractor. He had a bull, No. 36, that nobody wanted. Every performance, No. 36 was turned out and Glen got on him. “He slung me all over that arena. I was so beat up and bruised up by the time I got on the bull I had drawed, Mr. Woody kept ice on me all day.” Two years later, he got his revenge on No. 36; he rode him for a third place finish.
In 1964, after high school graduation, he hit the rodeo road. He was already competing on the weekends, but now he hit the trail hard. He had gotten his IPRA card a few years prior, and, along with Hal Pilgrim, went to rodeos everywhere. “We’d try to go to a rodeo every day,” he said. It wasn’t hard. With bull buckouts at Mansfield, Texas two nights a week and a rodeo on Saturday nights, and rodeos in Simonton every weekend, there was always somewhere to ride.
And Glen and his buddies didn’t limit themselves to Texas. It was common for them to be up at a rodeo on a Saturday afternoon in Texas or Oklahoma or Arkansas, then jump in the car and make a Sunday matinee performance in California. The car was full, too. By this time, Glen and friends Red Doffin (a bull rider) and Ronnie William (a bareback rider) were in the vehicle, along with Bernie Johnson, Glen’s brother Arnold Bird, and Hulen Missildine. “They would go anywhere I entered us,” Glen said. “I always had a full car, and we’d go non-stop.”
In his glory days, Glen and his buddies were competing in anywhere from 150 to 200 rodeos a year. “The thing about it is, we loved it,” he said. “If you can’t travel, you’re not going to ever rodeo. Every day, when we’d wake up, we’d more than likely be in another state, meeting new people. It was unbelievable.” And his riding was unbelievable, too. According to Ronnie Williams, Glen’s style was impeccable. “I think he was one of the greatest bull riders there ever was,” Ronnie said. “He had a perfect style and form, he rode so perfect, that he made it look effortless. And his percentage of winning first place was unbelievable. It seemed like every time he’d nod his head, he was winning first.”
In the early days of his rodeo, Glen rode bareback horses. He didn’t like to, but for a while, he did. And his friend Ronnie knew it, and occasionally set him up for a joke. “That dang Ronnie would enter me in the bareback riding, and I’d get there (to the rodeo) and find out I was entered. But he didn’t enter me in a whole bunch of them, because I was entering him in the bull riding, and he didn’t like that.”
Glen won the IPRA’s bull riding title four times: 1966-67-68 and 1970, and the all-around in 1968 and 1970. The International Finals Rodeo began in 1970, so prior to that, whoever had the most money won at the end of the year was the champion.
Ronnie won eight IPRA bareback titles, and thought his buddy was the best in the business. “I don’t think anybody ever rode with the style he rode with, and was dominant in the IPRA all those years. It was a privilege for me to get to rodeo with him.”
Another traveling partner, Red Doffin, thought the world of Glen. “He had lots and lots of class,” Red remembered. “You talk about a bull rider that looked pretty on bulls. He just turned his toes out and rode them with style, rode them perfect. That’s the way he rode.” Glen was hard to throw off, as well. “He had good form,” Red said, “and when they throwed him off, they throwed him off on the top of his head because he tried as hard as he could try.”

Glen never suffered from a lot of injuries. He broke a leg during his first – and only – semester of college, affixing a spur in the cast so he could continue to ride. He also broke a bone in his left hand, his riding hand that took six months to heal. The broken leg and possibly returning to riding bulls too soon has affected his walking today. That’s not being tough, he insisted, in riding with a cast, “all that was, was stupidity. If I had not have done that, I would be walking so much better today.”
In 1972, he got on the last bull he’d ever ride. His legs were bothering him so badly he took the locks out of his spurs and rode with loose rowels. “I couldn’t stand the pressure it was putting on my legs,” he said. “After a while, anything you do that you burn at it like that, it makes the longevity of it short. It finally caught up with me.”
By this time he had a wife, Judy, and two children, Jennifer (White) and Jason. He got a job with Miller Brewing Co. in Ft. Worth, working there for 33 years. He also started a Limousin cow herd, selling the bulls at the Texas Limousin Association’s annual sale for years. He started his herd from some heifers and a bull that his aunt and uncle had in Oklahoma. He ended up with a herd of 35 purebreds and did very well with the breeding program. Both of his kids showed the cattle, his daughter winning Limousin Heifer of the Year.
When he quit riding bulls, Glen had to quit going to rodeos, for fear he’d get the bug again and hit the road. “I didn’t watch a rodeo on TV for ten years or so,” he said. “I wasn’t going to be able to quit them if I kept around them.” Then one day his friend Sam Roberts called, asking if he’d watched a bull riding on TV. “I can’t, Sam,” he said. “I’ll want to get to riding again.” Sam shot that idea down. “Hell, you ain’t going to do that, you’re too old,” he said. “And I thought, by gosh, he’s right, and now I don’t miss one.”
Inducted into the Texas Rodeo Cowboys Hall of Fame in 2010, Glen remembers with great fondness his rodeo days. “I had more fun than the law allows. I thought I was a millionaire. I enjoyed every bit of it. I don’t regret any part of it,” he said. “If I ever got the chance to live it over again, I would.”
And Mr. Woody, the ag teacher? They still stay in touch, even though Glen nearly got kicked out of his class the first day of school. Glen walked into the classroom with his hat on, pants stuffed into his boots, and put his feet on the table. Mr. Woody jumped up with a two-by-four in his hands and said, “We’re going to find out who runs this class right now. You or me? I’m going to ask you to take your feet off the desk and your hat off.” “I looked at that two-by-four,” Glen chuckled, “and I sure didn’t want no part of that.”
Glen and Judy spend their time now “doing whatever we want to,” said Judy, who spent most of her years at home, working a couple different jobs along the way. “We’ve been married for 48 years and we have learned that it’s about being a companion to each other and doing for each other all the time. We go to church all the time and have a lot of friends to spend time with.” They also have two granddaughters, Skylar and Taylor.

Dilton and Pat Emerson of Bossier City, Louisiana, know the value of a horse shoe. Keeping equine athletes of all disciplines shod has sustained the husband and wife for many years, and their bootprints through rodeo history are accompanied by their ingenuity. This includes inventing a now widely-used anvil and starting their own horseshoe supply business – one of the largest in the country. They also support the rodeo industry with their time, serving on the boards of several rodeo organizations, and most recently, helping organize the Gold Card Reunion in Las Vegas during the WNFR. “The reunion originated last year, and we had about 150 gold card members come,” says Dilton, chairman of the reunion board and a gold card member himself. Shawn Davis, manager of the PRCA and one of Dilton’s longtime rodeo friends, recently asked Dilton to help organize the reunion. Open to all PRCA gold card members, the reunion takes place this year in the Thomas & Mack Center on December 8th. “We have someone in charge of getting interviews during the reunion for the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, and there will be slideshows and storytelling,” Dilton describes.
His own rodeo career with the PRCA – known at the time as the RCA – began in 1954, the year he married Pat. The couple – both born in 1936 – were raised one town over from each other, Dilton in Taylor, Arkansas, and Pat in Bradley, Arkansas. Horses were Pat and her family’s means of transportation, but Dilton didn’t own a good horse until he was in his 40s. Instead, he competed in all three roughstock events and steer wrestling. “His family thought he was totally crazy and doomed from day one,” Pat recalls with a laugh. Yet Dilton paid all his expenses and made friends with competitors like Shawn Davis, Tom Nesmith, who put Dilton on his horse Old Brown, and Neal Gay. “Neal took a liking to me when I was a kid and helped me out, and I worked for stock contractor Tommy Steiner. I got on everything he turned out,” says Dilton. “Steiner had a bronc saddle in his tack room that became mine, and I had a bareback riggin’ of my own.” His bronc saddle is now on display in the Lynn Hickey American Rodeo Gallery of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City,  its cinch tightened on a bronc sculpture rearing from the chutes.

Near the time Dilton’s RCA career began, Pat tried her hand at riding bareback horses in the Girls Rodeo Association (GRA). “I hadn’t thought about competing, but I had an older sister that rode roughstock. I was staying with her one summer and she took me to rodeos,” says Pat. “There weren’t more than six or seven bareback riders, but enough to have a rodeo. I messed with it for two or three years, and did exhibitions in saddle bronc riding the summer of ‘55. But once I started raising our three kids, I quit.”
Dilton was rodeoing with Pat’s brother when the couple met. While their children – Peaches, Joe, and Ross – were young, Pat worked as a secretary for several steel firms and Dilton rodeoed full time. When he eased off the gas pedal in the mid 1960s to start shoeing horses on racetracks, Pat was a mutuel teller, cashing tickets for the bidders. They travelled with their children to Detroit, Chicago, Omaha, Nebraska, and the Louisiana Downs in Bossier City, Louisiana, where they eventually settled. “We never had a horse trailer when we rodeoed or worked on the racetracks, we rented apartments,” says Pat. “We worked together for three or four years before starting our horseshoe supply business. Everything Dilton has done, he’s taught himself.”
“When I started shoeing horses, it was at an all-time low for farriers,” Dilton recalls. “A big horseshoe company went out of business in 1965, and people were predicting that it was the end of the horse era. Back then, they didn’t have playdays or horse shows. Horses were mainly used on ranches for working cattle, and the ranchers did their own shoeing.” Yet the Emersons still saw a need for horseshoeing, though they never intentionally set out to start a business. “Dilton always had a good supply of stock that he shod with, which a lot of horseshoers didn’t, so they’d buy or borrow from him. He got a distributorship specifically for thoroughbred racing shoes, and then we were able to get distributorships for bigger companies.” Within ten years, Emerson Horseshoe Supply was one of the larger horseshoe suppliers in the business. The anvil Dilton designed in the mid 1990s also set them apart. “There’s a lot of nickel in the anvil, which gives it good bounce-back,” he explains. The Emerson Anvil is preferred for many horseshoeing contests and even knife makers, and is shipped across the country and even as far as England. Their anvil is in use in the bladesmithing TV show Forged in Fire, and Dilton designed a commemorative 25th anniversary anvil for the 2004  World Championship Blacksmiths’ Competition, held during the Calgary Stampede.
Emerson Horseshoe Supply has been distributing horseshoes and farrier supplies for 35 years, the shop right next door to the Emerson’s house. “It works well for waiting on customers after hours. Before cell phones and ordering ahead of time, I’d be up at six in the morning selling horseshoes,” says Pat, who runs the store. “Grandma is really amazing – she can tell you about all the shoes, their differences, and the prices,” says Seth Emerson, their grandson. He’s worked in the store since he was old enough to stock shelves, and only recently left to become an auditor for the state and continue his rodeo career, tie-down roping in the PRCA. “My grandparents have done so much for me, and it was very rewarding for me to work with them. My grandpa started team roping in his 60s, and I’ve always roped at their place. I’ve been good friends with Shane Hanchey since high school, so he’s stayed there. I also used to hold a big jackpot there and guys like Cody Ohl and Marty Yates would come and Grandma would cook for them. Grandpa’s always been there when I rope, even if it’s cold, and then he pulls the truck up next to the arena to watch.” The Emersons also have three granddaughters, Cassie, a breakaway roper, Stewart, an aspiring actress in New York City, and Kirby, a junior in college at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
Prior to team roping, Dilton took up chuckwagon racing, living just a few hours from the National Championship Chuckwagon Races in Clinton, Arkansas. Dilton and his team, racing under Emerson Horseshoe Supply, won the classic division in 1997 racing thoroughbreds. He built his own wagon, weighing approximately 1,000 pounds, but his interest moved to team roping around 2000. He currently heels in the USTRC and local team roping associations. “I practice three times a week, but I generally go to Stephenville (Texas) so I can rope with Rickey Green,” says Dilton.
Pat enjoys snow skiing, and is planning a skiing trip with her granddaughters and grandson’s girlfriend in February. She’s also active in her church, and one of 50 rodeo wives that make up H.A.N.D.S. (Helping Another Needy Diva Survive). The organization, started by Sharon Shoulders and Donna McSpadden, sends anything from money, food, cards, or even personal visits to rodeo families going through hard times. “We were in Oklahoma City recently for Rodeo Hall of Fame inductions, and we also go up to Colorado Springs for the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame, and then Las Vegas in December,” says Pat. “We’re both very active and very social. We’ve been blessed with good health, good friends, and good family!”