Category: Back When They Bucked

Donald Dorrell was born February 8, 1926, “right up Beaver Creek in a log cabin across from where we live now. It was my grandmother’s homestead. She delivered me because the doctor couldn’t get there,” said Donald, who still lives on the ranch in Rifle, Colo. His dad was a farmer and Donald went to school with 14 others. “We were seven miles from the school house and we rode the horse for 8 years. Sometimes we’d leave the house in the morning it would be 20 below, so in the winter time we’d ride bareback so the horse’s body would keep us from freezing.”
He dreamed of being a pilot, but was told when he enlisted in the Navy at age 17, that he was too young, so he became a rear seat gunner on a torpedo plane. “I spent two years on the back seat of a carrier based on the First Enterprise,” he recalls. “It wasn’t very nice. On at the last, we got hit by a Kamikaze – it killed about 45 guys – and it really messed us up; so they sent us back, without an escort, to Pearl Harbor to get things fixed and we could only do about 7 knots (8 miles an hour). It took six days to get from where we got hit back to Pearl Harbor. The war got over then and I went back to the ranch.”

Donald was 21 and got married about two years later to a local girl, JoAnn. He stayed on the ranch, and he and JoAnn raised cattle (350 mother cows), and put up hay.  He started competing in rodeo the same time he got married, competing in “everything that came out of a bucking chute, bulls, bareback, and saddle broncs.” He liked saddle broncs the best. “It just seemed like a better thing to do really – bulls – that was the bad thing to do, but I rode a lot of bulls. Bareback was just another event.”
He would go every weekend, traveling as far as three states, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado,. “We had an association – Amateur Cowboys Association – and I won about four belt buckles.” He never went pro. “You’d have to travel most of the year, and I couldn’t because of the ranch. You had to make a living. Back then they didn’t pay like they do now.”
He traveled to the rodeos with his wife and a horse. “I took a horse to the rodeo so I could race him. He’d usually pay the expenses; they didn’t outrun him too many times.” He competed in both the Wild Horse Race and the Relay Race. Although he roped at home on the ranch, he never competed in the roping events. He quit competing when he was about 60, when he quit riding bulls. “I didn’t get beat up too bad. If you didn’t get bucked off, it wasn’t too bad.” He still goes to the local rodeo in Rifle. “They pay a lot more money, and the bulls are a lot harder to ride.”
He still works on the ranch, but “as little as possible, I’m past 90. We sold all the cows – it got to where it was too hard for JoAnn and I to take care of them. Now we do as little as possible. I don’t get around too good. I’ve got two saddle horses; one is about like I am, Skeeter’s got arthritis, but he was my good horse. He will be 26 this year.”
Donald is glad that he rodeoed when he did. “I sure had a lot of fun,” he said. His favorite place to go was the local rodeo, in Rifle, one that he still attends today, just to watch.

Harry Straw married well.
When he married Betty Jane Webster, the sister of world champion steer roper Shoat Webster, he got an incredible horsewoman for a wife, the use of her horses, and the advice of her brother, Shoat.
He was born and raised in Nowata, Okla., the son of Homer and Lillie Straw, with a daddy who roped, and Harry would tag along to rodeos with his father. His dad made a living driving truck, hauling hay to western Oklahoma and grain on the return trip. The family lived on 125 acres of corn, oats and wheat, and Harry and his mother milked ten cows by hand, separated the cream, and sold it to Gus Andrews in Nowata for grocery money. Harry hunted possums at night with his possum dog, making thirty five cents a hide. “It was kinda tough,” he said. “That’s how I was raised.”
He learned to rope at Deacon May’s place. Deacon had a roping pen, and when Homer came over to rope, Deacon’s son and Harry would run calves in.
During his high school days, he worked for his uncle, who owned a Phillips gas station in Nowata, pumping gas for fifty cents a day.
After high school graduation in 1955, he went to work for Phillips Petroleum in Bartlesville, working in the plastics department.
And in the evenings, he’d rope.
Harry would come home after work, and Betty Jane would have the horses ready. “I’d get home by five, she’d have horses loaded, saddles in the pickup, and away we’d go,” he said, to a rodeo where he’d rope calves, steer wrestle or steer rope.
His wife was better with horses than he was, he readily admitted. “She could do more with a horse than I could,” he said. “Shoat had her pretty well tutored before I got her.” She also trained horses, and “she could rope better than I could,” he said. But Betty Jane only roped at home, never at a contest.
Harry roped evenings and weekends, never going too far out of Oklahoma, and concentrating mostly on steer roping. Steer roping was his strength, and his daughter Jeannie McKee remembers camping out at Cheyenne Frontier Days with her family while her daddy roped. He competed at amateur rodeos and in the Rodeo Cowboys Association as well.
He worked for Phillips Petroleum for 33 years and was part of the research team who developed plastic pipe. Phillips built four plastic pipe plants across the country: in California, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Pryor, Okla., and Harry was sent to train employees and work with the machinery. “They’d send me to get them out of trouble when the machines acted up. I’d go there, and train them.”
Harry often practiced with Shoat, his brother-in-law, a four-time world champion steer roper (1949-50, 1954-55) and twice runner-up. Shoat made his own horses, and Harry usually rode one of his. One of his favorites of Shoat’s was Deck, a calf horse and son of Leo. “Shoat made him, and boy he made a good one,” Harry said.
Another horse he liked to ride belonged to Willard Combs. The famous steer wrestling horse Baby Doll “was a dream to bulldog off of,” he said. “She was all right. She done the same thing every time, she’d run right up (to the steer), and let you down, not try to cripple you or cut in front of the steer. She done everything just right.” Harry rode the little blaze-faced dark bay anytime Willard or his brother Benny offered.
But, in his estimation, the best horse he ever got on was one owned by his wife. Betty Jane’s aunt Kate (Choteau) Lowry, the wife of Fred Lowry, took her into one of Fred’s pastures one day. “We was out in the big pastures on the Lowry ranch,” Harry remembered, with 35 mares and weanling colts, “and Kate told Betty Jane to pick a colt. That colt made the best steer horse I ever had.” The horse, named Chico, belonged to Betty Jane, not Harry, and “she never did let me forget that,” he chuckled.
Betty Jane broke and trained the gelding, who was a Hancock horse. The horse liked to buck. “He didn’t buck hard, but he had to crow hop out there every night, till he was eight years old.” One time, at Cheyenne Frontier Days, someone offered Harry $5,000 for Chico. “I just laughed at him,” he said. “There was no way I was ever going to sell him, or do anything with him but rope on him.” And Chico wasn’t Harry’s to sell anyway. “He didn’t belong to me, he belonged to my wife.”
Aunt Kate Lowry had a big heart and was willing to help anyone, including her niece and nephew. She didn’t ride much, Harry said, but she helped pay his entry fees. “When I first started roping, she’d stop by the house to see my wife and me, and she’d always ask, did I need a little entry fee money. Aunt Kate would help anybody.” Harry was reluctant to take her money, but in the early days, he did. “She’ll always have a soft spot in my heart.”
Harry rodeoed with the likes of Harry Swalley, Don McLaughlin, Sonny Davis, Troy Fort, and Sonny Worrell. He remembers their friendships and the characteristics each one had. Swalley was like Harry, a cowboy with a fulltime job, who “was the only guy who could work hard enough to keep up with Shoat,” he said. And Don McLaughlin, for his ability to remember cattle. “Don could be at a roping where they had 100 steers, and three years later, he could tell you what everybody (drew) and what they did on them.”
Harry spent a lot of time with Shoat in the practice pen. Shoat was “an extremely, extremely hard man on his horses, his dogs, anybody who worked for him or practiced with him,” a family member said. “He was rough and tough and hard to please.” But Shoat was never hard on Harry, and he attributes that to his wife. “I don’t know what Betty told him, but the only thing I knew was Shoat was scared of his little sister, and she didn’t weigh 95 lbs. Still to this day, I don’t know what she told Shoat, but he never treated me like anybody else.”
Harry and Betty Jane had two children: a son, Lee, who married Christie and has two children, Tori, and R.J., and daughter Jeannie, who married rodeo announcer Justin McKee and their daughter, Kassidy. Justin says people love Harry. “My father-in-law is the most well-liked human being who ever lived.  He’s everybody’s favorite guy, non-judgmental, the most genuine, likeable, nice guy there ever was. Anybody who knows him, would agree one hundred percent.”
“I had an awful good life,” Harry said. “I’ve been the luckiest man alive. I had the only woman who would ever live with me, and I’ve had some awful good horses to rope on, and Shoat to rope with and help me. I’ve had a pretty good life.”
In 1955, he and Betty Jane moved to Lenapah, where they lived until Betty Jane’s passing two years ago. Harry just recently moved to a nursing home, and spends many days at the McKee household, surrounded by the love of his daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter.
Harry served in the Army and was stationed in Washington State from about 1948 to 1951.

 

Charley Lyons had one of the most unique acts in rodeo, one that has rarely been duplicated.
The Montana man built his reputation as a rodeo clown with his washtub saddle bronc act. With a #3 washtub bolted to a saddle tree and filled with flour, Charley would put it on a bucking horse. He’d sit in it, with legs over the bronc’s neck, and explode from the chute. Crowds loved it and it catapulted Charley onto the nation-wide rodeo scene.
He was born in 1938, the son of Ed and Vera Lyons, in Milliken, Colorado, just outside of Arvada. The city kid grew up with 4-H livestock: pigs, cattle, and horses, and somewhere in his youth, he decided he wanted to be a clown. His first rodeo was an FFA rodeo in Greeley, when he was a senior in high school.
After high school graduation in 1957, he went straight to the rodeo industry. The first few years were slim, but as committee members and stock contractors heard about his acts, he was hired for more and more rodeos.
In addition to riding a saddle bronc in a washtub, Charley had other acts. He had a pure white trick horse named Soapy who would crawl on his knees like an Indian scout, play dead, and sit like a dog. He had a half-Brahma steer named Roberto, who had foot-long horns. Roberto was broke to ride, and Charley rode him in parades and grand entries. He’d also ride Roberto in the barrel racing, dressed in a dress and wig and calling himself Charlotte. He also had a palomino Shetland pony named Dandy, and during the steer wrestling, dressed as Batman, he would bulldog a mini steer named Pistol.
Charley had a variety of solo acts, and he  rounded out his repertoire with other acts, involving kids from the crowd (and later, his own kids). They milked his donkey named Ruba or were part of his very large family stuffed into a hollowed-out car.
Charley did more than clown. In those days, rodeo clowns often worked as bullfighter as well, and he was also a contestant in three events: bareback riding, steer wrestling and bull riding. He worked acts between contesting his events, and during the bull riding, the producer saved his bull for the last one. One time, at a small rodeo, they were short of contestants, so he had to work all five events, “and he couldn’t rope worth a darn,” his wife, Carol, laughed. There was no time to spare, he said. “I did all three events and worked two or three acts in between times. In my day, if you didn’t have a few acts, you didn’t get any jobs. Them bullfighters were a dime a dozen, but a clown could stay busy.”
He started out with stock contractor Hoss Inman, from Colorado, and worked many of his rodeos, before fanning out across the country. He worked rodeos in the Dakotas for Korkow and Sutton, in Iowa and Minnesota for Bob Barnes, in Canada for Harry Vold, and for the Christensen Brothers in the Northwest. He worked Pendleton, Ore.; Burwell, Neb.; Deadwood, S.D.; Fort Worth, Texas, and a whole bunch of other rodeos in between.
It was in the early 1970s that Charley and his wife Carol Lehl, who had married in 1961, decided where they wanted to settle. They had traveled across the country and found a beautiful place in Montana, just outside St. Ignatius, and decided to buy a place there. They made an offer on a ranch, it was accepted, and they moved there in 1972, calling the ranch the TUB and incorporating the TUB brand onto their Simmental-cross cattle.
As is typical among bullfighters, Charley had his share of injuries, just “broke a few bones, nothing serious,” he said. He broke his back twice, two legs, both arms, and at a rodeo in South Dakota, was unconscious when his head was knocked off the spinal cord. There was a doctor in the crowd who knew how to adjust it back on.
Some of the nastier bulls he recalls include one of Hoss Inman’s, named the Devil’s Partner, a fighting Mexican bull who would “darn sure come and eat your lunch.” Hoss also had another bull named Shorty who was fun to fight. “If he ever hit you, he’d back up and apologize. They’d have to rope him and drag him out of the arena, every performance.” And it was one of Erv Korkow’s bulls, Sonny Liston, who got ahold of him and knocked his head off his spinal column.
With the washtub, Charley rode whatever horse the stock contractor ran into the chute for him. Stock contractors liked the tub, he said. “They’d take a good solid horse that was slowing down, and he’d be good for another four or five trips” after he’d had Charley and the washtub on him.
And there was no getting off on the pickup man. “There was no way a pickup horse would run into that fog,” he said. “I’d catch my timing, bail out after a while, and try to land on my feet.”
Charley and Carol had three children: C.J., Anna and Katie, and before the kids were in school, they all traveled together. “We had a trailer house, a twenty-footer, and lived on the road,” Carol said. Charley had a two-ton truck with a big box he built on it for the animals, and the house trailer was pulled behind it. The family left in May and returned in October. The truck was full of animals: Charlie’s bulldogging horse, Carol’s barrel horse (she barrel raced for a short time), and the clown act animals: the trick horse, trained steer, donkey, and Shetland pony. When they pulled into a rodeo, it was like “the circus was in town,” Carol laughed.
Charley’s rodeoing slowed down after he bought the ranch. With three kids, 200 mother cows, hay to put up and irrigating to do, he stayed closer to home, and in 1972 he quit rodeo. He worked at a paper mill for a while, retiring in 2006, and the couple sold their cow herd in 2008. They rent out the pasture and continue to put up hay.
In 2014, he was inducted into the Montana Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame. He and Carol attend the rodeo clown reunions and they have never missed a year of the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo for the past three decades. In 2001, his washtub act was recognized and honored in one of the opening ceremonies of the Wrangler NFR.
He loved fighting bulls as much as he did clowning. “It would give me a big thrill to stand out in front of that chute and nod for the producer to turn out his fighting bull.” He fought the first Mexican fighting bulls that were brought into the U.S. at a rodeo Buddy Heaton promoted.
And his rodeo days were good ones. “I met a lot of good people rodeoing, and still have a lot of friends I stay in contact with.”
The couple’s children are married: C.J. to Miae, Anna to Jim and Katie to Ray. They have three grandchildren: Clay, Amanda and Mian.

story by Gail Woerner

Liz was born to Chesley Russell and Irene Faulkner Russell on June 10, 1926 in Clay County, Texas just south of Henrietta. She had one sister, Margie, two years older. They lived in a two story home on a farm/ranch located on Old Joy Shannon Road which had belonged to her paternal great-grandparents. Her daddy was born in that house, too.
Their young lives were idyllic for young country girls. Liz and Margie had dolls galore, buggies for dolls, paper dolls, and a trike to ride. They had a swing and playhouses under the trees.  They also got together with other children in the community at Sunday School as well as socials that were held in the area.
When Liz was old enough to go to school she went to the Bluegrove School for the first nine grades. There were 15, or so, in her class and several grades were in one room with one teacher. They had programs for parents with students performing. The principal, Mr. Gilbert and his son both played the fiddle. Mr. Gilbert taught Liz to play the bass fiddle. It took some doing, not because Liz had trouble learning, but because Liz wasn’t tall enough to stand and play the bass fiddle. First they removed the peg from the bottom of the fiddle to make it shorter, but Liz was still to short. Solution: They stood her on a box and she played just fine!
Liz was always an honor student and was valedictorian at her grade school graduation. She only attended school for eleven years and the last two years she was at Henrietta High School where she took typing, bookkeeping and regular courses.

Her dad was always interested in rodeos, both in Henrietta and in Fort Worth. The family always went with him to rodeos and Liz found it a special treat. She was always interested in the events and the rodeo people. When Liz was 17, at the rodeo in Henrietta, one of the timers did not show up. The announcer saw Liz as she was finding her seat in the grandstand and asked her if she would time. She did not hesitate. Obviously she did a good job because it wasn’t very long before she was asked to time other area rodeos.
She was hired by Mr. Gilbert, her former principal, who had become the Superintendent of Schools in Clay County. Her position was Assistant County Superintendent of Schools for Clay County. Her office was located in the court house in Henrietta. She held that position for eight years. Later Liz attended Draughan’s Business College in Wichita Falls to get more business training. She was an excellent administrative person and was eager to gain more knowledge and skills.
Liz met June Bull from Pampa, Texas, and when June finished high school her parents hoped she would want to go to college. Instead it was June’s desire to barrel race. Being their only child her parents were patient with her and agreed. Liz traveled with June Bull to various rodeos around Texas and beyond. At first, Mrs. Bull traveled with them. They always had such a good time and found people in rodeo easy to get to know. It wasn’t long before the rodeo people they met seemed just like family. By the early 1950s they were going to rodeos further from home. Cheyenne Frontier Days, Madison Square Garden Rodeo in New York City, the Boston Garden Rodeo and many others. By this time Liz had resigned her job as Assistant County Superintendent and could travel the country.
In time, Liz went to work for Standard Oil Company, and was offered a transfer with a substantial increase in salary and title. The transfer took Liz to Liberal, Kansas, which seemed like ‘the end of the world’ to her. Fortunately she could still see friends when she worked at a rodeo. She and June learned to secretary rodeos together and soon their reputations as ‘outstanding’ rodeo secretaries spread through the rodeo world.
She often worked in the rodeo office for Everett Colborn, who was the ramrod of the World’s Championship Rodeo. He had some of the biggest and the best rodeos in the country. His daughter, Rosemary, who married World Champion All-Around Cowboy, Harry Tompkins, was generally her dad’s secretary and often Liz would assist or do whatever was necessary.
In 1954 June Bull and Buster Ivory, a bronc rider, were married during the Cheyenne Frontier Days at a Methodist church in Cheyenne. Liz was maid of honor and Jo Decker was matron of honor. Casey Tibbs, World Champion saddle bronc rider and Bill Ward, also a bronc rider were Buster’s attendants. Bill Linderman, All-Around World Champion and President of the Rodeo Cowboy Association, gave June away. Mr. Bull was not ready to give his only daughter up and refused to attend the wedding. It was truly a rodeo wedding.
Liz met Reg Kesler, in Oklahoma City during the 1966 National Finals Rodeo. Liz was a good friend with Jim and Sharon Shoulders, Clem and Donna McSpadden as well as June and Buster Ivory. All these people were good friends with Reg. He was a former three-time All-Around Champion cowboy in Canada who worked every event. He was from Alberta, Canada and went to college there, but was more interested in playing hockey or riding bucking horses. It was evident his life was going to be rodeo. He also collected bucking horses and in 1951 he produced his first rodeo. He had become a well known stock contractor and produced rodeos in Canada and the United States until 1995. Later they became an item.
They married in Bozeman, Montana in 1971 during the NIRA (National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association) Finals. Those attending their wedding in the Methodist Church were Liz’s mother, and niece, Phyllis Jones, and good friends Bud and Anna Lee Purdy. Liz remembers that Byron Walker and Martha Tompkins were among the college students competing at the rodeo. She assisted announcer Don Harrington by identifying the various college contestants and what colleges they represented.
Two days after their wedding Liz was secretary and timer at the Red Lodge, Montana, rodeo. The newlyweds lived in Missoula, Montana and Rosemary, Alberta, Canada, but traveled most of their time on the ‘rodeo road’. They produced rodeos in Denver, Houston, San Antonio, all over the province of Alberta, all over Montana, Idaho and too many other places to mention. Often Reg would be hauling stock to one rodeo and Liz would be heading another direction and putting on a rodeo somewhere else. Reg trusted Liz and knew she had the skills and ability to run a rodeo the right way. Liz often was responsible for getting the cowboys monies to the bank and traveled by herself many miles with never a problem. They were a good team.
Reg was very instrumental with two other men in starting the ProRodeo Cowboy Association Circuit Finals in 1987. It was held in Pocatello, Idaho, and Reg not only helped organize it, he backed it financially, as well as offered his knowledge and his stock for the event. This allowed all 12 circuits in the United States to send their best cowboys in each event to compete against each other. A circuit was made up of one state, or more, depending on the rodeo activity in the states. PRCA cowboys could register for one of the twelve circuits. Liz was the secretary at the very first circuit rodeo held, which was in Montana. She, also secretaried the first National Circuit Finals in Pocatello. This additional level of competition helped the cowboys, who held jobs or were needed on their own ranches and couldn’t rodeo full time, earn more money.
Reg had outstanding broncs for both Saddle Bronc and Bareback events. He had good stallions that bred good bucking stock. Liz once said, “Reg only had to see a horse buck one time to know if it was going to be a good bucking horse.” His horses were chosen as top horses many years in the RCA, PRCA and the National Finals Rodeo. He also had some bucking bulls that were tops, too. He continued in the rodeo business until 1995, when his grandson, Duane Kesler, bought the business. Reg was inducted in to the ProRodeo Hall of Fame, the Canadian Rodeo Hall of Fame, Alberta Sports Hall of Fame and the Rodeo Historical Society Rodeo Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City. He was well respected and appreciated in the rodeo world.
Liz also began teaching others to secretary rodeos and held schools in Canada and also helped train secretaries in the U. S. At that time in rodeo the secretary was much more involved with those entering rodeos as it was all done by telephone directly calling the secretary. There was so much more ‘hands on’ administrative work done by the secretaries. They were working without all the technical machines and computerized programs that are in use today.
Liz, Donna McSpadden, Sharon Shoulders, June Ivory, Irene Harris and Nell Shaw started a Ladies Fashion Show during the National Finals Rodeo held in Oklahoma City in 1967. In the beginning they used contestant’s wives and mothers to model the clothing in the show. The local stores and boutiques were so gracious and allowed the gals to come in to the store and pick whatever they wanted to model. This style show has continued annually during the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. It is still being organized by the wives of today’s contestants. The proceeds from the show, including sales of auction items and cost of the show are now given to the Justin Crisis Fund which helps cowboys that are injured or have a serious financial problem pay bills other than their medical bills.
When Liz’s mother became ill she and Reg came back to live with Mrs. Russell so Liz could help care for her. In 2001 Reg went back to his Canadian ranch on business and was tragically killed in an automobile accident. He was 82. It was a big shock to Liz and the entire rodeo world, Reg was still very active in rodeo.
Reg and Liz were involved with Buster and June Ivory in holding the Cowboy Reunion, during the National Finals each year. Today Liz is the ramrod of the event, held in Las Vegas, and still gathers the ‘movers and shakers’ in rodeo, from all across the United States and Canada, each year. The proceeds from this 501c3 organization, are given to the Justin Crisis Fund, the ProRodeo Hall of Fame and Museum of the American Cowboy and the Rodeo Historical Society.
Presently Liz lives in the family home which has a 130 year history for the Russell family. When her mother died, at the age of 98, Liz became much more active in the community and the county. She is a founding member of the Clay County Historical Society, and was a chairperson for the renovation of the museum. She is also involved in the Pioneer Reunion and rodeo and was chosen Pioneer Reunion Queen in 2000. She is a member of the Bluegrove Baptist Church. Her great-grandparents gave an acre of land for the Bluegrove Cemetery of which she is a member of the cemetery board. She also is a Clay County Memorial Hospital Foundation board member. In 2010 Liz received the Silver Award from the Retired Senior Volunteers of North Texas (which includes 17 counties). In 2013 she was honored as the Outstanding Senior Citizen of Clay County.
In the rodeo world she was honored by the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association in 1984 for her contribution to them which involved making each PRCA rodeo in Montana also a WPRA rodeo for the barrel racing event. At that time WPRA had to get each rodeo committee to agree to their requirements and Liz got the entire state committed. She also received the Montana Governor’s Award for the preservation of our western heritage in 1986. In 1988 Reg and Liz were honored as Outstanding Citizens of Missoula Montana. The Kesler outstanding bucking horse, Three Bars was inducted in to the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2004 and Liz accepted. In 2008 Liz and Reg were inducted in to the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame. Liz received the Tad Lucas Memorial Award at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, in 2010, which is given to women who give above and beyond what is expected of them in rodeo as did the namesake, Tad Lucas. That same year Liz and Reg were inducted in to the Montana Wall & Hall of Fame in Billings. In 2013 Liz was given an American Cowboy Culture Award as Pioneer Woman at the Cowboy Symposium held in Lubbock, TX.
She helped organize and is a member of H.A.N.D.S. which stands for Help A Needy Diva Survive. It is a fifty member group of rodeo women, dedicated to helping any rodeo family member who has been injured or has medical problems and may need help either financially, or emotionally.
Liz has enjoyed her life immensely. She has worked hard at everything she has done, and accomplished much. She has never hesitated to assist when anyone needs help. Liz is actually an important part of three families. Her own family, including her sister Margie, Margie’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as well as Reg’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren and the rest of her relatives; her second family is the rodeo family which includes everyone who has had the good fortune to meet her or worked with her at rodeos and rodeo functions. Especially the young cowboys, who were just starting out in rodeo and love her so much for all the help she gave them when they were still ‘wet behind the ears’; and last but not least her Clay County family which grows with each and every event Liz participates in.
Liz is truly proud of her heritage and deep Texas roots. She has the manners and demeanor of a lady. She gains the respect of everyone she meets because of her gracious ways. She is no where near finished making memories and living her life to the fullest. Don’t expect to see her sitting in a rocking chair and watching the world go by. She still has much she wants to do, so many events to attend and so many friends to see.

Larry Clayman comes from a long line of rodeo clowns. He is third in the line of Claymans, including his daddy, Bill, and his granddaddy, Stanley, who were in the business of making rodeo fans laugh and protecting bull riders from angry bulls.
Clayman, who was chosen as the 1973 National Finals Rodeo bullfighter, was born in 1941 and “raised up” in the Missouri Ozarks, in the southwest part of the state. He worked his first rodeo in Mansfield, Mo., with his grandad at the age of 13. For two performances, he got paid twenty bucks, and “I thought, my gosh, I’ll never see another poor day,” he laughed.
Larry had already signed up for the Marine Corps when he was approached at an amateur rodeo in Okmulgee, Okla., by a legend in the rodeo world. World champion Jim Shoulders walked up to him, asking if he would clown rodeos for him. It “about floored” the barrelman to have the legend standing in front of him, but he had to decline, as his commitment was to the Marines came first. Shoulders told him about the rodeos held at Camp Pendleton in California, and that he should meet a Colonel who was working at Pendleton.
When Larry got out of boot camp and was assigned to Pendleton, he got to meet Colonel Ace Bowen, the man Shoulders had told him about. That acquaintance led to Larry meeting one of old original stock contractors in California, Andy Jauregui, an immigrant Basque sheep herder-turned contractor who was also the 1931 world champion steer roper. Andy owned J Spear Rodeo Co., and hired Larry to work his first professional rodeo. His dad and granddad had only worked amateur rodeos, but after being hired by Andy, Larry never worked another amateur. It was in Bishop, Calif., and he worked alongside Slim Pickens.
Larry clowned rodeos at Camp Pendleton, and then worked a lot of rodeos in southern California for Jauregui.
At the  end of his four years in the Marines, he was stationed in Washington, D.C., at Marine Corps Headquarters, with top secret clearance, working for generals and colonels. He became acquainted with Howard Harris, Cowtown Rodeo, and began working his weekly rodeos in New Jersey.
While he was in D.C., Jim Shoulders was putting on a bi-weekly rodeo in Leesburg, Va., on a polo field. Larry clowned for him, as well as for other stock contractors up and down the East Coast: Foy and Reynolds, among others, in Virginia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Delaware, all over.  He worked for stock contractors across the country: Cotton Rosser, Harry Vold, the Alsbaughs, Keslers, Suttons, and Korkows,
After discharge from the Marines in 1965, he went back to California. Cotton Rosser’s Flying U Rodeo Co. and Any Jauregui’s J Spear combined to make the Golden State Rodeo Co., one of the biggest in the business. He clowned and fought bulls for them, which was a great thing, he said. “They had more rodeos than anybody, and kept me busy.”
Larry wasn’t working exclusively on the coasts. Throughout his career, which spanned three decades, he worked some of the biggest rodeos in North America: the Calgary Stampede, the National Western in Denver, Madison Square Gardens, the Cow Palace, the National High School Finals, the Indian National Finals, the College National Finals, and, in 1973, the National Finals Rodeo, which he worked with Jerry Olson
as the funnyman and Tommy Lucia
as barrelman.
Back in those days, the bullfighter and rodeo clowns were one and the same; the sport hadn’t evolved to where different people do each job. Larry was proud of his roles and loved doing both of them. “I was considered a good bullfighter, and took a lot of pride in that,” he said. “I loved to fight bulls. It was fun, exciting, and a challenge. And yet I loved to make people laugh.” He credits his grandpa with that trait. “It was natural for him to make people laugh.”
Larry was best known for his chimpanzee, Todo. He bought Todo in 1967 when he was six months old. For the next fifteen years, Todo traveled the rodeo road with Larry, making people laugh everywhere. One of his first acts was as a “doctor.” Larry would dress Todo in a white uniform with a red cross, with a red cross on his bag. Larry would be “down” from losing a shootout with the other rodeo clown, and his help would drive an “ambulance” into the arena, with Todo in it. Todo would jump out of the ambulance with his bag, stethoscope dragging on the ground, and bring the house down. He would give Larry CPR, jump on top of him, and make the monkey sound – “ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.”  Todo loved it. “He could hear the crowd roaring,” Larry said. “He got the biggest kick out of it.”

Todo also Roman rode a team of horses, slapping one of the horses on the backside, throwing him off. As the horses made the circle around the arena, Todo would tumble across the circle and get back on.
Todo was Larry’s main act, but he had others like a poodle named Squirrely Shirley who had “beatcha” bugs… scratch in one place and they “beatcha” to a new spot. He had a border collie act, and had trained horses that laid down, sat up, bucked him off, counted, and, while they napped together, stole the blanket off of Larry.
One of his greatest honors was being part of a rodeo tour in Europe in 1970. It was organized by Buster Ivory, and the group, called Rodeo Far West, performed in Italy, Switzerland and France. Larry took Todo as one of his acts, and  also drove truck, hauling equipment and livestock. The tour lasted three and a half months. World champion bull rider Freckles Brown was also part of the tour, and Larry got to be good friends with him during that time.
In 1977, Larry decided to put on a pro rodeo in Springfield, Mo, and then he began a pro rodeo in Branson, Mo., six nights a week, all summer long. Harry Vold and Jim Shoulders were hired as stock contractors, and Jerry Olson came with his dress acts and worked as the barrelman. He got so busy producing the rodeos that his clown/bullfighter career slowly phased out.
And Todo had to be put to sleep for safety reasons in 1980. That was the final straw. “I didn’t intend to quit clowning, but it broke the straw in me a little bit,” he said. I didn’t have the umph, the fire in my belly, to go back on the road.”
And he wanted to live a normal life. He announced a few rodeos, but began trucking as his second career. He’d driven truck as a kid, and loved being around them. At the age of 75, he’s still driving. “Everybody asks me why I don’t retire. Heck, I don’t want to. Somebody’s gotta keep America rolling,” he joked.
Larry had a son, Stan, who died in an auto accident, and Stan has two sons, Joseph and Isaac, who live in Arkansas. Larry has three other kids: Kimberly, Matthew, and Michael, and five grandchildren. He and his wife Renee have been married twenty years.
He remembers fondly his rodeo days, and has no regrets about his work. “I never dreamed I’d fight bulls at the (National) Finals. I never dreamed I’d have that kind of success. I loved the rodeo business and it was so good to me.” He met a lot of people, went a lot of places, and had some unbelievable experiences.
He worked rodeos in nearly every state, he remembers, and one thing he is proud of is that he never missed a performance due to injury or illness. “I take pride in that,” he said, even though he suffered broken arms, legs, and had teeth knocked out. “You just keep working.”

HL Todd was larger than life.  Whether it was riding his famous horse Rufus as he steer roped, hosting cowboys at his home in Burlington, Colo., or chewing on one of his signature cigars, he stood out in people’s minds.
The Colorado cowboy, who will celebrate his 79th birthday this year, qualified for the National Steer Roping Finals four times and took numerous victory laps at such rodeos as Pendleton, Cheyenne, and everywhere in between.
He grew up the son of John and Bernice Todd, hardworking farmers in northwest Kansas who were good people but had no use for rodeo. “They didn’t like nothing about it,” HL remembers. “It was like pulling teeth, when you loaded up to go to one.”
Their middle child of three, born in 1937, began roping at the neighbor’s. Elmer and Albert Garrett had a roping pen, and that’s where HL got his start. He was sixteen or seventeen years old, and he was looking for something different than farming. “I’d be out there, (in the field) in August, in the dust and it’d be hot and I’d be sleepy, and I was going to figure out some way to make a living without running this tractor,” he recalls.
He roped in high school a bit, then in college at Kansas State University, he competed in the calf roping and steer wrestling.
After college graduation, HL moved to Burlington, Colo., where he worked for an insurance company for ten years. In the early 1970s, he got into the feedlot business, with a 10,000 head operation. After ten years in the cattle business, he went broke and went back to the insurance company, living in Kansas City and Oklahoma City before moving to a ranch near Chickasha, Okla.
He roped steers on weekends and when he could get away from work. He won rounds and placed at rodeos across the country: Cheyenne Frontier Days, Walla Walla, Wash., Miles City, Mont., Pendleton, Ore., Ponca City, Okla., everywhere he went.
And he and his wife Rita’s place became a stopping spot for fellow cowboys. Their home north of Burlington included an indoor arena. It was on the way for those cowboys from Texas as they headed north for the summer run. “A lot of those steer ropers and calf ropers would come and stay with us,” Rita said. “They were coming from south Texas, and Burlington was over a day’s drive. They’d camp there, go to county fairs, and then go on to Cheyenne and Pendleton.”
Some of the names legendary to the sport of rodeo stayed with the Todds. James Allen, the father of eighteen-time world champion Guy Allen, came with his kids. Sonny Davis, Olin Young, Roy Cooper, Dick Yates, Jimmy Brazile, and more sat at the kitchen table with the Todds. They stayed in their campers or living quarters, and Rita cooked supper for them. Beef was plentiful, in the feedlot business. Cowboys often brought their families along, and HL and Rita’s two daughters, Kim and Kelly, loved it. Their home was a gathering place. “The kids loved it,” Rita said, “and I did, too. It was fun.”

Clark McEntire, the father of country music superstar Reba McEntire, roped steers in the same era as HL did, and he often stayed at the house with his four kids. After roping all day, Rita would fix a big cook-out, and the McEntire kids, mainly Pake and Reba, would pull out their guitars to sing and entertain. “Mom jokingly said they had to sing for their supper,” Kim remembers.
Jeff Todd, HL’s nephew and a team roper, remembers the big personality his uncle had in his rodeo days. “He was just always a figure that was larger than life,” he said. People comment to him that they always wanted to be like HL when they grew up. “He was the guy who, everything he did, was first class. He wasn’t flamboyant, but he always had nice horses and took good pride in his stuff.”
He didn’t always catch, but if he did, he won, Jeff remembers. “That was his mojo. He had that winner’s knack. He might completely miss one in the first round, and then win the next round. He was always a go-round threat.”
HL rode good horses and his best-known horse might be one he raised, a roan gelding named Rufus, who was the AQHA’s 1995 Steer Roping Horse of the Year at the age of nineteen. Rufus was also ridden by HL’s son-in-law, Jimmy Hodge, who made the National Finals Steer Roping three times. The horse was the envy of every cowboy in the arena. One time, at Cheyenne after slack, as HL went to put horses away, one of his granddaughters said to her grandpa, “I want to ride Rufus.” Tee Woolman, overhearing her, said, “Yeah, and so does everybody else around here.”
HL qualified for the National Finals Steer Roping in 1973, 1975, 1976, and 1982, and continued to rope professionally till he was in his sixties. He won a go-round at Cheyenne at the age of 52, and went on to rope in the National Senior Pro Rodeo Association. He quit competing about seven years ago.
HL mentored young cowboys, including the 1978 Tie-Down Roping Champion Dave Brock, and another steer roper, Rod Pratt. As a youngster, Pratt and his family neighbored the Todds, and Rod worked for HL, rebuilding his arena. “One thing led to another,” Rod remembers, “and he taught me how to rope.”
Rod remembers HL with the big cigar in his mouth. “He always chewed on a cigar,” he said. “He’d light it twice, and it’d go out, and then he’d chew on it.” But when he spoke, it was time to listen. “He was pretty quiet and laid back, and you could tell when he spoke seriously, you needed to listen.”
Pratt qualified for the National Finals Steer Roping eight times, winning the average in 1987. He rode one of HL’s horses for the last five rounds in 1987, and placed in every round. “If I needed something, he always helped me,” he said.
HL worked hard to be a good roper, Rod said. “He was a good athlete. He had to work at it, but he wanted to, so that’s the driving factor right there. The ‘want to’ makes you do a lot of things well.”
In addition to teaching him how to rope steers, HL taught Rod some life lessons, like how to enjoy the moment. “It didn’t matter where you were, he enjoyed life. Wherever he was, he enjoyed being there. He never did let life get him down.”
HL and Rita enjoy retirement in Johnson City, Texas.  Their older daughter Kelly married Mark Dykes and they have two daughters and a son, and their younger daughter, Kim, married Jimmy Hodge, and the couple has twin daughters.