Category: Archive

Ed Sundby averaged 70,000 miles a year on his 1966 Ford pickup with a little white topper camper, while he rodeoed, and he loved every minute of it.
And to make money for entry fees, the North Dakota cowboy did some Roman riding as a specialty act.
Born in 1952 to Orvin and Ginger Sundby, he was raised in Williston and started out in horse shows and doing the cow cutting. But it was too slow-paced for him.
“That wasn’t enough action for me,” he said, so he started with Little Britches Rodeo, then progressed to high school, college, amateur and the professional ranks.
In high school, he was a steer wrestler, bareback rider and cutter, then added saddle bronc riding and bull riding.
He was the 1968 North Dakota High School Rodeo All-Around winner, and in college won the bareback riding for the Great Plains Region three times (1970-71, 74), twice while at the University of North Dakota-Williston, then at the National College of Business (NCB) in Rapid City.
He and his dad believed in practice.
His dad, who never competed much but had been a steer wrestler, built an indoor arena.
The Sundbys borrowed bucking horses from Marvin Brookman and Jack Fettig, and had plenty of steers.
“There were nights when I would bulldog fifty head of steers,” Ed said. “Dad would haze for me. He enjoyed it as much as I did.”
Then, he’d ride two or three bareback horses, and the next night, switch to saddle bronc riding. It was good practice time. “When I practiced, I practiced with a purpose. You have to, if you want to go on with rodeo.”
Even in the winter, they practiced, seven nights a week. The only time they didn’t was if it got to -5 degrees F, because they thought at that temperature it was too hard on the horses. The barn wasn’t heated, but with the bucking stock and steers, it was comfortable, he said.
Orvin liked it as much as his son did. “He was down in the barn with us, every night. He really loved it.” Orvin believed in hard work; his work day started at 5 am, and after work, they’d be in the barn practicing till 10:30 or 11 pm each night.
While in high school, Ed added a bit of Roman riding to his repertoire. He had been Roman riding a mare and her son, a gelding, in the practice arena at home.
As he got better at it, he was asked to perform at rodeos, mostly amateur, with his pay going towards his entry fees.
For a time, he put his younger brother Lynn, thirteen years his junior, on his shoulders as he Roman rode and jumped the horses.
The UND-Williston college rodeo team practiced at the arena, as did many of Ed’s friends, including college teammates Mark Ellis, Don Schwalbe, and Rick Woodward.
Between his time at UND-Williston and NCB, he sat out of college for a year, while he worked for his future father-in-law.
Ed had met Connie Schatz, also a high school rodeo contestant, at a high school rodeo, and he jokes that she chased him. “She was running after me,” he laughed, “and she just wouldn’t leave me alone.” While she finished high school, Ed worked for her dad, till she was college age. Then the two of them went to Rapid City’s NCB.
They courted for several years before marrying in 1974. “She had to chase me for a couple years before she caught me,” he joked. But in seriousness, he said, “She was always the one for me.”
After college, the couple moved to Williston. Ed began pro rodeo competition, but felt the obligation to get a job, rodeoing on weekends. “I thought, if you’re married, you should have a job,” he said.
For several years, he was a heavy equipment operator. Then his dad, who owned a federal meat processing plant, asked him to join the business. When Orvin passed in 1982, Ed and a partner, Gene Storoe, purchased it. When Gene wanted out, Ed got out as well, selling the company.
Then he went into the oilfield business in the abandoned well segment for several years, including buying and selling equipment.
After that, he managed Schatz Truck Stop in Minot for 18 years, then went back to the oilfield, till he retired in 2019.
Ed had become a Rodeo Cowboys Association (forerunner to the PRCA) member in the early 1970s, while in college, and continued to rodeo for the next decade.
He competed at a few N.D. Rodeo Association events, but at the time, cowboys couldn’t do both associations: they had to choose one. So he chose the pros. “And it was the right move for me. I did all right.”
At first, he did the steer wrestling and the three roughstock events, but by 1976, he concentrated solely on the steer wrestling and bareback riding.
He traveled across the western half of the nation, from Denver to Edmonton, and from Calgary to Texas. He and Connie’s honeymoon was at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, where he joked, “I was going to leave her at Alcatraz, but they didn’t want her.”
In college, he made lifelong friends, rodeoing with Paul Tierney, Monte Melvin, Billy Zurcher and Doug Corrington on his rodeo team. “College was great,” Ed said. “We didn’t get a lot of schooling in.”
He didn’t drink or smoke and attributes his good health to that fact. “I’ve never had a drink and never had a cigarette,” he said. “I was serious about what I wanted to do.” Hauling his steer wrestling horses was part of the motivation to not drink. “I always drove,” he said. “I never let anybody else drive, and I wanted to know where my hat was the next morning and where my vehicle was.”
He rodeoed against Tom Miller, who was a student at Black Hills State University (Rapid City, S.D.) from 1967-1971.
Ed “rode awfully well,” Tom said. “He was very correct in the way he rode. He just didn’t buck off many.” Tom remembered Ed always having a smile on his face. “Ed was very much a gentleman and a good person. Still is.”
Ed has made sure to give back to the sport. He held bulldogging schools for young people at the family arena in Williston, and judged rodeos, including high school events in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana, and some pro rodeos as well.
He figures it was his duty to contribute. “I felt it was a way to give back,” he said, “to the people who helped me.”
Ed’s last ride was in 1982 in Sidney, Montana. Between work and a family, it was time to stay closer to home.
He and Connie have two sons: Ty, who lives in Bismarck, N.D., and Cody, a former PRCA and PBR bull rider who lives in Williston. They have two grandchildren and a great-grandson.
The couple spends winters in Gold Canyon, Arizona and summers in Hill City, S.D.
He enjoyed the sport. “When I went to a rodeo, I loved going. If I won anything, it was a bonus.”
The friends are life-long. “They’re amazing, and they’re for life. It’s like college. You never forget your college buddies, and rodeo is the same way. If you see them after 30 years, you pick up right where you left off.
Does he miss it? “I’d have to say I do. If I was 18, I’d love to start all over.”
Ed is a 2016 inductee in the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame, a 2018 inductee in the University of North Dakota-Williston Sports Hall of Fame, and a PRCA Gold Card Member.

[ Cowtown Rodeo “Best Show on Dirt”
spanning five generations.]

Congratulations to the entire Harris family for their induction of their Cowtown Rodeo, located in Pilesgrove, New Jersey, to the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. Grant and Betsy Harris, 4th generation of Harris’ to own the rodeo are thrilled with the honor. Betsy said, “When I got the call I didn’t recognize the number, and hung up on him. But he called right back. Grant never gets excited, but he’s excited over this recognition by the ProRodeo Hall of Fame.”
Grant’s great-grandfather, Howard Harris, started a livestock auction in Woodstown in 1926. Many farms growing vegetables, corn and hay existed in that part of New Jersey and they all needed mules and horses to do their farm work. The auction was a necessity and did well.
Rodeo in the family started as early as 1929 When Grant’s great-grandfather, Howard Harris, and son ‘Stoney’, started a rodeo in conjunction with the Salem County Fair. The Miller brothers, of 101 Wild West fame, good friends of the Harris family, had a hard time financially and were stranded in Washington D C in 1931. The Harris family bought some of the broncs owned by the Millers, and purchased one-way tickets for some of the Miller cowboys to return to Oklahoma, if they would help put on the Harris’ rodeo in Woodstown, New Jersey. The Woodstown rodeo continued during the 1930s Colonel Jim Eskew, well known rodeo and wild west producer, wintered in Woodstown and also shared his knowledge with the Harris’ family. They also put on rodeos in various locales around the northeast, including the 1932 New York State Fair Rodeo in Syracuse; a Sesquicentennial rodeo celebration for Philadelphia in 1926 and assisted the Madison Square Garden rodeos, in New York City, in the early 1950s.
During the War Years, the rodeo was not held. Howard Harris, Grant’s dad, went to college at the University of Idaho and was on their rodeo team. In 1954 Howard qualified for the NIRA Finals and won the All-Around Cowboy honor. He entered the saddle bronc and bulls events, roped and was in the wild cow milking.
In June 1955 rodeo in Woodstown began again, and Howard named it ‘Cowtown New Jersey Rodeo’. It was held from May through September. ‘Cowtown NJ Rodeo’ joined Rodeo Cowboys Association (R.C.A.) and it was the first summer rodeo to get approval to become a member.
Cowtown Rodeo had a problem after only being in the R.C.A. four weeks. Television was just getting accepted and a Wilmington Delaware Channel approached Howard about televising the Cowtown Rodeo. At this time, 1955, R.C.A. considered television to be ‘taboo’ for rodeo, and would only ‘ruin’ the sport. However, Howard knew having the rodeo on television would be good for Cowtown business and he accepted the Channel’s offer. Not only did the television feature the rodeo, the cameras panned the audience. People came in droves, hoping to be seen on television.
In 1958 an ABC television affiliate, Channel 6 in Philadelphia, had picked up Cowtown New Jersey Rodeo. Although Howard had submitted the plans to R.C.A. it was not approved and ‘Cowtown New Jersey Rodeo’ was on their blacklist. ‘Cowtown’ was receiving such good revenue from being televised Howard continued to allow it to be televised, meanwhile paying a fine of $3,000 to R.C.A, the largest fine R.C.A. had ever assessed, up to that time. By the mid-1960s, the attitude of R.C.A. changed and ‘Cowtown’ was no longer fined nor on their blacklist. In fact, the Harris’ signed a contract with the Philadelphia ABC affiliate and every performance gave them two one hour television rodeos, then it went into syndication. Cowtown outgrew the original arena in 1967 and built the existing arena that seats 4,000 fans today.
Meanwhile, Grant began competing at the age of 5 in the Jr. Bull Riding at Cowtown. By the time he was a teenager Grant continued to compete at Cowtown, as well as other area rodeos, and doing quite well. He joined the professional ranks at age 14 and got his RCA card at 17. He attended Casper College, in Wyoming on a full rodeo scholarship. Grant was the R.C.A.’s Northeast Circuit Saddle Bronc Champion in 1975, ’77 and ’78.
Grant was seen competing so often when Cowtown was being televised, that he had quite a following. When he went to the Denver rodeo in January, 1977, Grant was 23 years old, but he was hounded by teen age girls who were seeing the taped rodeos with him, as a teenage saddle bronc rider, from years past.
Grant was not just a competitor, even in his young years he was always very involved in the working part of the Cowtown rodeo and had gleaned as much as possible from his talented dad. He was also the pickup man for each performance. Junior Meek, a bullfighter and steer wrestling competitor from Texas spent a summer working for the Cowtown Rodeo and also did the bullfighting. He said about Grant’s dad, “He was a real cowboy. If you didn’t think so, just try and keep up with him all day. If you roped ten cows, he’d rope fifteen.” He also said, “Lots of cowboys from the West thought you could go back east and easily win a rodeo. That wasn’t so at Cowtown.”
In 1978 Howard decided to retire, and he and wife, Irene, moved to Oklahoma. Grant and bride, Betsy Douglass, bought the Cowtown rodeo from his parents. Betsy handled the secretarial end of the rodeo and much of the publicity. Eight years later Grant bought the auction company and flea market, that had started in 1929, from his granddad, ‘Stoney’. Betsy held various officer positions in the circuit system once PRCA started the circuit system. She was President of the First Frontier Circuit from 1993 to 2019, and before that was secretary and treasurer. The last four years she has been the stock contractor representative. Betsy traveled extensively across the country representing the northeastern circuit group. She retired in January of this year, after 45 years of service. She still attends the PRCA Convention, held in Las Vegas just prior to the National Finals, as does Kate & RJ. “I go to represent Cowtown Rodeo and Three Hills Rodeo livestock, and go to the secretary/timers meeting, and see my kids and visit with old friends,” Betsy explained.
Grant and Betsy have two daughters, Courtney and Kate, that have been involved in Cowtown as long as they can remember. Courtney married Jake Morehead, and are co-owners of Three Hills Rodeo in Bernard, Iowa. They have three children, Sam, age 16; Lily, age 15 and Cade 13.
Kate and husband RJ Griscom, have owned Cowtown since 2019, when buying it from Betsy and Grant. They have two children, Nate, age 10 and Olivia who is 4. Grant and Betsy, aren’t retired by any means, and still work for Kate and RJ. Plus they still own the flea market, and their 1,800 acre ranch, where they raise enough feed for their beef herd and their rodeo stock.
The 5th generation, including Kate and Courtney, and their husbands are totally immersed in rodeo business, and also are taking the up-and-coming 6th generation to youth rodeos. They raise most of their own bucking stock, but they admit there is more buying and selling than earlier when Cowtown owned all their own stock.
Today Cowtown Rodeo is advertised as “Best Show on Dirt!!” It is held on Saturday night, beginning the end of May and continuing through the end of September. The arena also has the PBR Bull Riding there on particular weekends in July and August.
Kate and sister Courtney were always their dad, Grant’s right hands. From age 10 they worked every summer either at the flea market, the auction barn or the rodeo. Kate admits they didn’t see all of it as work, as some of it was definitely fun. But while they worked growing up they learned every aspect of rodeo.
Kate married RJ Griscom in 2010, and although he was raised on a farm, he had also become a professional electrician. Kate said laughingly: “That only lasted about a year, then he became totally involved with the rodeo, the flea market and auction.” When asked how she balanced her responsibilities for Cowtown Rodeo and their children, she said, “It’s been easy, except right now Nate, age 10, has sports practices and rides bulls. But we make it work. We’ve got great support.”
When asked how she handles what her folks do as well as their own jobs for the rodeo, Kate said, “The folks keep doing what they’ve always done. I won’t take over doing what mom does until she asks me.”
When I asked how they would handle the family going to Colorado Springs to receive their honor of being inducted, who would stay at Cowtown Rodeo and put on that Saturday night performance, she said, “We’ve got a very good group of guys and gals that have been with us for a long time. They know how to do everything. We won’t be worried about it.”
Cowtown Rodeo in Pilesgrove, New Jersey, is in excellent hands. The honor of being inducted in to the ProRodeo Hall of Fame is an honor that surprised the Harris family completely, but according to those who have been to Cowtown Rodeo and know the Harris’ history and what they have accomplished are in agreement – this honor is certainly one they have earned.
Harris Male Ancestors Kept Journals:
Very few families can boast that their history was kept by the male members of the family in diaries or journals. But the Harris family from Woodstown/Pilesgrove, New Jersey, can give you accounts of happenings from the time they arrived in America 327 years ago.
The Harris ancestors came from Wales in 1696. They landed in Manhattan and continued on to Salem County, New Jersey, where they settled, receiveing a deed to their property dated 1696. Their Salem County livestock brand was registered with the King of England in 1706.
Various men of this family did interesting things during those early days. Their experiences and adventures would never have been remembered if these early ancestors had not used diaries and journals to pass on the history of their family and what they accomplished.
During the Revolutionary War John Harris joined the Continental Army and fought at Valley Forge with George Washington. His responsibility was to take cattle and wagon loads of food to the soldiers. He was also a bombardier, responsible for aiming the cannon during battle. Later he was assigned to an area in western Pennsylvania because the government anticipated the British would attack them from the West at this location – but it never happened. It was the custom of the government to give soldiers money when they mustered out. But because the government ran out of money, they gave Captain John Harris a parcel of land at the confluence of the Ohio River and the Monongahela River. At that time it was the opinion of everyone that ‘No white man would ever live that far west!” Because of that opinion Captain John sold it for a gallon of whiskey!! Today that area is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Imagine what the family could get for that parcel of land once it became such a viable city.
The Harris family for generations have been fortunate the men of their earliest days here kept journals and relayed such important information through their writings. It is something that 95% of our families wish they had on their families in written form.

Rodney Towe held down a fulltime job while he rodeoed, with a rodeo career that spanned fifty years.
The Hilmar, California cowboy worked for 36 years at the Turlock Irrigation District, while he rodeoed, hitting sometimes as many as 60 rodeos annually.
Born in 1941 in Fillmore, Calif. to William and Minnie Towe, he grew up on the Rancho Sespe. His dad was an irrigator for the citrus orchards that dotted the ranch.
As a child, he loved the gymkhanas that took place. “I was a gymkhana nut,” he said.” He rode a grade mare, purchased for $150.
The family moved to Oxnard, California, where they built an arena on their two acres. They formed a riding club, the Rio Riders. As a teen, his mother pulled the trailer to Turlock, where he competed at the California State Horsemen’s Association Gymkhana and won the state championship in the ring spearing once and was two times a runner-up behind his uncle Frank Cox.
But he wanted to do more than gymkhanas. His cousin Gordon Cox, two years his senior, wanted to be a bull rider. So in 1955, Gordon entered himself and Rodney in the steer riding at the Monterey County Sheriff’s Rodeo in Salinas. The boys drove six hours from home to ride; out of 75 riders, Rodney won it.
“Gordon hated me all the way home,” he chuckled. “He was supposed to be the bull rider.” For first place, Rodney won a pair of black and white Acme boots with black wingtips.
“That was the start,” he said, of a rodeo career that would take him across the nation.
At age seventeen, he started riding bareback horses at amateur rodeos. A strong upper body, in part due to tumbling and gymnastics, helped him succeed, along with a natural athleticism.
After high school graduation in 1958, Rodney went to work in a variety of places. He did construction, drove a forklift, installed ceilings, whatever he could find.
And he continued to rodeo, competing at the Western Approved Rodeos (WAR), the California fair rodeos. The family moved to northern California in 1961, where he cowboyed for $10 a day, worked for the turkey plant in Turlock, and rode bareback horses.
He began team roping, too, at jackpots and area arenas.
But it was the bulldogging that intrigued him. “I kept watching it, and it looked like a lot of fun,” he said. One day, Frank Costa asked him if he’d like to do it, and offered his old baldy mare to him to try. Rodney was nervous. Riding bareback horses “wasn’t no big deal,” but jumping onto a steer was. Three times, he ran by the steer, and “I couldn’t get off.”
John Wheatley, Sr. was hazing for him, and on Rodney’s fourth try, “I made up my mind, I’m going to jump this steer,” he said. “I jumped plum over the steer and under the hazing horse, who rattled me like a tin can down the arena. I landed on my feet, so I could catch the mare and do it again.”
His new career began. It was 1963, and two years later, he was done riding bareback horses. “The steer wrestling fit me better, and wasn’t near as hard on my body.”
In 1964, he won second for the year-end steer wrestling title at the WAR rodeos, behind John Wheatley, Jr. In 1967-68, he won the year-end.
Rodney practiced with and competed against all of the California cowboys of the day: Jack Roddy, Harley May, Bob Marshall, Tommy and Larry Ferguson and Jim Warren.
In the early 1960s he got his Rodeo Cowboys Association permit. For the next two decades, he competed not only in California and the Northwest, but across the nation: Cheyenne, Tucson, Phoenix, Yuma, Dickinson, N.D.; Red Lodge, Livingston, Calgary, and more.
He had several good horses throughout the years.
One of the first ones was a barrel-turned bulldogging horse named Dexter. Another was a horse named Woodstock who “ran like a locomotive, and scored like a champ”.
Another mare he got was Duster, a bay mare who was broke by Rodney’s father-in-law and was “so simple and easy to ride, with a super-soft mouth. She’d let you catch every steer.” Duster had a filly colt, Twinkle Star Bars, who was broke and trained by Rod’s father-in-law and who Rod used as a hazing horse.
One of the best horse stories Rod has goes to one of his later steer wrestling horses, Mama. In 1971, he flew to Springdale, Ark., to bulldog. He needed a mount, so Jim Poteet asked Bob Littrell who owned Mama, if Rod could ride her. “Damn, Jim, you know I got everybody” mounted on her,” Bob said, which included 18 bulldoggers. But he relented and let Rodney ride her. Rod won second in the first round and second in the average, behind Roy Duvall.
He rode Mama at Cheyenne, winning third on her. So he asked Bob if he would sell her. “These Okies would kill me if I sold the mare,” he told Rod, knowing the Oklahoma steer wrestlers mounted out on her.
In 1972, Littrell had a career-ending broken leg. The next February, as Rod sat at a restaurant, eating breakfast with Jim Warren, Barry Burk came in and told him, if he still wanted to buy Mama, Littrell was willing to sell.
Rodney and Jim looked at each other, “we ran to the phone, and bought her,” Rod said. They paid $4,000 for her, “which was a lot of money,” and brought her to California. “We rode her everywhere.” Bob Marshall was a part-owner of Mama, on whom he won the 1973 world title.
Rod met his wife of 50 years, Deb, when she came to California with a friend who was dating Jim Warren at the time. Deb grew up on an Arizona ranch, roping and riding, so she was familiar with horses and rodeo.
The couple has four children: sons Odle and Traxel, and daughters Zantha and Abbra.
The kids went with them when Rodney rodeoed, traveling in their 24-foot motorhome.
In the early 2000s, Rodney became a committeeman for the Salinas Rodeo. He had won the steer wrestling there in 1980 with a buckle, and eight years ago, the committee honored him as “committeeman of the year,” with another buckle. His job is to take care of the roping box.
In 2012, he jumped his last steer, at the age of 71. He attributes his longevity to the fact that he stayed healthy, and “I was just loving what I was doing, and having fun.”
Juggling work and rodeo wasn’t easy. He worked 40 hours a week, which included evenings so he could leave early on Fridays to make a rodeo. And he had to shift his focus from work to rodeo and back again, where the fulltime competitors only had to think about rodeo.
“The other guys I was competing against were rodeoing for a living, and that was all they were thinking about. They’d get someplace and have time to practice. It made it tough. It was very hard, and it kept me from wining a lot of money.” Even with part-time rodeo, he came within $10,000 of making the National Finals Rodeo in 1980.
But the job was a necessity. “I had a job, with insurance, to take care of my family. That was important, taking care of my family.”
He was still bulldogging until ten years ago.
“It was fun for me. I saw so many guys with more talent than I had, that quit. It wasn’t fun for them, it was just a job. I never could understand that.”
His family was behind him, all the way. “I had the full support of my wife and kids, or none of this would have happened,” he said.
He and Debbie say the best part of rodeo is the people, “the people you meet and get acquainted with, from all parts of the country. You can reconnect with them ten or thirty years later, and it’s just like it was yesterday.”
He looks back fondly on his rodeo days.
“We had quite a time.”